L.A. Swap Meet Culture Embraces eBay Auctions.

In early 1998, an occasional customer and fellow antique dealer walked into Farhad Hakimfar's Brentwood store Ambiance, and mentioned that he'd heard of people selling merchandise on eBay Inc.'s online auction site.

The concept intrigued Hakimfar, whose family has been in the antique business for generations, first in Iran and now in the United States. Not sure exactly what he was getting himself into, he registered to market his goods on the site.

"How hard could it be?" he wondered at the time.

Not that hard, as it turns out. Last year, Hakimfar sold more than $80,000 worth of goods on eBay. Response has been overwhelming, and he has hired someone full-time to put his merchandise up for sale online.

"I sell up to $10,000 a month on eBay, which is about 30 percent of our overall annual revenue," he said. "I sell mostly antique furniture, but also sell a lot of other items I acquire from estate sales, liquidations and auctions. I just sold a pair of miniature porcelain shoes for $139 that cost me 50 cents, and I recently sold a football patch that I was expecting to get $9 for but which sold for over $300."

Hakimfar is not alone. On any given day, tens of thousands of Los Angelenos are buying and selling items on eBay, the world's largest and highly profitable Internet auction site. From ceramic kittens, toothpicks and "Lion King" tickets to designer purses, samurai swords and real estate, local eBay sellers are auctioning off every type of item imaginable.

But this is more than retired collectors selling stamps or plush toys in their spare time. A sizable percentage are engaging in this marketplace either to supplement their existing retail operation or as a full-time job, selling goods online for a better price with lower margin than they could anywhere else.

"Most of these entrepreneurs are not interested in the auctions in a traditional sense," said Ramnath K. Chellappa, an assistant professor at the USC Marshall School of Business and the director of its Electronic Economy Research Laboratory. "They had things to sell and found this a good marketplace. It's a very, very interesting phenomenon. It's a unique way to do business."

Full-time job

Determining the size of the local eBay trading community is problematic: the company doesn't break down its users by geography. Ebay currently has over 18.9 million registered users nationwide, more than double the number a year ago. Of those, perhaps as many as 25,000 to 30,000 are using the site as a source of full-time income or to supplement their existing business, according to company spokesman Kevin Pursglove.

But clearly Angelenos, long attracted to bargain hunting and selling, whether at swap meets, flea markets or knick-knack stores, are participating with a vengeance. According to Web research firm Media Metrix, 20.3 percent of the Los Angeles metro Internet audience visited eBay in October, the most recent month available. That translates to 793,000 unique visitors. And according to Neilsen/Net Ratings, another Internet research company, eBay was the "stickiest" site in L.A. in November, with users spending more time on that site than any other.

Bob Foster, adjunct associate professor at the UCLA Anderson School and executive director of the Center for Management in the Information Economy said one reason behind eBay's local popularity may be because there's a higher number of people connected to the Internet than in other areas of the country.

"There could also be an economic factor," he said. "It could be that Los Angeles residents have a higher average annual income than residents in other areas where the concentration of eBay users isn't as high."

But there is no doubt that an entrepreneurial spirit is part of it as well. Combing garage sales and finding something one person thinks is junk but another will pay handsomely for is an art, as anyone who has ever been to the Rose Bowl swap meet knows.

For 30 years, Jay Byrne of Tujunga roamed swap meets and trade shows all over the Western U.S. for buying and selling antique glassware. After retiring from his job as an accountant, selling glass became his full-time job, but a heart condition made it harder to move his wares from show to show. A year ago, he set up shop online.

"I started on eBay and it's just taken off," he said. "I find deals that I know should be sold higher and I put them up on eBay. I paid $10 for an 1880 glass toothpick holder, and I sold it for $306.50. This whole eBay thing is kind of interesting. If I go to a (trade) show, you might get 500 people through the doors. At eBay, I might tap into thousands of people."

He saves money on overhead as well, forgoing the $125 fee he would pay at a weekend swap meet for a spot, and paying eBay a modest registration and commission fee. Not to mention the time and energy involved in plugging one's wares for hours at a time.

"You might spend several hours setting up on Friday night, 12 hours working on Saturday, six on Sunday, and then have to pack up and go home," Byrne said. "Now, you can get up in the morning in your pajamas and do it on eBay. There's nothing easier."

Byrne, who has somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 items up for auction at any given time, says he knows an increasing number of friends going into business on their own the same way he has.

"A friend of mine is in the auto parts business and has to spend all his time on the road all over Southern California selling," he said. "He's thinking of quitting and doing it all this way."