A Full-Service Solution to Sell Public Agency Surplus
We manage your online auctions from start to finish.
July 2008
Volume 7
InterSchola Pilots a New Auction Round Schedule
InterSchola has recently piloted a new Auction Round Schedule for our clients. Our hope is that the new schedule (subject to client's approval) will shorten the amount of time between the end of auction and pickup or shipping of sold items from our client locations. In our first pilot of this schedule, we found that our item sell through was increased (100% in our first pilot), our payment window was decreased and our pickup schedule was greatly accelerated - by as much as 2 days vs. our existing auction schedule. In addition, we found that buyer satisfaction was greatly increased as we now offer 2 published dates for pickup (and a 3rd date for backup pickups). Customer feedback is increasingly important in the eBay community and therefore the changes serve both of our constituents - sellers and buyers.
Please email us at info@interschola.com if you would like to pilot an auction on the new auction calendar. Alternatively, your local Client Manager will be introducing this schedule to you when we learn of your next inventory!
InterSchola Announces New Sales Team Members
InterSchola is pleased to
announce new members of our Sales Team.
Field Auction Manager Profile: David Steiner
Tom Davis, TJ
Brown and John McQuaide from Global Business Education Consulting have
joined InterSchola's sales team. Tom, TJ and John will focus their
sales efforts on further expansion of our client reach to more school
districts in California and beyond. The addition of these three
individuals will allow our existing Client Management Group (led by Jeff
Greenholtz, John Deatherage, Jimmy Smith, Stephen Duncan, Dan Field and
Len Wilcox) to focus more attention on working with our existing clients
to provide our full-service solution to help you sell your surplus items.
We have recently introduced a successful program for the sale and removal
of salvage vehicles and another for eWaste. We hope to offer other new and
creative solutions for helping you manage more sales of certain hard to
sell asset categories on a local, regional and even international basis in
the coming months. Further, the focused efforts of our new sales
associates will help us continue to grow our business. InterSchola is a
firm believer that the more clients we work with, the more we will have to
sell on eBay, the more buyers we will attract on eBay, and the higher
values we will fetch for your items. It's a win-win. Please welcome Tom,
TJ and John by sharing some suggestions of other school districts in your
area that may benefit from our services!
David
Steiner is one of our longest tenured Field Auction Managers, having
worked with InterSchola since soon after our inception in 2004.
Based in Sunnyvale, CA and covering one of our most fertile
territories, David serves over 30 clients, ranging as far north as
Pacifica School District and as far south as Gonzales USD. In San
Jose alone, David serves 6 different InterSchola clients - San Jose USD,
Oak Grove SD, Eastside Union HSD, Metropolitan Education District, San
Jose Evergreen CCD and Union School District.
By
trade, David is a finish carpenter, with over 30 years of experience in
construction, doing interior woodwork, hanging doors, and constructing
moldings and cabinets. He caught the eBay bug several years ago, and
InterSchola and our clients are now the beneficiaries of his considerable
knowledge of "stuff" of all types.
In a given
week, David may sometimes visit as many as 7 or 8 clients, and work with
50-75 eBay customers, with a mix of inventories, pickups and
inspections. He might be in Salinas for an inventory on Monday, San
Mateo for a pickup on Tuesday, San Jose for two separate inventories on
Wednesday, Santa Cruz for another pickup on Thursday, and then San Mateo
for an inspection on Friday.
"David is a very dependable, reliable and resourceful guy," says
Kelly Cefalu, Operations Supervisor, Custodial, Warehouse and Central
Station, San Jose Unified School District. "Over the years working
with InterSchola we have built a strong relationship with Dave and see how
hard he works and how he is able to keep up with the growing
business. He does an excellent job of juggling all of his accounts
and keeping the customers happy."
InterSchola is fortunate to have such a dedicated resource
committed to our mission. "It is rewarding to see that you have
actually helped the districts get their surplus out of there so they can
free up space," says Steiner. "But it is also nice to be able to
dispose of items so that it can be used by someone else. That's the
biggest thing - we are helping them to recycle stuff so it can be used
again."
InterSchola Announces New CA Certified eWaste Recycling Relationship
InterSchola has forged an agreement with a Northern California certified eWaste recycler to manage the collection, pickup, sorting and recycling of several categories of eWaste. Our partner will work throughout California and will offer the same benefit across the state.
