
Photograph by Wes Battoclette
âThis is a little bit intimidating.â
Ashley Wilson is peering into a very dark, very deep closet full of boxes. Sheâs trying to figure out how to clear them all out.
This closet is not Ashleyâs. Neither, for that matter, is this houseâa 10-year-old row house in Mt. Adams thatâs sale pending. And Ashley has absolutely no idea what she will find in the roughly 30 boxes neatly stacked along wooden shelves that run the length of the space. But she was brought in to get rid of pretty much everything, so she gets to work unpacking. Within an hour sheâll be sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by upholstered dining chairs, mismatched glassware, framed lithographs, family heirlooms, a weight-lifting bench, and a basket full of pillowsâthe organized chaos of one homeâs innards.
Ashley is an estate sales specialist (a.k.a. organizer, and in her case, photographer) for Everything But The House (EBTH), an online estate auction company with a fast-growing national presence on course to make more than $60 million in revenues this year. Founded just nine years ago, the company started in Cincinnati with two people, a website, and the hope of clearing six figures their first year just staging tag sales. Now the company has more than 500 employees, bidders in 100 different countries, and locations in 25 cities across the nation. They expect, says Chief Revenue Officer Jon Nielsen, âto more than double last yearâs revenues in 2016.â
So how did a little local tag sale business morph into something so big? And how is it that this same company continues to grow exponentially, with no signs of stopping? The story begins more than two decades ago, at a tag sale (of course) in Mariemont. It was there that Jacquie Denny, a middle-aged woman who was running a successful tag sale company called Sorting It Out, first met Brian Graves, an unkempt-looking twentysomething with long hair and a beard whoâd just gotten off the night shift at work.
He was an atypical customer,â Denny says, laughing, as she recalls that first time she saw Graves.
âAt the time I was going to college for architecture, working at UPS 43 hours a week, driving a forklift [for another company], and doing construction jobs on the side,â says Graves. He had started collecting antiques to furnish the old Victorian heâd bought with his fiancĂŠe and to supplement his income. âLiterally, every time I had a spare minute, I was going to buy stuff.â
Despite his questionable first impression, Graves eventually became âa fixtureâ at Dennyâs sales, she says, purchasing items to re-sell and even helping other customers load things theyâd bought into cars. Before long, the two discovered that âwe really had a similar alignment in terms of being an advocate for families,â says Graves. Denny, he notes, quite clearly understood âthe service componentâthe psychological impact of the transition that somebodyâs going throughâ when they have a tag sale (events usually preceded by death, relocation, or divorce). And Graves, says Denny, was âalways trying to be fair to the family,â even as a buyer. In fact, he never hesitated, he says, to tell homeowners whoâd underpriced items: âPut that back in the houseâitâs worth more.â
The pair crossed paths off and on for about 15 years. Denny stayed in the business full-time, while Graves transitioned to working in information technology, first for UPS and then Childrenâs Hospital. But right around Y2K, tag sale revenues began slowing as people began selling things online insteadâmainly on eBay. âThere was a pretty indicative change in the marketplace,â says Graves, who himself had started buying and selling online.
Still, working with eBay definitely had its flaws. For starters, finding a buyer for big ticket stuff, like cars and large pieces of furniture, was not always easy. âThere was this contingent of items that would never sell on eBay because the shipping costs were prohibitive,â Graves says. Those kinds of things needed local buyers. The other problem? eBay was great at selling items individually, but âthey couldnât eliminate the entire contents of a property.â
Denny, meantime, was one of a dwindling number of people successfully running tag sales. She and her then-part-time partner Teresa Newberry âwere still doing the covered wagon thing,â she says. Even so, âthe writing on the wall was that more and more of our clients were going to eBay.â If they were going to stay in the industry, she knew something would have to change. She also found herself frustrated with the fact that families were still left with tons of items to donate or trash after the sales ended.
In 2007, Denny and Graves decided to combine their skills to form Everything But The House. The business was to be a modern version of a tag sale for the greater Cincinnati market, with the added bonus that when the sale was over, nothing at all would be left (a concept Denny and Newberry had previously experimented with). Graves quit his six-figure job and âwe looked at how many sales weâd have to do per month to recoup his salary,â says Denny.
