Power Seller Discovers That the Perfect Item to Sell on Ebay is One That Doesn't Exist…Yet

Parsippany, NJ — It's nearly impossible to walk in Hillary DePiano's garage and her car is parked in the driveway of her home in Parsippany, NJ. In fact, it has been years since DePiano's car has been able to fit inside. The reason for this is that her garage is filled, from floor to ceiling, with boxes of items she is currently selling on eBay.com.

"Originally," said DePiano gesturing towards the chaos of dolls, action figures and Fisher Price houses around her, "the volume was small enough that I could keep it all in my bedroom, but ever since I became a PowerSeller, the volume of items I sell is starting to tax my storage capabilities." As a silver level high volume seller on eBay.com's online auction site, DePiano sells hundreds of items a week of not only her own merchandise but also the merchandise of other clients as a Trading Assistant. While DePiano has opted to keep her items in her garage, many eBay sellers have resorted to renting storage space to hold the items they are offering for sale.

"It's frustrating because sometimes you have items that don't sell the first few times around or buyers that back out and you end up with the item in storage for months, taking up space!" said DePiano. "I found myself wishing there was a way to have items in my inventory that only existed after they were purchased and paid for so I didn't have to waste the real estate on them."

With more and more people earning extra income by selling items on eBay, storage space is becoming an increasingly large problem. For DePiano, the solution came from an unlikely source. Lulu.com is a technology company that specializes in print-on-demand (POD) technology, printing single copies of books, CDs, DVDs and other items only when the customer pays for them. Though they cater predominately to the struggling author who is looking to self-publish, DePiano found Lulu's print-on-demand tools to be exactly suited to her problem.

DePiano is the author of a book geared towards the eBay community, The Seller Ledger: An Auction Organizer for Selling on eBay (ISBN: 1411626540). This spiral bound notebook, patterned after an old time paper ledger, is customized to help the seller have a hard copy of their records, keep track of their sales and eBay fees and have a true record of how much profit they make by selling their items in online auctions. With Lulu.com's technology, DePiano was able to forgo her usual boxes of copies of The Seller Ledger and, instead, simply wait for an order to come in and then have Lulu print a copy and then ship the newly printed copy directly to the customer.

"I didn't need to have any copies on hand," said DePiano, "and the best part was, I only had to pay for copies I had already sold, so I knew I wouldn't be stuck with books that I had paid for but couldn't sell." This year, DePiano took the application of this process one step further and used Lulu's POD technology for her new series of books on collectible toys to sell alongside the actual collectible toys she was already selling in her eBay Store, Priced Nostalgia (http://www.pricednostalgia.com). Her two newest books, The My Little Pony Collector's Inventory (ISBN: 1411621654) and The She-Ra Collector's Inventory (ISBN: 1411631285), were both also set-up for POD so she didn't need to keep copies on hand, saving precious storage space.

"It's like a dream come true for me and a definite step to reclaiming my house from my eBay items." said DePiano. "When I think of how many eBay sellers I know have books, CDs and DVDs draining away their profits as they sit in rented storage space, I think inventory that is printed when ordered is going to be the future of retail. Now Lulu just needs to figure out how to make the rest of the stuff I sell POD and maybe my poor car can come back inside the garage!"

About HIllary Depiano
A 2002 graduate of Bucknell University, Hillary DePiano is an eBay Silver Level Power Seller and Trading Assistant who sells vintage toys, dolls and action figures in her store, Priced Nostalgia (http://www.pricednostalgia.com). In addition to being an active blogger, she is also the author of several published books and plays including The Love of Three Oranges, a play which has been performed around the world, The Seller Ledger, The My Little Pony Collector's Inventory and The She-Ra Collector's Inventory. DePiano currently resides in Parsippany, NJ. For more information, visit http://www.hillarydepiano.com.

About Lulu
Founded in 2002, Lulu is the world's fastest-growing provider of print-on-demand books for digital do-it-yourselfers. Think of us as an open marketplace for digital content. An on-demand publishing tool for books, e-books, music, images, movies and calendars. Please see www.lulu.com for more information.