Do you have an Ebay business?

[bob]

I recently posted how I started my ebay biz http://www.christianpf.com/starting-...-by-step-guide
Anyone else making money with an ebay biz?

[inlovewithjen]

No, but we just listed a hand made blanket for sale (first item ever for sale), so we'll see what happens. My wife would like to make some crafts like that and sell them.... not sure if its viable though.

[Fryguy]

Nope don't have an Ebay business, we've done some buying on Ebay but no selling. After reading your article on starting an Ebay business its got me to thinking about some things around the house to put up for sale out there and see what happens. If the process is agreeable and relatively painless we'll look to expand it into a business and finding a niche that we can make some money at much like you have been able to do.

The whole idea of alternative income is intriguing to me and I've been looking for more opportunities to add to our alternative income. While its small beans now in time I have no doubt it will grow to substantial amounts.

[bob]

Fryguy,
you are right, it may be a small start, but it will teach you a lot! I think you should go for it!!

[Tristan]

I don't have an Ebay business, but I've always been interested in starting one. Come to think of it, my wife has asked me to Ebay a dress she bought a while back...

[bombero]

I've sold some stuff on Ebay, mainly old toys & other collectibles that I've collected. I haven't got into the full blown business stuff, yet. I sure did enjoy the article, though.

[welikemoney]

I sell a lot, buy semi-frequently...but don't have a business, although I loved your article on starting one. I just can't seem to come up with a good product that would be low cost but high turnaround and profit. I don't have a ton of money to keep trying until I find the right product, so I've been hesitant to even do anything about it.

[matt]

I don't have an ebay business, we do sell a lot of stuff on craigslist though, it's a great way to declutter and get rid of stuff you no longer want.

I have been reading The Four-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris and have been thinking about possibly setting some thing up. I think simply having an ebay business where I buy product and resell it could be too much of a hassle with having to ship things out myself though. Do you have any experience with a supplier who will drop-ship from their facility?

[bob]

Matt,
I haven't used a drop-shipper yet - but if you google "your product" and dropship - you will likely find a lot of suppliers, it looks like there are a lot of companies in the dropship game - the challenge I assume is finding one that doesn't eat up your profit margin with their fees

[matt]

True, I suppose it depends what you're selling.

You could also think about eliminating your ebay and paypal fees, by setting up your own ecommerce site and getting a merchant account through your local bank for accepting credit cards. However you'll then have to incurr some costs to bring buyers to your site, a google adwords campaign perhaps. You'd have to run the numbers (as always) to see if it's worth it.

[danhassler]

I have not had a full blown eBay business in a while and its honestly never been more than a passing hobby, but I have had good luck with it. The first time I sold a lot on eBay was when my wife got out of the Mary Kay business. Mary Kay requires you to buy all your product up front and then resell it. When you want to get out, you end up with a lot of excess inventory. This gave me a great opportunity to get my feet wet, selling about 250 cosmetic items. My wife helped with the descriptions, but the process itself was really quite easy. Bulk bubble mailers are the best investment you will ever make.

The second time I used eBay as a business was for a digital trading card game. This was a great opportunity at the time as you could buy cards in the game and resell them on eBay for a considerable profit. The best part was that there was no shipping to deal with. The opportunity has passed as prices have leveled out, but I kind of miss being involved in this.

I'm now trying to come up with some new endeavor to give eBay another try!

[Fryguy]

True, I suppose it depends what you're selling.

You could also think about eliminating your ebay and paypal fees, by setting up your own ecommerce site and getting a merchant account through your local bank for accepting credit cards. However you'll then have to incurr some costs to bring buyers to your site, a google adwords campaign perhaps. You'd have to run the numbers (as always) to see if it's worth it.

Being a web developer/programmer I have some experience with ecommerce . As far as setting up your own ecommerce site it all depends on how much you want to spend (both time and money) and whether you're just testing an idea or are selling a proven product(s). The ecommerce site is going to run you more to begin with but in the long run you'll probably have lower expenses provided you can bring in the traffic (and stay in business long enough to reap the benefits). With your own ecommerce site you will also have much greater flexibility than with Ebay.

The are a plethora of options from free ecommerce software packages to custom built software and everything inbetween. The processing fees generally run a flat fee plus 2-3% of the purchase, I'm not sure how that compares to Ebay. You'll usually also pay an annual fee for each type of card you accept, MC/VISA, AMEX, Discover, etc.

