David Wolkoff's eBay Store David Wolkoff

When I was fifteen I borrowed $200 from my father, bought a broken Sidekick phone on eBay, watched YouTube videos to learn how to repair it, and re-sold it for an $80 profit. That was the start of David Wolkoff’s Store, an eBay business, which has Gold Powerseller status and over 700 unique positive feedbacks. I had never used eBay before buying and selling the Sidekick. I became interested overhearing a friend tell how he sold a phone, and found after some research that he had undervalued his. I decided to try to do better.

At first, I bought individual phones, repaired them, and sold them as “refurbished.” Soon, however, I discovered that I could make a larger profit in less time if I bought phones with common defects in bulk and outsourced the repairs. As I began to feel a mastery over my business and expanded into different types of electronics, eBay changed its policies, undermining its individual merchants. A number of small businesses left eBay. I decided, however, to take my name to heart and fight Goliath.

I took two weeks off from conducting business to study the new rules, and strategize how to stay in business; I was not going to let policy changes discourage me from pursuing my hobby, my job and my passion....