The pair knew that, as with eBay, a website would be an integral part of the business. But they also knew that transitioning into online auctions, especially in a limited market, could be rough. Ultimately, âwe didnât want to convert [to a web-based platform] with a very small group of people,â says Denny, âbecause then the early [seller] families would take a bath.
âNo wireless in the wagon,â she adds, âbut we actually had a plan.â
For EBTHâs first nine months, the company operated traditional tag sales and worked on bringing âawareness to the siteââusing it to market certain items at upcoming sales, but also âbuilding an e-mail list and a database, so when we made a transition to a bidding platform we actually had available bidders,â says Graves. Thanks in part to his IT background, the move online went âpretty smoothâ; still, growing a custom auction business from the ground up had its challenges.
âHistorically at live auctions youâre there the day of the saleâyou bid and take [items] home with you,â says Graves. Managing pickup and shipping logistics with an online auction was not so easy. Buyers who were supposed to be picking up would come late or forget to come altogether, and Denny did all the shipping herself. âMy whole house became a UPS shop,â she says. âThere were packing peanuts in the sink, boxes all over. My front porch became the EBTH North warehouse. My kids couldnât ask friends over because they probably thought I was a drug dealer.â
The pair also found themselves âtrying to solve everybodyâs issues,â says Denny. They began accruing voice- and e-mails from buyers, sellers, and potential clients faster than they could respond; they even hand-delivered a sold item themselves during a snow emergency when no one was allowed on the roads. By 2011 revenues were approaching $5 million annually but working â100 hours a week wasnât doing it for either of us,â says Denny.
âWe were wearing all of the hats and we were comfortable with those hats,â notes Graves, âbut thereâs only so much of us to go around.â Another hurdle: while the websiteâs software worked fine in Cincinnatiâwith what Graves describes as an âexceptionalâ bidding platform (âvery stable, with dynamics that encouraged participationâ)âit would not be able to handle a major company expansion.
In short, they needed more âhuman capitalâ to implement their vision. Graves and Denny knew they didnât want to sell, but they werenât opposed to the idea of taking on additional partners. Enter Jon Nielsen, Andy Nielsen, and Mike Reynolds. âThe three elves,â says Denny, âin the covered wagon.â
The trio of entrepreneurs had been developers (Jon and Andy are siblingsâan American businessmanâs version of HGTVâs Property Brothers), but âcoming out of the downturn,â says Andy, âwe realized that real estate wasnât really where we wanted to be.â
They were looking for something new to invest in when Reynolds, an EBTH bidder since 2009, called Jon into his office one day to show him the fledgling companyâs website. âThey had a Rolls Royce Phantom and a BMW M5,â Reynolds recalls, â[and] they were both at $5 each.â Jon, a car guy, says Reynolds, thought âit was the best thing ever.â
The cars sold to another bidder for well over $5, says Jon, but the group âfell instantly in love with the whole modelâ of EBTH. âTheir reach here already looked to be pretty substantial, and we were curious about their plans for growth.â
They contacted Denny and Graves with the intent of acquiring the business, but the founders held firm in their commitment to stay. Reynolds and the Nielsens officially joined EBTH as partners in May 2012, with Reynolds stepping in as chief financial officer, Jon becoming the chief revenue officer, and Andy the chief executive officer. (Dennyâs title now is chief development officer; Graves is chief learning officer.)

Photograph by Wes Battoclette
âWe chose this group because of who they areâtheir moral compass, their passion for the business,â says Denny. Although it was hard initially to give up control, the founders consistently today find themselves amazed at âhow the stars have continued to align,â adds Graves.
