Hey Dowd, if I may make a suggestion to you... Do your research first rather than writing off Pesa in a public forum.

have a look at the exhibitors who will be attending in addition to the learning sessions on offer, there are a lot of contacts to be made over drinks as well

have a look at the price of similar conferences. For what you get it is exceptional value for money. 

I went to my first pesa last year So I can tell you from first hand experience I moved my business from part time to full time and an in the process of making improvements all based on the learnings from pesa. It's not all about products and listings, that's very short sighted, diversify your investment in your business and make some valuable contacts

Phil,

if ever i am in AU for one of your conferences i will be very happy to attend.    i hear amazing stories and great things of PeSA and am only sorry i live so far away ...

cheers

Ethan

"I'm gathering evidence for the high level of contempt eBay and it's Power/Top Rated Sellers such as yourself, hold for buyers" - your kidding right???  wtf does this have to do with the topic at hand and your replies to the OP?

I have a high regard for eBay and my customers.  eBay I am thankful to for providing the platform on which I make a living, and my customers who are happy to repeatedly purchase from me.

You come on here, obviously as someone whom has limited or no experience with eCommerce, and then begin to question someone, who has significant experience, and during the conversation, question the amount of times they have changed user names? Basically if eBay didnt give any credibility to Phil and his crew, why would they support him coordinating this event.

Cheers

Craig

Phil it is obvious you don't post on these forums very much because the ones who object the loudest are usually the ones who eventually attend: They doth protest too much 😉

It is just their way of asking you, or others who have attended, what makes this conference worth hundreds of dollars?

My response to that question is, for full time sellers who spend all year working in their business it is very wise to step out of the workplace and spend some time reviewing your practices and ask yourself: could I be working smarter?

In the last year alone I have attended conferences (Free ones) held by my bank, australia post, quicken and paypal. Yes they were wonderful, BUT they were very specific. They were trying to convince me to buy/use their product.

I have spent many thousands on conferences over the years including all but one of the PeSA events and can assure anyone interested that it really does make you stop and think: could I be working smarter.  The networking is AMAZING and asside from making friends for life with a number of sellers I also made some fantastic business contacts.

However, if you are 100% confident that you are working the smartest you can, don't need any business contacts and don't want any more friends then of course there is no point attending.  There is also no need to try to discourage others from attending. 

PeSA is not a scam, it is a serious event and Phil is an extremely generous and beautiful person.  Give him a break.

Man, is that ever a sales pitch if I've ever seen one!   I'm guessing by that logic half the ebay sellers on here shouldn't exist.....   I'd actually like to see the facts on that too - ie. graphs/charts of people who after attending your event have shown more growth as compared to previous years and how many attribute the conference to the growth of their business - there's an advertising idea, and it's FREE

If you seriously want statistics then I would ask Phil if he could provide a chart showing the growth in numbers attending over the years and the numbers who have attended more than once.

Surely if PeSA has repeat business then Phil and his team must be doing something right, because if not then the hundreds of us who took time away from our business to go back for more must all be idiots  :^O

dowd_hardware - given that you have all of 16 listings - this obviously isnt for you - you just seem to have too much spare time.    dowd_hardware - "but there are other ways to get the same for less or nothing, you just got to search for it...." - good luck with that - there are some "courses" that you can do for 10k plus, but there is nothing even close to what you get at this event.  WHEN both of you decide to become more than hobby sellers .....because seriously you look like spamming morons, that have no experience at all, and it all it serves is to give the rest of us a laugh.

HAHAHAHA

Don't brush me off that easily....I already make a six figures on ebay. And I must be doing something right as I'm getting all that from only 16 listings.......

I'm still only doing this part time and have a small part time job as i'll get bored at home doing ebay all day. For me, it's the perfect work/life balance.

I still stand by the fact that there are alternatives out there. Weather they're better or not is up to personal opinion. 

Everything i've learnt, I learnt for free. Sourcing and importing I taught myself. Economics I learnt from books and internet (no need to spend $20k plus on a uni degree). There are free accounting and book keeping software packages out there (and are very good and easy to use btw)

If you really wanted to know my experience, you could of just asked instead of reverting to childish names and taunts by calling me a 'spamming moron'  

Let me ask the people who have gone to the conference before. It sound like the best part is the networking you get from it but by the looks of it, it sound more like socialising, so correct me if i'm wrong.......

Let me ask the people who have gone to the conference before. It sound like the best part is the networking you get from it but by the looks of it, it sound more like socialising, so correct me if i'm wrong.......

It is a nice healthy balance 🙂

We don't need to repeatedly go to PeSA to socialise.  Many of the sellers already socialise.  It is nice to be able to talk to people who don't roll their eyes and yawn when we start talking about eBay :^O  Just today I had two eBay sellers visit me at my retail store. 

So honestly, for so many sellers to repeatedly spend money to go to PeSA then there has to be something on offer besides a party. 

BTW if you have a problem with a transaction and you phone eBay customer service you are likely to find yourself talking to someone in a foreign country who really doesn't have a clue.  If you do ever plan to grow your eBay business then if you attend PeSA you can make an appointment to meet with eBay staff from the Sydney office who not only listen and understand but they give advice and real help.  Make sure you ask for a business card and if their email address or phone number is not on the card see if you can get them to give it to you.

It is also an opportunity to make suggestions for changes to the eBay staff who CAN actually make changes....including Deborah Sharkey.  Of course 90% of the time they say no...but it is surprising how many changes have been made due to suggestions that sellers put forward at these events.

I could honestly write a very long list of the benefits of attending ... but I am sure others will want to post something so I better stop hogging this thread :8}

I do wish the best for those attending, the gorgeous Sonia & so very not Evil Elle :-x but I think that so very few people can afford it & quite frankly I don't think the OP cares 😐

Hey hon :-x

Do you remember the ESS08 that Stuart and Annie organised?

I've been thinking something like that moving from city to city would be really good but in addition to PeSA 🙂

We have the Online Retailers Expo in Sydney if you want to come with me to that next year.  🙂

Im a small time, new seller to ebay,  not familiar with this PeSA thing,  but in regards to what you can learn from paid courses,  you can actually learn quite alot... if you want too.    

 My inlaws paid waaaay too much for a course from the states about selling on Ebay,  especially since the course didnt touch on  Ebay.au at all and selling in Australia is slightly different.  Anyway passed the course to me so I did it.    I still have some videos to watch but I actually learned quite a bit that I would not have learned from these boards unless i knew the right questions to ask,  which a beginner would not.   For instance there are actually plenty of ways to market yourself off of Ebay but by using Ebay so you can really grow your business.    

So moral of my post is if you are paying up to 1000 maybe 1500 bux and you want to really grow your business these courses can be really helpful both from learning new things and from taking inspiration and motivation from the people around you.        My inlaws however paid 10000  😞      hehe and thats a ripoff!    

No Jewelia, the course they did was not related to PeSA,  Im not sure how they came about it,  probably received  a junk email or something with the promise of making money and fell for it.   Had they simply researched the company they would have found others already have cases open,  so i hate to say but its kind of their own fault.      However I do feel  doing courses for selling on ebay can be well worth it  I certainly did not learn 10000 dollars worth of material but I did learn alot of things that I have never seen posted on these boards and after being on these boards for a while I see that it can actually be a hostile enviornment  to learn in, especially for newbies....... of course I have also read and recieved good advice and there are helpful people dont get me wrong.    But courses/books on Ebay can be great learning tools.