Here is a little-used but highly effective way of reaching potential customers, even in your local market: online auctions. A growing number of businesses are using auctions to attract a steady stream of customers. By listing on eBay, your business will be exposed to an audience of 22 million people in over 100 countries. But more importantly, it can reach the people next door.

The small listing fees are a small price to pay for the kind of exposure you get, especially on the granddaddy of all auction sites, eBay. There are small businesses out there that get 80% or more of their sales from eBay.

There's an article on www.bCentral.com titled "Sold on eBay!" about how thousands of businesses are using eBay to market their products: www.bcentral.com/articles/marketing/133.asp   (if the link has moved, search the bCentral site for "auction" or "ebay")

And not all of the sales happen on eBay - you can use your "About Me" page to drive traffic back to your web site. Then you can your prospect'ss email address and sell to them directly, saving yourself some listings fees and commissions. And with eBay's feedback system, potential customers can get bona-fide firsthand testimonials from your previous customers.

If you want to sell multiple items, you can set up a Dutch auction. To make sure you earn a profit, you can set a minimum price, known as a reserve price. You can also set a "Buy It Now" price, which allows someone to buy the item immediately without waiting for the auction to end. And finally, you can set up your own eBay store for as little as $9.95/month.

There are many tips and tricks to eBay auctions -- so many that there are a slew of books and services and software programs just for helping people to manage their bidding and selling activities. Check www.geolocal.com for auction resources.

As far as reaching your local market, major cities are set up as regions on eBay. Consumers can easily search by region and category at http://pages.ebay.com/regional/hub.html -- "eBay Local Trading." This is where people will go if they want to buy something locally, such as furniture or something expensive. 

A recent development has made it even easier for your local customers to find you. AltaVista -- one of the major search engines -- announced a deal to feature listings from its shopping-comparison guide on eBay.  According to AltaVista's senior director of global product marketing Gannon Giguiere, "We can now allow consumers to compare Web, localized brick  and mortar stores and auction listings with a single glance." 

I buy lots of stuff on eBay. A few weeks ago I went looking for sheepskin slippers and saw a lovely pair up for auction. I could tell that this was a business, so I contacted the seller directly. I knew from past experience that we might be able to work out something and sure enough, we made a deal for 2 pairs of sheepskin slippers. 

Let's review this seller's transaction:

• She got a sale and a proven customer for her 30 cent listing fee on the original pair of slippers (which she sold later on, gaining another customer)
• She paid no listing fees or commissions on the 2 pair of slippers she sold to me
• She can add me to her mailing list; if I'm happy with the slippers, maybe I'll buy another pair in the future as a gift or whatever. (p.s. I bought 2 more pairs later)
• I would never have found that business if those slippers hadn't been listed on eBay. Her sheepskin business doesn't show up in the first few pages of search engine results, which is as far as most people will look.

Do you see the power of eBay? I also bought my Palm Pilot and a new computer from local vendors that I found on eBay. Plus I've bought lots of computer programs and educational toys from auctions by business owners. As a frequent eBay buyer and seller, I can tell you now, if you're not on eBay, you're leaving money on the table.

There are other auction sites out there - Yahoo, BidBay, uBid.com - but none of them comes close to eBay in terms of volume. About 1.4 million items are up for sale every day, in every imaginable category, including services, cars, houses. Somebody even tried to auction off a kidney once, but eBay caught them and put an end to it.

Keep in mind that people who go to auction sites are looking for deals, so don't expect to get full retail.  You may even have a sell a few items at cost. But when you think about all the money you can spend on ads in the local paper and get NO results, it's a small price to pay to get the email addresses of proven customers. The eBay feedback system works both ways you can check and see what kind of customer they've been in the past.

All in all, online auctions are goldmines. If you're selling anything at all, especially consumer products, you should definitely check out eBay.