Jobless bid on eBay

Britain’s first eBay millionaire says he built the business “gradually” over a decade. Today, Radcliffe handles about 30,000 orders a month, predominantly memory cards and iPod accessories.

Check out the BBC’s vodcast with Radcliffe here. And pay heed to the filming location: he’s moved the business out of his parents’ garden shed and into a huge warehouse.

It’s not just Radcliffe who’s making a mint from eBay. In January 2009, 244,000 UK-based eBay sellers generated £57m worth of export sales, up 49 per cent on last year’s figures.

Here at Real Business, we reckon we’re going to see a huge surge in startups now that unemployment has soared above two million. Economists forecast that the number could reach 3.3 million next year – higher than the mass unemployment endured under Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government in the early eighties.

Seems like Ben Bernanke’s comment that the “green shoots” of an economic recovery will appear “before very long” was a load of old cobblers.

All those jobless Britons should start clicking on eBay.

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Related articles:eBay sellers make a killing from weak poundUnemployment: two million and countingBen Bernanke sees "green shoots" of recovery

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