A new class for visually impaired people teaches them how they can use eBay to launch and grow their own businesses.
The eBay Accessibility Team worked with The Hadley School for the Blind to develop the educational module, Selling on eBay. The course, part of the Hadley School’s Forsythe Center for Entrepreneurship (FCE), is free and open to any blind or visually impaired person who is serious about entrepreneurship.
"Learning to sell on the eBay website is a marvelous opportunity to start a new business or to expand a current business into the online environment,” said Tom Babinszki, director of the Forsythe Center. “This module can provide so much opportunity to entrepreneurs who are visually impaired.”
The short, one-lesson module introduces students to eBay by identifying how it works, how to register, how to set up a seller account and how to purchase an item. It also discusses the basic steps for managing sales and listings on eBay, including post-sale notifications.
Interest in the class has been high, with an enrollment rate five times higher than the average Hadley course.
Hadley is the largest educator of people who are blind or visually impaired in the world, serving more than 10,000 students annually in 100 countries and thousands more through its free webinars, Seminars@Hadley (two of which have already been given on eBay topics, to accompany the launch of this module).