Wondering if anyone has applied for eBay grant?
Just curious if anyone has applied for the eBay grant? Received one? Useful? Is the grant taxable? Difficult to qualify for in the application process? Intended for sellers of new items?
16 comments
Just curious if anyone has applied for the eBay grant? Received one? Useful? Is the grant taxable? Difficult to qualify for in the application process? Intended for sellers of new items?
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
·1 year ago@linus.hux72fe By coincidence, this was in my social media feed. I am not familiar with the YTer , nor have I watched this but it might be of interest (I might watch it later):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehj51Rs84Do&t=59s
simply-the-best-for-you
·1 year ago@linus.hux72fe I have applied & I have won. I know several others who have won. It is absolutely taxable, although if memory serves me right, they give you the full amount & you handle taxes on your own. I know there were several people I spoke with who believed it was not taxable, but the IRS is quite clear about it, so I paid my taxes, which of course lessened the grant money. I can't speak for what others did, but I'm not wiling to run afoul of the IRS.
You can sell new or used items or any combo. I sell primarily pre-owned & most of the winners I know, sell pre-owned, though one had a pretty high number of new items too. I & several I know applied twice, I know of 1 person who won the first time, but I believe it was the first year. There are more applicants every year as word spreads. It's not really a 'shot in the dark' b/c it's not random. You have full control over your application & the info as to how it's scored & what's important to them is published (you have to look for it a bit, but it's published). So my approach was very much that I was going to win it & I worked very hard on my app.
It's not difficult to quality, but of course winning is another story LOL. You have a limited number of words for each response & that was the most difficult for me b/c I'm wordy. You have nothing to lose by applying, except for your time! I highly reccomend it. Of course it's useful & I can tell you that I worked hard on my application. Especially after I didn't win the first time. I did some research on how to write an application & frequently referred to the instructions which told you exactly what they were looking for & how much weight each section is given. My best advice is you have nothing to lose by trying & don't be afraid to interject a bit of your personality into your application. My first attempt was very business-like, my second attempt interjected more of my personality based on some advice that I had read about grants & I won. Of course, I'll never know if that was why, that's just my gut feel.
Lastly, IIRC the call came not directly from eBay & I remember not being sure if it was legit & I called the sponsors to be sure that it was. I had always seen the 'surprise' moments where they filmed people winning either in person or on Zoom, so I thought every notification was like that & it's not. They film some of them, but others just get a phone call & are never contacted for an in-person interview. In fact, I think it may have been an email, not a call. It's been awhile, so hard to remember, but I know I was not notified in the way I had expected.
Good luck!
pikabo-icu
·1 year ago@simply-the-best-for-you Wow Congrats!! It's like eBay royalty or something.. eBay lotto winner..
richard1rst
·1 year agoYeah, I got one of those invites. I couldn’t back up fast enough.
Many complaints on these boards about how eBay uses our pictures etc for their catalogs and lets others use them as well. (You know the ones - why is my picture in someone else’s listing).
Well with those complaints in mind swallow this little tidbit (under Other Entry Terms
Entrant retains all rights in and to its product or service, including all intellectual property rights, but no Entry may disclose any information confidential to or any trade secret of the Entrant or any third party. Sponsor will treat all information disclosed by Entrant as nonconfidential.
By submitting an Entry to the Program, each Entrant hereby grants Sponsor and eBay on behalf of Entrant and Officer a royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, global, nonexclusive license to use, reproduce, modify, publish, create derivative works from, and display the information in the Entry, in whole or in part, and to incorporate it into other works, in any form, media, or technology, now known or later developed, for any purpose including for promotional and marketing purposes, including on www.helloalice.com or other Hello Alice-branded websites or social platforms, or eBay branded websites or social platforms.
***
So first they are saying we retain all intellectual rights, but then they say But we’re just going to use it as we see fit anyways. So all the lazy people in the world get to benefit from my inventiveness. Revisit the central themes of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.
And notice that it says merely submitting an entry (not actually winning the Grant) causes you to give away all your hard work. For free.
