I describe myself as an eBay Virgin because I seem to be the only one in certain circles who hasn't been seduced past mere flirtation into complete and committed love (or is it lust?) with eBay. Last weekend, I had quite an unexpected adventure. Somewhat reluctantly, I agreed to attend the first ever eBay Live! convention. It was explained to me that I would become a small part of history.

My only prior eBay experience was some window shopping several years ago when my friend introduced me to eBay. She has been encouraging me to list some inherited pieces I own and have been wanting to move out to a new home (or someone else's garage). Who knows, attending the convention could be an opportunity to learn some things that would allow me to feel more confident and be able to jump in and give eBay selling a try.

My hope was to learn, step-by-step, how to begin selling on a small scale.

My first big step to my potential eBay business? I became one of the over 40 million registered users. Registering was fairly easy and painless. Now, stop laughing at me. I'm really not as simple-minded as this lack of experience implies.

I arrived at the Anaheim Convention Center on Friday afternoon. I picked up my registration information and headed to my first class, "Basic Selling," presented by Marsha Collier, the author of "eBay for Dummies" and "Starting an eBay Business for Dummies." There were actually people besides myself who raised their hands to admit that they had never sold anything on eBay. That was comforting. There was quite a bit of good information about marketing, an essential part of selling successfully, but not much on the nuts and bolts of setting up an auction, accepting payment, figuring out shipping prices and other questions that have kept me paralyzed and afraid to get started. I suppose if I got all the answers in the seminar, I would no longer be a "dummy" and wouldn't need to buy the book.

The afternoon event was the Category Portal Extravaganza. The idea was to present quick and playful little intros to various selling categories and to have a bit of fun doing it. I always get tickled when I see human nature in action. I find it funny to watch adults excitedly scurrying about to collect trading cards and trying to win things. My highlights were getting a mini shoulder massage and having a watch appraised by Clark Davis, the "Ask the Appraiser" in residence for CollectingChannel.com. Most everyone seemed to be having a good time, and I was having fun watching it all go by. So far, I hadn't learned what I figured I needed, but I was definitely looking forward to learning more about this queer world that had created so much excitement for so many.

The next morning, I attended the Keynote address given by Meg Whitman, eBay's President and CEO. I very much enjoyed the overview of the history of eBay, starting from its founder Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and his exciting idea of a community that values integrity enough to want to do business with the good of all in mind. There seems to be a lot of good people who have truly made a feeling of community with their caring for each other. They have not only done business together, they have supported one another as friends through personal life challenges, just as residents of small towns have done throughout history.

It was amazing to me to realize that starting with only 12 categories, eBay has now grown to over 1,800 categories. With growth like that, I was beginning to wonder if I would be jumping into a pyramid scheme a little too late in the game. My head was spinning with new jargon like PowerSellers and Shooting Stars (those who have accumulated 10,000 or more feedback points). I learned that PowerSellers will be able to get group health insurance, and that new, higher levels of PowerSellers would be established.

It sounded to me as if the big guys are the wave of the future. After all, this is not ALL about community, is it? It's about money. At the end of the presentation, I was feeling a bit as if I had missed the boat and a "little guy" like me may be irrelevant to eBay's future. Or maybe I'd stumbled into an Amway meeting?

But, onward.

My next stop was a class called "Planning Your eBay Business." Here the emphasis was on studying the marketplace to check what was bringing good prices and what to sell next. This has little relevance for me as a beginner because at this point, I'm not worried about searching out things to sell, but would rather try selling some things I already own. There is a new group called Trading Assistants who will sell items on consignment for individuals. I found out there are some tools available to sellers to help with listing, and there are services that can manage one's images. It was suggested that market research should be done to choose the closing time of the auction for getting the best price for the item being sold.

When I called my programmer husband later and told him I was on my way to a class called "Improve Your Listings with Better Pictures and HTML", he said, "Well, I think you may want to start with a class on basic web design. You may find HTML a little advanced." This turned out to be the best class I attended. It was given by Jim Griffith, who I later found out was an eBay user who became one of the first customer service people on board. He had a clear and to-the-point style that gave information in a way that made me confident I could do it, interlaced with his offbeat sense of humor that made time fly and made me nearly crack a rib.

Griffith emphasized that we need not take copious notes, because the disk we got when we registered would have the slide shows of all the classes, so I sat back and listened and enjoyed. He could make me believe there really are real people involved in this eBay thing, and not just some bizarre race of eBay-cult clones.

I also attended a panel discussion led by Adam Cohen, who wrote "The Perfect Store," and heard from some of the earliest eBay users about how they got "hooked" and what the eBay community has meant to them. The early days must have been great fun and a real adventure.

The eBay folks threw quite a grand Gala Party Saturday evening. There was lots of good food, good music (if you are a Neil Diamond fan, bad music if you aren't), and a hosted bar. This whole thing must have set eBay back a few nickels.

On Sunday, I spent some time cruising the vendor booths trying to understand what kind of products and support is available for eBayers in business. It was necessary to pay attention so someone trying to trade a coveted trading card didn't trample or maim me while they were in pursuit of the highly valued Meg card. I decided not to watch the live auction of Disney items or attend the remaining classes in favor of heading home, to try and sort out all this collected information.

When I got home ready to dig in and review my new wealth of knowledge, wouldn't you know it, all I got in my registration kit was a disk from AOL and no eBay Live! slide show disk (a plot, I'm sure). I'm beginning to think the gods are not with me on this project. Call me cynical, but when I think about getting started, I picture myself holding my little inner tube, jumping into beautiful azure waters, then realizing I'm being circled by hungry sharks!

I think I came home feeling more bewildered than ever. I guess I could read one of those "dummy" books, but maybe I should lose my "virginity" the old fashioned way: gather my courage and just do it.

I'll keep you posted.

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