Winners and losers: firms try to adapt to changing scene: EBay retailers see market for service.

Winners

The Silicon Valley met the San Fernando Valley when mortar and brick retailers began erecting EBay stores from Studio City to Simi Valley. Though San Jose-based EBay had been a popular service since the dot.com boom of the late 1990s, many consumers never offered their wares online, finding the process too complicated and time-consuming. When entrepreneurs began offering to act as middlemen, handling the entire EBay process for a cut of the final sale price, they found a wide-open and lucrative market.

Encino-based, The Garage Seller, has profited handsomely off of this trend. Opening in March, The Garage Seller soon merged with QuikDrop, another EBay auction house. Still headquartered in Encino, QuikDrop has become an international company, opening up 26 locations, including stores in the United Kingdom and Australia. The company has increased 25 percent in sales each month and has doubled its sales since its inception. QuikDrop currently has Valley stores in Encino, Simi Valley, Studio City and Woodland Hills.

Peter Mehrian, QuikDrop's vice-president of marketing, attributes the success to one word: convenience.

"It's really convenient for the sellers. It's the best way to get rid of their items. They just drop their stuff off and we take care of the rest for them. People have items lying around and they don't know what they're worth. When you put it on EBay, you're advertising to 210,000,000 people," Mehrian said.