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
·1 year ago@richard1rst Some of the winners are incorporated into ebay's marketing efforts. I suspect that's the main point. Just what sort of secrets do you think those efforts would reveal? I've read lots of interviews and watched videos with winners and none of them made me say "Wow! I can't believe ebay revealed that business secret!"
richard1rst
·1 year agoWell, of course I would never post a trade secret so that phrase is moot. But then it was never the secrets I was concerned about but the theft of my time and labor. As I mentioned, how many complaints have you seen from posters that someone else is using their pictures and texts. In other words profiting off of the time and effort spent by the original Lister. But if you use stock photos from a Vero member you can (not necessarily will) be slapped with a Vero complaint and have your listing taken down.
But in the information cited it says “license to use, reproduce, modify, publish, create derivative worksâ€. Create a derivative work of a Disney character, or (even correctly) use a brand name such as onsie or velcro and see how long it lats.
But the terms of the usage say eBay can go ahead and use whatever it wants and I have no say in it. If I create an original widget it is mine and mine alone. Yes, there are thieves will take it anyways. While I will be happy to sell it to you I am not about to tell the world “Go ahead steal my work I don’t careâ€.
If I decline to give permission then I at least have some semblance of a legal leg to stand on to pursue the thieves.
simply-the-best-for-you
·1 year ago@richard1rst As a winner, I was never sought out to do any kind of 'free labor' appearances, videos, literally nothing! They weren't even the ones who informed me I'd won. I did have to supply 1 pic & I only saw it published once in a group of pics that included all the winners. I think if you're local to eBay HQ you are probably tapped more to be in marketing vids & I know they have employees & execs call/visit some of the people directly or on Zoom, but none of that happened to me. Besides the application & some effort involved in setting up to receive the funds, I didn't do anything else at all & that was the experience of several people I know. In fact, some of them were bummed that their opinions were not sought more.
@pikabo-icu Why thank you! Now, where did I put that tiara? For real, I'm just an average seller, anybody can & does win! From people with 100 listings to people with 10K listings.
pikabo-icu
·1 year ago@simply-the-best-for-you Found it...
simply-the-best-for-you
·1 year ago@pikabo-icu Oh & my scepter too! I was wondering where I laid those LOL. I actually have both a tiara & a scepter, but the tiara was part of a costume from the dollar store & the scepter was a gift & a toy, but I like it cuz it lights up in various pretty colors & makes fun noises! I'm so easily amused!
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
·1 year ago@richard1rst I think by "derivative" they are talking about your application itself, not the items you sell. Basically, using some of the info in your application for a press release, for example. If you tell them you have been selling on ebay since "x", they might mention that in the press release about the winners. The press release is "derived" (in part) from the info in the applications.
I'm not trying to convince you to apply, just pointing out that I think this particular issue might not be something to be concerned about.
worldcoinauctions
·1 year agoI've applied a few times. Never got one, but I expect there are thousands of applications and few recipients. The down side is now I get tons of irrelevant emails from the company that administers the grants with offers and additional grants (that won't help me).
turtles-trading-post
·1 year agoI applied last year. The good news is that it made me create a viable business plan. The bad news is that I didn't win! I thought I was a contender since part of my career was writing business plans and capital requests at a top ten pharma! Then in the end I saw the number of applicants so it's really a shot in the dark!
My happy ending is that once I didn't win, I did implement much of my plan. I did buy all new shelving and office furniture, which has made me a lot more efficient.
toysaver
·1 year agoYou probably would've won if you used AI.
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
·1 year ago@linus.hux72fe
I have never applied. I know some who have, and some have been successful. I can tell you they have certainly found 10 grand plus the other stuff useful. It is not intended only for sellers of new items...many sellers of used , vintage, and refurbished have received the grants. I believe one of the break out sessions at the recent ebay Seller Check In (something about "tell your story" was about the application process, but I'm not 100% sure as I didn't watch it)
meme6253
·1 year agoI have never tried to apply for one, I am not sure what is needed in order to qualify, I doubt that they hand them out to just anyone, They probably want to know what your business plan would be & how you intend to use the funds.
simply-the-best-for-you
·1 year agoNot sure what you mean by "just anyone", they are in fact, handed out to 'just anyone', it doesn't matter if you've been selling 2 years or 30, if you sell new or pre-owned, if you're a big seller or a small seller, but yes of course, they want to know how you intend to use the funds. You don't need to have a formal business plan (I didn't) but you do need a plan of how you how intend to spend the money & how it will help your business. The application process is very clear in what info they want from you & what criteria they use in selection & how heavily weighted the various sections of the application are.