The company moved its headquarters from St. Bernard to Fourth and Walnut downtown last summer after considering a move to Chicago; it helped that the cityâtogether with JobsOhio and REDI Cincinnatiâhelped them obtain a state tax incentive of 1.259 percent for seven years, which convinced them to stay. But EBTHâs growth is best expressed in raw figures. Annual revenue shot up from $6.9 million in 2012 to $13.5 million in 2014, and Jon says they expect to surpass $60 million in 2016. (In April 2016 alone, âmonthly revenue was up by 162 percent over April 2015,â he notes.) The company has been entering roughly one new market every month since 2015. And the website, Jon adds, now boasts â750,000 or so uniques a month,â tech-speak for âvisitors.â
The âthree elvesâ brought a lot to the table, including $43 million worth of private equity and venture capital funding that theyâve raised since 2014. (According to the Business Courier, the company made the Inc. 5000 with 190 percent growth and raised the cityâs second-largest Series A round of funding in November 2014.) The new partners also ramped up the companyâs technology, using it to do everything from âprotect monies coming in for sellers,â to âinnovate marketing channels, ship unpackaged inventory with the click of a button,â and cull âdata to drive the decisions we make.â Add it all up, says Andy, and youâve got âthe beginning of the next evolution of EBTH.â
Thereâs one other very low-tech thing thatâs helped boost EBTHâs bottom line, too: baby boomers. âMany people presume that the majority of possessions on our website come from the estate of someone whoâs passed away,â says Jon. âBut over 50 percent of our business is now downsizing.â Itâs a trend, adds Denny, that likely wonât even plateau until 2030: âWeâre downsizing the largest generation in history.â
Less than a week after that first encounter with the closet, Ashleyâs back at the house in Mt. Adams. This time sheâs whittled down the homeâs sellable items into groupings, or âlotsâ; each lot, she says, should be worth at least $50 to $100. As she photographs everything for the website, her assistant for the day, Jakeâa new employeeâuses a laptop to type descriptions and do online research for some of the things sheâs found (among them: a Coca-Cola poster from the 2002 Winter Olympics, signed by Peter Max). An EBTH online tutorial for new employees serves as background noise, with the moderator periodically saying things like: âThe EBTH website is your friend.â And: âIf weâre not creating raving fans, none of this is working.â According to Denny, referrals are the companyâs best form of advertising.
The general EBTH online auction process is, by now, a well-oiled machine. A client calls, indicating theyâve got a houseful of stuff to sell. An EBTH relationship manager comes out to do a free consultation, which includes a walk-through of the property and some questions: âWhy is it they need us? What type of situation are they in? What type of timeline are they on?â says Denny. If the homeowner is readyâas 85 to 90 percent of them usually are, she saysâthey sign a contract.
The process from there lasts roughly four weeks. An organizer, like Ashley, is assigned to the project (big jobsââin excess of 40 yearsâ accumulation,â says Denny, use multiple organizers) and almost immediately gets to work dividing the homeâs contents into four categories of items: sell, donate, throw away, or set aside for the homeowner. Documents, photos, and heirlooms fall into the last category. Organizers discuss unexpected found items of a sensitive natureâlove letters, maybe pornographyâdiscreetly, with either a family member or executor.
Depending on the size of the estate, organizers spend anywhere from 2 to 10 days cataloguing everything and taking photos of the things theyâll sell. Ashley, a DAAP graduate with an art history degree, has enough education and experience to make a rough determination of value based on a little bit of online research, but EBTH has a strong in-house support network, tooâexperts in gemology, art, collectibles, coins, furniture, glassware, and porcelain are all on staff. âFor other specialties that we do not use on a daily basis, like Southwest pottery,â says Denny, âwe hold relationships with experts outside.â
After the organizers have uploaded their photographs and written descriptions of every item, the marketing staff sends out e-mails to previous bidders to drum up excitement for upcoming sales. Once a sale goes live, it stays live for seven days. Bidding for every item on the website starts at a dollar. This makes some families uncomfortable at first, says Graves, but it consistently works out in the end: âWe throw everything into the hopper for a family, and that always runs into a strong, medium, fair market valueâŚ. If youâre holding a five-figure thing in front of a football stadium of educated buyers, theyâre not going to let it go for a buck, [or even] $500. Theyâre going to understand some level of value.â And unlike on eBay, potential buyers are given additional time to make counter-offers if someone else swoops in at the last minute and ups the bid. EBTH has as much skin in the game as the homeowners: Every penny of EBTHâs profit on these sales comes from commission, typically 35 to 45 percentâno fees upfront, or on the back end, either.
