RESTAURANT SELLER TURNS TO BIGGEST MENU OF ALL - EBAY.

Byline: Joe Mosley The Register-Guard

Brian Parker wants to sell his Chelsea Grill & Pub in Eugene's Fifth Street Public Market, and he's taken his pitch to a pool of 135 million potential buyers worldwide.

On eBay.

"It was just an option," Parker says. "I had advertised it locally ... with mixed results.

"This cost me $370, and there's a lot of people that look at eBay. You're getting the whole world, virtually. I've had contacts already from Hawaii and Florida."

The Chelsea Grill was one of 451 listings as of Friday in eBay's commercial real estate subcategory, including 11 Oregon businesses.

The Alpine Market near Monroe is listed, as well as a six-unit commercial building in Reedsport and a convenience store in Coos Bay. Then there's Club 97 in Bend, a 20,000-square-foot nightclub - touted as the West Coast's largest - along with the historic two-building Finn Block in downtown Albany, and an RV park and deep-water moorage on the Columbia River near Rainier.

No one has kept track of when businesses first began showing up on the Internet's largest, ongoing garage sale, or how successfully the format has matched the sellers and buyers of commerce.

But Hani Durzy, a spokesman at eBay's world headquarters in San Jose, Calif., says it's a growing segment of the Internet marketplace.

The online company essentially serves as a flea market at which sellers can rent tables for the display of their products, Durzy says. Certain goods - whether restaurants and shops, or golf clubs and computer games - gain popularity as eBay's "community" of 135 million registered users recognize the items' potential in a cyber venue.

"What eBay fundamentally does is, it brings efficiency to inefficient marketplaces," Durzy says.

`The residential real estate market already is fairly efficient, with (real estate brokers) and multiple listing services,' he says. "But commercial real estate actually has a little more inefficiency in it. If you have a business you want to sell, do you pick up the phone and call your local Realtor? Probably not."

Tim Campbell, owner of Campbell Commercial Real Estate in Eugene, agrees that the sellers of businesses may have found an effective niche on the Internet - an avenue that may attract real estate brokers, as well as private sellers.

"What a novel idea," Campbell says. "EBay sure gets more exposure than anything I know. I might throw a couple of my listings on there, just to see what it does."

Durzy says that eBay logged 1.4 billion item listings across all categories last year. In its nine years, the company has simply provided an easy-to-use forum and allowed its customers to guide the direction and volume of various markets, he says.

"We don't direct anything," Durzy says. `We don't tell the (online) community what to buy and sell. Our role is just to manage the marketplace, and give sellers the best opportunity to succeed.'

But he also cautions that the format has limitations in certain areas, including real estate.

State and federal laws include various requirements for real estate transactions - from lending procedures to title searches - that cannot be duplicated online.

So while most other eBay items are sold in auctions that enforce sales to the high bidders, its real estate listings serve only as online advertising. Sales must be worked out privately between sellers and buyers.

"But it's a way to reach potential buyers," Durzy says. "It's often used as a marketing tool."

Parker, the Chelsea Grill owner, says he turned to eBay as a way to gain exposure for his business because he's been successful using it to buy and sell other items, including motor vehicles. His restaurant listing indicates Parker has been involved in 224 previous eBay transactions.

"I actually have a small used car lot, that I do almost as a hobby," Parker says. `I've used (eBay) for that and a lot of other things, and it was just another option.'

His listing - with an asking price of $139,995 - describes the Chelsea Grill as "an alcohol-free pub," featuring burgers, fish and chips, nonalcoholic beer and wine, and other items in the Fifth Street Public Market's food court.

Listed Feb. 13, it had drawn hits from nearly 6,200 eBay shoppers as of Friday afternoon.

Parker's business, which leases space from the Fifth Street Public Market, includes "equipment, goodwill and leasehold," but no real property, his eBay listing says.

But he also touts Eugene's amenities, for the benefit of faraway shoppers who may be unfamiliar with the community's attributes.

"Sure it rains some, but the payoff is a quality of life that is second to none," Parker's eBay listing says. `(And) University of Oregon football and basketball has the town very excited.'

CAPTION(S):

Melissa Albert tends to the Fifth Street Market's Chelsea Grill & Pub. The eatery is one of 11 Oregon businesses listed for sale on eBay.