Depending on the package/what you want for site design you may need to hire a developer to build the template or put in a good chunk of time learning to create that yourself and integrating any additional features you'd like. For the most part the more you spend on the Ecommerce software the easier it is to use, the more features it comes bundled with and the better (hopefully) customer service is. There's not a whole lot of support for the free options.

As you stated Matt, you'll incur more costs to drive traffic to the site thru Adwords or whatever other methods you choose.

Another thing to be careful of is whether or not the ecommerce package meets the requirements for storing customer information, some of the free options out there are just a storefront and storing the data securely is your responsibility. A responsibility I'm not willing to take on.

But overall the costs longterm should be equal to or lower than what an ebay store runs and you'll get much greater flexibility out of an ecommerce store over an Ebay store.

I've probably rambled enough for now but if you're interested in more let me know.

[matt]

I'm a web designer/developer I've looked at a lot fo the free ecommerce stores and most of them are pretty confusing. I've also worked with one by microsoft that had no backend, it was probably equally as bad However I recently found a free ecommerce solution called magento that seems very easy and intuitive to use. I want to look into it further when I get some spare time but it's definitely the best free open source cart I've ever seen.

Of course you might want to wait on setting up your own store site until you've actually been quite successful through ebay. The upfront cost for an ecommerce site can be quite high and I hadn't even thought about having to securely store people's CC info. Those are things to take into consideration as well. You could also set up an ecommerce store through yahoo but there is a fee for that as well.

As always you have to measure your costs to determine if something is worth doing or moving to the next level.

[Fryguy]

Haven't heard of Magento, we had looked into a variety of ecommerce solutions both free and pay and decided on a cheaper $$ ecommerce solution. We have decent support, regular software updates and they handle all the CISP requirements for us. That alone is worth it for us.

[kristinv]

I have only bought & sold a couple of items to become a "trusted seller." This is something that I would like to pursue, however. My husband and I live in Michigan and my husband is self-employed as a builder. Needless to say, not a lot of building going on right now. I'm praying for a way to supplement our income (or lack of income). I am researching this information as often as I can. Your website has been very valuable for me to keep life in perspective!

[bobv]

I have been selling (and buying) on ebay now for almost 8 yrs with over 8000 positive feedbacks. I specialize in books mostly but will sell anything I can find at thrift stores or yard sales if its cheap enough. I make enough to pay for most of my "gadgets", my computers, and took my family on a one week cruise among other things. It takes some time and I truly believe you have a find your niche.... but once you do, there is money to be made.

[bob]

Bob,
you bring up a good point about using thrift shops to find products... I have found that the pricing structure at the ones near me is crazy. They have some items priced higher than you can find them new in stores and other items are ridiculously cheap. I noticed that the thrift store near me sells all books for $1 - so one day I grabbed up 5 popular and new hardcover books (all of which cost over $30 new) and resold them on AMazon and made about $50. I may have looked at selling them on ebay, but I am a big fan of AMazon's reseller program for books - so I went that route...

[riversongbird]

I have an eBay business which I started in August 2006. I sell mostly new clothing at discounted prices, but I also sell some used CD's, book's and just about anything I find that I think I can make a profit off of. I recently expanded into some home fragrance products, and I am looking for other ways to expand and grow. The first year and a half, I didn't make much money, but my sales are finally taking off, and now I make a nice part-time income. If I can reinvest all of the profits, I can really grow the business. eBay is a great community, but it takes time and money to build a true business. You need money for product, and time to become an established seller. Lots of positive feedback is very, very important, and only honest sellers with integrity will prosper.

For anyone who is thinking about starting an eBay business, start by selling some personal stuff that you want to get rid of. Get familiar with eBay rules, and research items to see what is selling and for how much. Books like "Starting an eBay Business for Dummies" are helpful. You will need a sales tax number for your state, and a general bookkeeping knowledge. eBay is a great way to bring in additional income, and some people have really worked their business, and have been able to grow their businesses into full-time mega eBay stores with employees, large warehouses, and multiple locations.

Check out other eBay stores and sellers for ideas, and feel free to check out my eBay store, Paradise Streams Boutique, at stores.ebay.com/Paradise-Streams-Boutique.

[bob]

riversong
thanks for sharing this - good info for those who want to get into the whole ebay selling thing...