Perhaps the most intriguing thing about the site is the variety of items it showcases. âCars inevitably perform very well,â says Jon. But over the past nine years, EBTH has peddled everything from yard tools to Charley Harper prints, jars of beads, antique scissors, basket collections, dresses, designer purses, and a signed Andy Warhol. Once EBTH even sold a basement full of â60-year-old newspapers for $10,â says Jon. Even better? The buyer picked them all up. âIt would have cost [the seller] $500 to have somebody come in and haul it out,â he adds. Like those papers, roughly half of all EBTH purchases are picked up; the other halfâa number that âhas grown exponentially over the last six months,â says Jonâare shipped. In new markets, notes Andy, âwe ship closer to 70 percent of our inventory.â
The biggest single-item sale in company history was $89,000, for a 2004 Boston Red Sox World Series ring. The most unusual sale item is a tie between a horse in Lexington, Kentucky, and a coffin from a funeral homeââcontents not reviewed,â deadpans Graves.
âA typical estate sale,â say Jon and Andy, âgenerates between $20,000 and $30,000. That said, we handle sales less than $20,000 and we also handle multi-million-dollar estates.â The company will also sell small lots (i.e., one roomâs worth of items or a small collection), and even single, rare items for clients. Oftentimes these smaller collections are combined with others from different clientsâkind of like a virtual multi-family yard sale. Sometimes, though, if a single itemâs value isnât very high, itâs not always worth the homeownersâ time and effort to sell it on EBTH, says Graves. âWeâre looking at each situation independently,â he notes, âand trying to see if thereâs a good fit there.â
Regardless of what theyâre selling, thereâs a definite service component to EBTH that makes the company unique. You might call it a soul, if businesses have such things. It seems to rest in the knowledge and experience that Graves and Denny accumulated over so many years buying and selling on their own. âWeâre a life-event company,â says Graves. âEverybody we deal with is experiencing death, downsizing, divorce, relocation. We make sure our crews are empathetic and understand that.â
âItâs not a sad process with us,â adds Denny, noting that the natural âclosure,â âinclusiveness,â and âtransparencyâ that come with an online estate sale all play a huge role in making clients (and their extended families) feel more comfortable about moving on. âIn all these years, Iâve never gotten one letter saying, âThanks for the big check,ââ she says. âItâs always âYour crews were angels.â Itâs always about the service component.â
One thing Denny and Graves feared theyâd lose when they first converted to an online platform was âface-to-face interactionââthe human element. But theyâre still handling those local item pickups, and earlier this year, the EBTH website staff began working to create a âcommunityâ feel by posting stories about sellersâ family histories online, like the one about a deceased woman named Fan, a Southern belle-slash-psychic who met her husband during a reading and favored all things pink. âWe found people really respond to that,â says Denny. âPeople love to become curators of things. They want to know where they came from and how they connect. Whether our parents live in a $30,000 home or a $3 million home, all of them have interesting stories.â
Another thing thatâs different about EBTH is what the executive team calls the âmulti-directionalâ aspect of the business. The company represents homeowners by selling nearly 100 percent of listed items for the best possible price and taking a huge chore off their hands during an otherwise stressful time of life. But EBTH protects potential buyers as well, by âdoing the best we can to research and represent every item and give it an accurate description,â says Graves. This includes multiple photos of every itemâdifferent angles and various close-upsâplus written descriptions that include disclaimers about damage. EBTH employees are trained to think of themselves, says Graves, as a âkind of personal representativeâ for buyers, going into a level of descriptive detail âthat you typically donât see in this industry.â
Even so, as with any auction process, buyerâs remorse is inevitable, however occasional. People get caught up in competitive bidding and sometimes pay more for an item than they really wanted to, says a cashier named Phil Germann who, along with his wife, has worked for EBTH four and a half years. But since you canât even start bidding until youâve given the website your credit card number, the buyer (and ultimately, the company) is always protected. Unclaimed items, though rare, are held in the companyâs warehouse for 21 days. After that, says Denny, theyâre usually âdonated to ReStore to support local Habitat for Humanity Projects.â
Itâs pick-up day in Mt. Adams, and thereâs been a little incident.
