You never know where the winds of financial success might take you - just ask Yakima, Wash. resident Natalie Phillips.

A full-time mom first and foremost, Phillips found herself the founder and CEO of her own antiquities business seemingly by accident five years ago.

“My dad owned a store and I decided to try and sell our inventory on eBay,” she said. “After we sold these items, I began selling items for other people and it’s grown from there.”

If there was ever a textbook example of the power eBay can give to the average small business owner, Phillips would fit the bill.

Coupled with the ease and convenience of UPS’s shipping knowledge and service, Phillips now ships between 20 and 30 packages per week related to her eBay auctions.

Not bad for a full-time mom whose last thought was running her own business.

The Problem:

Phillips had difficulty early in her business calculating shipping costs, understanding how to properly pack unique items, while worrying about how she would ship her items.

The Solution:

According to Phillips, a former eBay Trading Assistant, the ability to print her UPS labels directly from eBay has made a world of difference for her business. She also refers to the UPS Shipping Zone for shipping tips.

With UPS integrated, eBay offers Phillips flexibility to perform tasks related to sales, including shipping with UPS, around her schedule and directly from her home computer. This means she is able to manage all aspects of her business during the rare lulls in her hectic schedule as a busy mom.

“It was wonderful when UPS was integrated into eBay,” Phillips said. “I now enter the package information, print the label myself and ship it out.”

Besides printing your own labels, eBay and UPS offer a rate and service calculator to the bidder so they compute the item’s shipping cost before placing a bid. This cuts down on the number of “cold feet” bids placed to sellers like Phillips.

Once an auction has closed, both buyers and sellers can track the packages from the eBay site, reducing “where’s my item?” calls and e-mails.

The UPS Store to the rescue

While eBay has made life easier for Phillips, she doesn’t think twice about contacting her nearest The UPS Store® location when a package proves to be beyond her expertise.

“There are some things that are a real pain to ship. I’ve shipped chairs and had to remove the legs before,” Phillips said. “Now if I have something that requires special packaging, I take it to The UPS Store. … They take care of it.”

She added that anytime she even perceives a potential problem, her first thought is to call The UPS Store for help.

“If I have concerns, I call them to get a ball park figure what they will charge for packing, materials, etc. I rarely list something without a shipping quote, so this is a great help,” she said.

Benefits:

Besides making her life easier, Phillips has been able to take this time freed up by shipping through eBay and grow her business.

As anyone in the antiquities business will say, you never know what treasure might be lying buried in some old house or warehouse. Now, Phillips has time to go out and find these pieces or negotiate with more clients.

In fact, Phillips herself enjoyed this by-product recently when a customer asked her to help sell an old Indian floor rug on eBay.

Expecting to fetch a decent amount for the piece, both Phillips and the seller were astounded when the item went for four times its estimated price.

“It sold for several thousands of dollars … we were both amazed. This was one of my highest selling items.”

Had it not been for eBay and UPS helping to free up Phillips time, who knows what might have become of this collectible.