[grandmaks]

I do not have but thinking about it, my husband could sell a lot.

[Cheryl]

I know this post is a few months old, but wanted to add to it anyway!
My husband and I recently started and eBay business…by accident!
We became huge Dave Ramsey fans last year and started on his program. We got together our $1000 emergency fund and started our debt snowball.

In April, we found out that he would be looking at unemployment by August or September. We stopped the debt snowball and started trying to bulk up our $1000 emergency fund, with gusto. But, how do we do that? Hmmm….look at all these books and videos that are just sitting here, never to be read or watched again. Aha- a yard sale! That’s how we’ll earn some extra money! We’ll sell everything we can. We be so focused on selling that, as Dave Ramsey suggests, the kids and dog will think they’re next!

Well, after pulling together what we would sell, the motivation left! The thought of pricing the items and sitting outside for 2 days hoping people would come did not conjure up much excitement. I suggested eBay as a possibility- we have purchased from eBay in the past- and decided to look into it.

After a week of reading everything we could about eBay, we launched our first auction in May. It was GREAT! As of today, our sales have been just under $1700- not bad for 2 ½ months of selling what is just sitting here!

What started as a way to increase our emergency fund has become a part-time business. We put in an average of 15 hours a week (researching, listing, shipping). After fees (eBay & Paypal fees), we gross about $100+ per week. We have since added and eBay store and sales have increased. We have learned much by joining a couple of online eBay groups. We tithe what we make on eBay and the rest goes into our emergency fund.

We now see this as a very viable business to replace my husband’s income. We now need to look into the “T” word. I’m sure the IRS will want their share!

The best part of deciding to sell on eBay rather than have a yard sale is that the kids and the dog can breathe a sigh of relief!

[bob]

Cheryl,
that is a great testimony! I'll bet most people don't think they have $1700 worth of stuff laying around the house!

[4jacks]

We now see this as a very viable business to replace my husband’s income. We now need to look into the “T” word. I’m sure the IRS will want their share!

Well, if eBay is going to replace some of your husbands income, you really need to start looking at a viable option for what is going to replace the *things* you are selling.

Not meaning you take the profits and buy more junk for the garage. But rather you start looking for things to sell on ebay once all your junk in the garage is gone.

I have a rather crafty friend who is doing this fairly well. He runs around to different thrift shops and looks for items he can sell for a profit. He was able to cut his real job to part time. It's a little tough though, and could be risky if your junk doesn't sell. He specializes in sports gear and fan items. but he will literally sell anything.

[Cheryl]

LOL, replacing stuff with stuff! Exactly what we are working on! We frequent garage/yard sales, flea markets and have the word out that we have an eBay business. I've had people invite us over to take a peak-see through the stuff they want to get rid of. I also have a friend who makes baby sweater sets who will be selling on consignment through my eBay store.

My husband wants to look into storage unit auctions and estate sales this summer.

Sourcing products is the priority now. As you said, once your own stuff is gone, time to move on and find more stuff!

[Clarinda Della]

EBAY SELLING
1. Read ebay guidelines and ebay resources
2. Decide on how you will create your listing. If you will do it yourself, invest in an HTML program such as MS Frontpage. Or you can use eBay's tools to create listings
3. Decide on auction management software. Example is Timbercreeksoftware's Sold! auction management tool timbercreeksoftware.com/pages… . Using a tool can make it easy for you to track items to list and relist, set the listing time, track customers, track status of payments and delivery, and prepare reports
4. Line up suppliers for packaging and shipping supplies - I suggest Overstock Business services because shipping is a flat rate of $2.99 even if you are buying a big box of envelopes

[Savinforthefurture]

I have sold on ebay to try and make money, and I have. But I have also lost some. I bought to resell,then I was unable to sell it. I was out not only the cost of the item, but also the time, effort, and cost of the item that I purchased. If you do sell on ebay, you have to keep track of all your expenses in order to make an accurate decision if you are making or losing money.

[Cheryl]

Update on our eBay business.

My husband is now unemployed, although he can work at his previous employer's one day a week. eBay has offset the income crunch.

We did attend (and bid on and win) a storage unit at an auction this summer. We have already made back what we paid for it. Our average sales have gone from $100/week to $200-$300 week. My niche seems to be nonfiction books as well as games and other items that I find through friends, garage/yard sales, thrift stores, etc. We spend about $40 week in product and make $200-$250 after fees, so it is working for us.

