I grew up in the 60's and 70's.  When I graduated high school, I had a cheesy mustache, pork chop side burns, an afro the size of a basketball, and I played the drums in a rock and roll band.  Today, I have two boys in high school, the mustache and sideburns are gone, my hair is thinning, and the basketball now resides in my belly.  Although I still play the drums, I now play on a small electronic set that only I can hear through my headphones (which probably preserved my wife's sanity).

Back in the day, my drum kit consisted of no less than nine drums along with a forest of cymbals and various other percussion gadgets.  My original hope was that one of my boys would learn to play, and eventually inherit my kit.  But while both took a few lessons, neither developed any real interest.  After a while, I reluctantly came to the conclusion that it was time to sell my drums.

A Swing and a Miss
The first decision I had to make was to settle on a price.  The kit was a little over 20 years old, but everything was professional quality and in top-notch condition.  Due to their age they were considered "vintage" drums, and one dealer was telling me that I should expect to get about $4000 for them.  I thought that might be pushing it, so I listed the kit on eBay, with a reserve price of $2000.  The kit generated quite a bit of interest, but at the end of the auction, the highest bid was only $1800.  Since this was below the reserve, there was no sale.  I did however get several inquiries and offers on a few of the individual pieces.

The Logical Approach
Being a "web guy", the logical next step was to create a website where I would show the entire set, but list the pieces for sale individually.  But how would I be able to attract visitors to the site?  I didn't want to spend a ton of money on advertising, but in order to get top dollar I needed to generate interest on a national, if not international, level.  My solution was to use eBay.

Planting The Seed
During my previous auction, I received several inquiries about one of my cymbals.  It was a rare, hand-hammered version made in Turkey.  Since this figured to be my most marketable piece, I placed a listing on eBay to sell the cymbal.  In the listing, I mentioned that I had several additional cymbals, drums, and hardware for sale, and I mentioned the address of my website.  This was the ONLY means available to find my website.

Happy Endings
During the two weeks of the auction, my site received several hundred visits, and I sold about half the set.  The cymbal on eBay eventually sold for nearly $800 to a guy in Boston, and other pieces of the set went to buyers in Kentucky, Georgia, and Illinois.  I even sold two of the drums to a drummer in Italy!  All told, after paying the eBay fees and all shipping charges, I made a profit of nearly $2500.  But perhaps the best part is that with all the pieces that didn't sell, I still have a professional quality drum kit that can be used if my boys ever do catch the bug, or if annoying neighbors move in next door.

Anyway, I think it's a pretty good example of how planting a few seeds in the right places (in this case one listing on eBay) can really help to bring targeted traffic to your website.