Christian Braun started Auctioning4u, the UK's first chain of eBay drop-off shops, after spending three hours putting his digital camera up for sale on eBay, which he sold for £40. "It was a lot of hassle—and it definitely wasn't worth it," he says of the experience, which taught him that while buying on the internet is dangerously easy, selling remains seriously time consuming.

Auctioning4u offers customers a way to sell on eBay without the hassle. The idea is that individuals or companies can use its home collection service or drop off anything they wish to sell (as long as the estimated value is £30 and over) at one of Auctioning4u's 10 shops in London, Brighton or Manchester. Staff then write the description, test the item to make sure it works, take a picture, list it, collect payment and post it; all the customer has to do is wait for the cheque six weeks later, less the third that Auctioning4u takes as commission.

The items sold through Auctioning4u are varied. Old hobs, sofas, TVs, exercise bikes, pianos, cars—just about everything, in fact, including the proverbial kitchen sink have been processed through the company's headquarters in North Acton, west London.

Braun, 38, was born in Detmold, in between Hanover and Dusseldorf, in Germany. His knowledge of eBay is encyclopaedic: he can tell you that mobile phones depreciate on average £3.50 a month on eBay, or that 37 per cent of sales on the site are new, and not second-hand goods. He left Germany at 22, studied in Glasgow for a year then relocated to London to do his MBA. Since then he has worked around the globe, including Russia, the Ukraine, Japan and New York for a number of companies, such as General Electric (where he headed the financial services and software team), and consultants Bain & Company.

His entrepreneurial bent began early. At the age of seven he was organising car boot sales, with the proceeds going to the German equivalent of the RSPCA. Aged nine he was selling his toys to his friends, and then buying them back at a profit a few years later when they tired of them. By 15 he was trading with collectors and had a database of buyers he would produce mail-outs for.

"I frequented the toy shops in the villages near me in Germany," he explains. "Back then, retail wasn't about profit per square foot, it was about old ladies running shops. When something didn't sell they kept it in the attic. I would come along, buy all the old stock for the old prices—they never changed the prices—ship it back home and hitchhike to the next village. Then I would go home and send a mailing list, and the orders would come in." The money he made later paid for his studies.

So far, Braun has raised £4m of finance for Auctioning4u from angel funding (mostly people he's done business with over the years), high-profile investors such as David Yu, CEO of Betfair and venture capitalists-most recently, Foresight Venture Partners. His senior management team (the chief technical officer, sales director and chief executive) have all invested in the project—"enough to be painful if they lost the business, but not so much that they can't sleep," he says. While Braun owns a third of the business, his management team owns 45 per cent.

The business has a burgeoning corporate side, too. "Now that most companies are prepared to deal with eBay, they are telling us that it's very much on their agenda," claims Braun. "Any company that has consumer products is a potential eBay customer—it could be they need to get rid of returned items, old stock, slow moving items, or end of season stock."

Companies such as Vodafone, Canon and Dell, for example, are shifting old or returned stock on the site. With this in mind, Auctioning4u has set up a consultancy arm to capitalise on its expertise in the sector. And eBay offers opportunities for smaller firms looking to quickly set up an "e-tail" operation, says Trevor Ginn, Auctioning4u's head of consulting. He told online newsletter e-consultancy: "It's an excellent way to increase brand awareness and acquire new customers".

Charities are also a big market, acknowledges Braun. He has partnered with more than 20, including children's charity Barnardo's, where customers can donate goods to be sold on eBay with a percentage of the final sale price going to the charity, or drop off goods for Auctioning4u at 120 shops in the UK (he plans to extend the drop-off facility to all of Barnardo's shops by the end of this year).

Barnardo's receives a minimum of 15 per cent of the final auction price, and sellers are encouraged to donate as well. Gift Aid applies for UK taxpayers, where the charity can reclaim the tax.

"I'm happy we can make eBay an additional fundraising channel for the charities we work with," says Braun, who admits that eBay's success has hit charities in the pocket. Better to have a slice of the cake than no cake at all. "A mobile phone, for instance, has the potential to raise up to 10 times more money if sold on eBay than in store," he notes. "They get a commission from us, often a donation from the customer, and the opportunity to add the customer to their mailing lists," he adds.

Braun's model is based partly on his vision of future retailing and the way high street shops are changing dramatically. "You can see it already on secondary high streets. Shops are closing and not getting rented out again. People are looking to shops to buy cheaply, and as easily as possible, or they are there to enjoy the experience of shopping, even if they don't buy anything." Braun predicts "reverse retailing" as a growing trend: "Normally you go to a shop, and buy something for money. With reverse retailing it's the opposite; you bring the goods and get money for it."

He intends to open more shops (four have opened already this year) and expects to make a profit for the first time by the fourth quarter of 2007. A successful franchise network will help him reach that target. He claims to have been inundated by people wanting to buy a franchise, but all except two have been turned down.

The fact that the key workers in his business have a large financial investment is important to Braun. "It's about harnessing the entrepreneurial energy of franchisees," he says. "If you have a shop run by a franchisee, then you don't get a nine-to-fiver. We need to educate the market place so my shops must be a marketing tool for us, to explain what we do."

He sees franchisees actively speaking to local electronics shops about selling old stock, or to local dry cleaners about flogging the old jackets their customers haven't picked up, to churches or schools about fundraising. "If kids want to raise money, it's much easier to ask for their father's mobile phone, or their granny's stamp collection. Unwanted possessions don't have any value to their owners. It's much harder getting cash out of people's wallets, plus it's more fun for the school."

There are similar operations in the US; 7,000 shops in total and the biggest player iSold has 900 franchises—though Braun is sensitive on the subject. "Every time you speak to a venture capitalist they ask: 'Does this work in the US?' and I say, 'Does it matter?' Do we have to follow the US? It would be better for us not to follow their example. There, they sell you the shop, and the kit, and then you're on your own."

He explains that the US franchisees follow a decentralised model, meaning each individual shop writes the description, sells and dispatches its own products. With Auctioning4u, goods are taken in the shops and despatched to the head office in North Acton, where experts in each category write the descriptions (so, if you are selling a carpet, someone who really knows about carpets will be able to sell it for a realistic price).

"If it doesn't work in America, the assumption is it doesn't work over here. It's become almost a mantra," he says. "We're doing it better than America, as a matter of fact."

Vital statistics

Christian Braun 38
Business Auctioning4u, a service that sells products on eBay on behalf of individuals and companies for a fee of one third of the final sale price
Ownership Braun has 33 per cent, his management team has 45 per cent
Funding £4m raised through business angels and venture capitalists
Turnover Approaching £5m and expected to turn a profit for the first time by the end of 2oo7