We were able to do several things we thought we would not be able to do:
1. Make this a part time business on a regular basis.
2. Pay off our debt (well, except for the student loan)
3. Make a donation to a non profit that we love!*
* This was the most exciting! We were caretakers to my cousin for several years (she lived with us). She attended an adult day care program while I worked. She passed away last summer. We have always been so greatful that the adult day care was in operation--it was the only way we could have worked and been caregivers. They were wonderful and my cousin attended there for 9 years and loved it! So, through eBay, we sold an old record collection and donated the money ($650) to the program with the stipulation that they are to use it to purchase Christmas present for their clients! They typically spend about $20-$25 per client at Christmas based on what each client likes or needs. It was wonderful to be able to help them continue that in this economy where non profits are hurting! Perfect timing for the 10 day give also!!

We are looking at next summer. I work during the school year and typically pick up a 5-7 week job working with school age children over the summer. This coming summer, that time will be spent increasing eBay and being home with my family!

~~Cheryl

[taraburner]

I sell occasionally on eBay but for sure not a 'business'

in fact I used this past two weeks to show my son and his friend how to calculate time invested and then return on investment with eBay.
While they made about $400, if they broke it down to how much they made by the hour it wasn't that great.
The time spent listing, answering questions, packaging, shipping, etc. they could've made more money with less effort.

I used to sell businesses on eBay but lately haven't had much success with that.

Tara

[parrott84]

I don't know if I have a business or not. In '08 I had $10k in sales but last year I was involved in a internship that didn't allow anytime to continue. The last couple of days I tried to get started again but noticed that eBay fee's have really gone through the roof. I generally purchase cell phones (and sometimes other items) through Craigslist and then resell them on eBay. I have generally doubled my money this way. With the new cost I don't know if I will be able to continue this. I think eBay know charges nearly 8% for fees to go along with the Paypal fees, it's getting pricey. I may try to start selling on Craigslist also. What changes have you guys had to make to adjust for eBay costs?

[4jacks]

I don't know if I have a business or not. In '08 I had $10k in sales but last year I was involved in a internship that didn't allow anytime to continue. The last couple of days I tried to get started again but noticed that eBay fee's have really gone through the roof. I generally purchase cell phones (and sometimes other items) through Craigslist and then resell them on eBay. I have generally doubled my money this way. With the new cost I don't know if I will be able to continue this. I think eBay know charges nearly 8% for fees to go along with the Paypal fees, it's getting pricey. I may try to start selling on Craigslist also. What changes have you guys had to make to adjust for eBay costs?

I agree, eBay Fees have gone through the roof. They've made several changes, that has really just pushed me away from them over the years. I use to enjoy a little bit of supplemental income from selling junk on eBay, but now, I just focus on school and my career.

[Amatachick]

My husband and I have switched to using amazon.com instead now. We've also thought of using Craigslist but haven't made the leap yet. It's a nice little side-business. We probably make around $100 extra per month selling books and video games through Amazon.

[YFSSolopreneur]

Ebay is a great tool for startups with regards to Market Testing a new product. Every dollar you spend in market testing will save you tons of headaches, dollars and losses later on in the marketing process.

I experienced great success as it helped me to early on to gather feedback on the demand, forecast short-term sales goals once the formal website was launched and gain immediate customer feedback. The opportunity to garner real-time feedback is a key component of eBay. In my experience developing multi-million dollar campaigns for Mercedes-Benz, CoverGirl/MaxFactor & Dell, companies spend hundreds & thousands of dollars on Focus Groups, Surveys and Market Research therefore, the trade-off in this regard is priceless. Also, the leads you receive from Ebay can launch your startup in the long-run since you've gained a loyal following. Cross-promotion in the early stages is beneficial.


I recommend using eBay to:
- Test the waters with a new product
- Learn more about your customer base
- Understand the demand for your product
- Play around with different variables such as pricing
- Begin to carve out your Marketing strategies via testing special Promotions


Erica ?
Young, Fabulous & Self-Employed, Founding Editor
Website: selfemployedmavens.blogspot.com
Twitter: YFSSolopreneur

[Durwin]

hey....
I don't have an Ebay business, but I've always been interested in starting one.

[webcanresel]

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