By the fall of 1999, the business I had spent years building was in serious trouble.
The inventory gamble I had made to keep my installation business running had backfired. Large national retailers were selling the same products below my wholesale cost, and the financial pressure was building quickly.
I was trying to figure out how I was going to recover or even how I was going to make it through the coming months.
One evening, during a conversation with a friend, I explained the situation. I told him about the inventory, the price cuts from the big-box stores, and the uncertainty I was facing.
His response was simple.
“You should try selling it on eBay.”
At the time, I had barely heard of it.
In 1999 the internet was still something most people explored slowly. Online auctions were a new concept, and many transactions were still completed the old-fashioned way a check arriving in the mail several days after a sale.
But I decided to take a look.
On October 25, 1999, I registered as an eBay member.
What I found was something completely different from the traditional retail world I had been working in. Instead of competing against large national chains with massive purchasing power, I was suddenly dealing directly with individual buyers across the country.
The first listings were simple automotive accessories that I already had in inventory. But they began to sell.
And then they kept selling.
The early eBay community was unlike anything that exists on the internet today. Buyers and sellers communicated directly. Feedback mattered. Reputation mattered. Trust was built transaction by transaction.
Payments arrived through the mail in envelopes containing personal checks or money orders. Packages were shipped from the local post office or UPS counter. Each completed transaction felt less like a retail sale and more like a conversation between two people who had found each other through a new kind of marketplace.
Before long I was selling regularly.
In those early days the term PowerSeller had not yet been widely recognized, but the volume of sales was already growing quickly. What began as an attempt to solve a short-term problem was quietly turning into an entirely new direction.
The internet had opened a door.
And I was walking through it.