Simply-the-best-for-you Volunteer Community Mentor
@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!
@meme6253 wrote:I 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.
Not 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.
@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.
