Berkovits explained how the process works: Customers can drop items off, or have them collected from their home. Going Gone photographs them, writes an advertisement, lists a seven-day auction on eBay and fields all customer queries via phone or e-mail. Once the auction is over, Going Gone collects payment, packages up the item, delivers it to the buyer and sends the seller a cheque. The seller never puts up any money, and if the item doesn't sell, it gets returned.

Most of this is done through an automated system that was developed in-house and also uses a complete tracking service called "sellerthon", that helps track key words and other marketing information.

Going Gone charges a commission fee of around 25 per cent on each sale.

eBay is easy to buy from but not so easy to sell over, according to Berkovits, who modelled his site on similar American businesses such as auctionbytes.com, and I-soldit.com, but changed the back end to suit the Australian market.