Sell2All's liabilities: $1.49M
An “eBay death spiral” led Lincoln reseller Sell2All Inc. to U.S. Bankruptcy Court, an industry expert said.
“This is a common thing that happens to eBay resellers,” said Scot Wingo, CEO and president of ChannelAdvisor, a technology company in Research Triangle Park, N.C., that sells marketplace and e-commerce software.
Sell2All Inc. was still No. 52 on eBay’s top sellers list Friday despite filing its own list in U.S. Bankruptcy Court: a list of assets and liabilities.
The company showed $73,452 in assets and $1,497,287 in liabilities in the new court filings. The documents showed the company owed $248,487 to credit card companies.
The largest creditor, Pacific Cycle, was owed $372,543. Pacific Cycle sells bicycles and other recreational products.
Sell2All, 2610 W. L St., sold surplus inventory for companies in online auctions and got a percentage from the seller or earned profit by selling items for more than the liquidation prices, according to Journal Star archives.
The “eBay death spiral” occurs when sale items repeatedly sell for less than what the company paid for the item, Wingo said.
Sell2All used a “no reserve business model” that can lead to cash flow problems, Wingo said. In no reserve auctions, sellers don’t set a sale price for the item they are selling. A low starting bid allows many people to bid in small increments and attracts more bidders.
“If you have bought something to sell for $50 and it only sells for $45, then you’re in trouble,” Wingo said. “It works pretty good unless you make a bad buy. It takes 10 good buys to fix a bad one, and if some of those buys are bad, then you’re on a death spiral. You can end up upside down really quickly.”
Sell2All wrote its own software, and the larger overhead needed to write the software contributed to the cash flow problems, Wingo said.
“eBay changes every day, and it’s hard to keep up,” Wingo said.
Until the bankruptcy filing, it appeared Sell2All founder and CEO Brandon Dupsky had found success reselling surplus inventory on eBay and other online sites including Half.com, Amazon.com and Overstock.com.
Sell2All was an eBay PowerSeller, which, according to eBay, are top sellers who sustain high volume sales and a 98 percent positive feedback rating by other eBay users.
The company was featured in the book “The eBay Millionaire: Titanium PowerSeller Secrets for Building a Big Online Business” by Amy Joyner, according to an article on AuctionBytes.com. Dupsky sat on the board of directors of the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance, a group of top eBay PowerSellers.
“It’s sad to see this happen to such a nice guy,” Wingo said. “Brandon is really well known and active in the eBay community.”
The ebook Dupsky co-wrote with Internet Marketing Center CEO Derek Gehl —“Insider Secrets of an eBay Millionaire” — was released in October 2005.
“Over the last year, Brandon put a lot of emphasis on inventory software development,” wrote Gehl in an e-mail to Internet Marketing Center employees and forwarded to the Journal Star by company spokesman Jibran Qazi. “Unfortunately, he ran into cost overruns with his software development, which put him in a tight situation.”
In the e-mail Gehl said Dupsky is working on restructuring his business to get back to the strategies that led to Sell2All’s earlier success.
“He is by far one of the most knowledgeable eBay Powersellers out there,” Gehl wrote.
Gehl said Dupsky is committed to starting up another eBay business, and he has the backing of the Professional eBay Sellers Association as well as key suppliers.
Dupsky would not comment.
Reach Jodie Fawl at 473-7235 or jfawl@journalstar.com.
“This is a common thing that happens to eBay resellers,” said Scot Wingo, CEO and president of ChannelAdvisor, a technology company in Research Triangle Park, N.C., that sells marketplace and e-commerce software.
Sell2All Inc. was still No. 52 on eBay’s top sellers list Friday despite filing its own list in U.S. Bankruptcy Court: a list of assets and liabilities.
The company showed $73,452 in assets and $1,497,287 in liabilities in the new court filings. The documents showed the company owed $248,487 to credit card companies.
The largest creditor, Pacific Cycle, was owed $372,543. Pacific Cycle sells bicycles and other recreational products.
Sell2All, 2610 W. L St., sold surplus inventory for companies in online auctions and got a percentage from the seller or earned profit by selling items for more than the liquidation prices, according to Journal Star archives.
The “eBay death spiral” occurs when sale items repeatedly sell for less than what the company paid for the item, Wingo said.
Sell2All used a “no reserve business model” that can lead to cash flow problems, Wingo said. In no reserve auctions, sellers don’t set a sale price for the item they are selling. A low starting bid allows many people to bid in small increments and attracts more bidders.
“If you have bought something to sell for $50 and it only sells for $45, then you’re in trouble,” Wingo said. “It works pretty good unless you make a bad buy. It takes 10 good buys to fix a bad one, and if some of those buys are bad, then you’re on a death spiral. You can end up upside down really quickly.”
Sell2All wrote its own software, and the larger overhead needed to write the software contributed to the cash flow problems, Wingo said.
“eBay changes every day, and it’s hard to keep up,” Wingo said.
Until the bankruptcy filing, it appeared Sell2All founder and CEO Brandon Dupsky had found success reselling surplus inventory on eBay and other online sites including Half.com, Amazon.com and Overstock.com.
Sell2All was an eBay PowerSeller, which, according to eBay, are top sellers who sustain high volume sales and a 98 percent positive feedback rating by other eBay users.
The company was featured in the book “The eBay Millionaire: Titanium PowerSeller Secrets for Building a Big Online Business” by Amy Joyner, according to an article on AuctionBytes.com. Dupsky sat on the board of directors of the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance, a group of top eBay PowerSellers.
“It’s sad to see this happen to such a nice guy,” Wingo said. “Brandon is really well known and active in the eBay community.”
The ebook Dupsky co-wrote with Internet Marketing Center CEO Derek Gehl —“Insider Secrets of an eBay Millionaire” — was released in October 2005.
“Over the last year, Brandon put a lot of emphasis on inventory software development,” wrote Gehl in an e-mail to Internet Marketing Center employees and forwarded to the Journal Star by company spokesman Jibran Qazi. “Unfortunately, he ran into cost overruns with his software development, which put him in a tight situation.”
In the e-mail Gehl said Dupsky is working on restructuring his business to get back to the strategies that led to Sell2All’s earlier success.
“He is by far one of the most knowledgeable eBay Powersellers out there,” Gehl wrote.
Gehl said Dupsky is committed to starting up another eBay business, and he has the backing of the Professional eBay Sellers Association as well as key suppliers.
Dupsky would not comment.
Reach Jodie Fawl at 473-7235 or jfawl@journalstar.com.
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