A local antiques dealer (and self-described EBTH addict) is standing in the garage with both hands over her eyes, muttering âOh my Jesusâ over and over again. In fact, she seems afraid to turn around. Her husband and nephew have just dropped a roughly seven-foot-tall wood and glass Chelsea House curio cabinet in their haste to load it into a pickup truck. The dealer paid $355 for the piece, and is hoping to sell it for significantly more. The glass is miraculously intact, and the rest of the piece mostly unharmed. Everyone in the room catches their collective breath.
Pick-ups are normally pretty uneventful, though, Ashley, Jake, and Phil will be glad when the day is over. They purposely stay cordial, but mostly hands-off, as buyers come to collect the treasures theyâve won. A middle-aged couple looks especially happy walking out with the signed Peter Max poster, which they snagged for $360.
Jakeâs just been promoted to organizer and next week Ashley will move on to cataloguing a new sale up in Sharonville. A few days after that an e-mail will pop up in targeted inboxes across the country touting âOur biggest, most incredible sale yet!ââthe contents of the Strader familyâs Clifton estate (Jack Strader was a local radio personality). This one has a story with it, told by Straderâs grandson, and includes everything from an âantique porcelain toilet bottleâ with bids hovering around $12, to three volumes of âAudubonâs The Quadrupeds of North America,â whose bids on day six were already up to $7,650.
The executive team is quick to note that high-profile estates are more the exception than the norm. âWhen you use the term estate, a lot of people think wealth,â says Reynolds. âItâs really the typical home we handle.â Like the one in Mt. Adams, or the one where Ashley is headed nextâa former professorâs place with a lot of science glass, Asian decor, and a Lionel train set.
Back at EBTH headquarters, plans are in the works for a new $1 million, 100,000-square-foot distribution center on Cooper Road in Blue Ash (state tax incentives came through this spring). Itâs a response, say Jon and Andy, to continually climbing âe-commerce volumesâ that will ultimately âcut down on shipping times.â The executive team is working diligently to stay ahead of the curve in an estate sales market âdriven by downsizing,â says Andy, that is estimated to grow âby $10 billion between now and 2020.â And although âthe baby boomer generation will be downsizing through 2034,â he notes in an e-mail, âGeneration X is expected to surpass the size of the baby boomer generation by 2028âand the Millennial generation already outsizes both the boomers and Gen X!â In other words, as the folks at EBTH see it, almost everyone on this planetâwell into the foreseeable futureâwill be downsizing at some point, so business is safe.
Given those facts, EBTHâs main goal is ambitiousâbecoming âthe household nameâ in estate sales, says Reynolds. But for a booming online auction company that started out as a partnership between two tag-sale buddies, the sky really might just be the limit. Sure, there will always be problems to work out. Denny and Graves continue to worry about losing that human element; as the business has grown, Denny admits âitâs harder to maintain the personal touch.â And, according to the Better Business Bureau website, where the company maintains a 3.8 out of 5 rating, shipping is still a thorn in EBTHâs side (it accounts for the majority of the companyâs consumer complaints). Even on employee review website Glassdoor.com, current and former staffers alike often mention âconstant changeâ in structure and processes as a challenging byproduct of EBTHâs rapid growth. The company takes this uncensored feedback to heart, say Denny and Graves, while trying âto see the common themes within [complaints] and just work that much harder to eliminate misunderstanding.â
There is also always the distinct possibility that an even bigger fish could try to buy them out. âAt the end of the day, itâs whateverâs best for our clients,â says Graves of the chance. âIt wasnât just about creating this business for the benefit of us, it was about creating this for the people that need access to this.â Then again, says Andy, âif weâre here in 20 years, weâre all happy.â
After all, theyâve already chosen the next 12 to 15 cities for expansion, says Reynolds, and somewhere within those cities, or the next few, will be international markets. As soon as he says that, the rest of the executive team breaks out in excited chatter. Before long, someone yells: âConquer the world! On a covered wagon!â
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