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Quote from InterSchola Orange County, CA Client Manager - Dan Field
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InterSchola's eWaste Recycling Partner will pick up and pay for any of the following items:
2. Computer towers
3. E-waste - copiers, fax machines, printers, phones, stereo equipment, VCR's, CD players, mp3 units, scanners, etc
4. Other items - including universal waste
In an effort to maximize the value that our clients will receive from the
sale/removal of eWaste, InterSchola has negotiated a 3 tier pricing
structure for eWaste materials as follows:
InterSchola School Surplus
Blog Please
bookmark this site, and feel free to add your comments to the
articles posted.
2. $0.15lb. for CPU units (towers)
3. $0.06lb. for miscellaneous e-waste (printers, copiers, fax machines, phones, scanners,
projectors, etc)
All materials will be crosschecked and weighed at the
Partner recycling facility to insure proper disposition and weight
verification as well as piece count.
InterSchola eWaste Recycling
Partner will handle the proper recycling of all SB20-SB50 materials
(including full documentation that these items have been properly disposed
of per the state requirements for recycling).
In addition, part of our unique relationship with our partner,
InterSchola will continue to offer a full service solution for valuable
electronics/technology etc that may be grouped with other eWaste lots. For
items that are removed from client location which are deemed to have
"significant" value in a public auction environment, InterSchola's eWaste
Recycling Partner will develop a list of items that may be listed by
InterSchola in an online auction environment in accordance with
InterSchola's Client Services Agreement regarding the sale of surplus
goods. These items will be listed by InterSchola for auction using the
traditional InterSchola/eBay model. Proceeds received from the sale of
these goods will be remitted to client when items are sold/paid/shipped or picked up
FROM THE PARTNER location according to the terms of the InterSchola
Services Agreement for the sale of surplus items. This is in accordance
with state education code regarding the sale of surplus items via public
auction.
If you would
like to learn more about our new partnership, please contact your local
Client Manager or email us at info@interschola.com to schedule an eWaste pickup!
In order to facilitate communications with our clients, we've
created a blog at http://schoolsurplus.wordpress.com/ Our
staff will post news and information to help District officials
maximize the value of
their no longer needed surplus items.
Letter From the President
Happy Summer! Results are in. The 2007/2008 school year was a very strong one for InterSchola. We thank you, our clients, for your support and continued interest in working with InterSchola to maximize the value of your surplus sales in accordance with the state and local regulations.
Our results
continue to impress. Having
just returned from eBay's annual conference, I have some great perspective
on our eBay selling statistics.
After almost four years, InterSchola maintains our Platinum Top
Seller status. In the last 12
months, InterSchola has sold more
than $1M worth of public agency surplus on eBay - putting InterSchola among the top 1000
sellers on eBay! To put
this in perspective, there are approximately 18,000 sellers in the Top
Seller program out of a total of over 240M registered users and over 1.3M
sellers who sell on eBay full time.
Further, our
initial sell through rate is greater than 70% on eBay. This does not take into
consideration re-lists of items, off eBay transactions or private sales
once an item has been made available for public auction. These statistics, plus our amazing
percentage of repeat buyers make us a very unique seller on this wildly
successful online platform for public auctions.
It is no
surprise, given what we do (selling surplus on behalf of education and
public agency clients) that the top 3 categories for InterSchola are
Business and Industrial, eBay Motors, and Computers and Networking. Of
particular note, InterSchola is
now the 10th largest seller within the Restaurant and Catering (Food
Service) category on eBay!
While this is all fantastic news, the importance of feedback to the
Buyer/Seller community on eBay remains critical. In fact, due to recent changes
that eBay has made, the value of that feedback to the Seller community has
increased. Unfortunately, it
is increasingly difficult to maintain this feedback. As our partners in the effort to
maximize the value of your surplus goods, we must ask you, our clients, to
work with us to ensure that the buyer experience is positive. First, we must be able to provide
clear and accurate descriptions of the items we list for auction. Second, we must be able to provide
timely and accurate responses to buyer questions regarding the items. Next we must make sure that items
can be packed and shipped or prepared for pickups as efficiently and as
quickly as possible following the close of auction. We look forward to continuing to
be able to provide excellent customer service to both our buyers and our
sellers! (Please see
article regarding new auction schedule for InterSchola in this
newsletter.)
Remember, Summer is a great time to clear out your storage areas of new and used surplus goods. EBay's buyers abound during these months. Perhaps your staff schedules permit additional focus on surplus while the students are out of school? Contact us so that we can move quickly to schedule an inventory of goods at your convenience!
Best,
Melissa Rich
Founder and President, InterSchola
mrich@interschola.com
Visit our website:
For information about
partnering with InterSchola or to learn more about our services, contact:
Jeff
Greenholtz, Sales and Client Management
jgreenholtz@interschola.com
888-653-7360 ext
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