Wanting to start my own ebay shop, Advice please

indierocker85

Hi guys

Wanting to start my own ebay shop selling confectionary mainly.
Pick and Mix sweets etc.

I have looked at some of the competition on there so far. And the sales amounts per day are significatly higher than I expected.

I am in need of advice however as I am unsure as to where I need to start.

My ambition is to open my own shop eventually, however, I think if I start on ebay, I could use the gradual profit from an ebay shopp to go on and open a highstreet sweet shop.

Can anybody give me any advice?
The only thing is at the moment I have a bit of debt and only work part time, so start up capital is limited. Hence my main reason for wanting to start on ebay first.

Any help would be great thanks guys

goldndelicious

Hi,

I did exactly the same, i started selling personalised car signs on ebay, just using a bit of spare cash to then make a profit and slowly expand. Now i've left ebay behind completely and run everything from my own website http://www.personalisedcarsigns.co.uk

I've been fortunate enough that i've never had to inject any of my own money into my business, i've always just re-invested the profit.

One thing to be careful of is that you will be classed as self employed for anything you sell on ebay as a trader, and you will need to register with HMRC within 3 months.

Keep all your receipts for everything you buy for the business, as you can later claim this against your turnover, reducing the amount of tax you have to pay (as you are only taxed on your profits)

With ebay, if there are lots of people selling the same product you need to do something that makes you unique. And don't join in the orice wars game. Work out your costs and your profit margins before hand, there are some people on ebay selling car signs like myself, and for what they charge, and the materials / postage / time and effort, they can't be making much at all, so little in fact that it would be more productive to go and get a part time job stacking shelves.

I worked out my profit per item against the time it takes me to make an item to give me an estiamted hourly wage. See how long it would take you to buy your sweets, list them on ebay, sell them, bag them up and post them. then work out how much your hourly wage might be.

indierocker85

goldndelicious wrote: »

Hi,

I did exactly the same, i started selling personalised car signs on ebay, just using a bit of spare cash to then make a profit and slowly expand. Now i've left ebay behind completely and run everything from my own website http://www.personalisedcarsigns.co.uk

I've been fortunate enough that i've never had to inject any of my own money into my business, i've always just re-invested the profit.

One thing to be careful of is that you will be classed as self employed for anything you sell on ebay as a trader, and you will need to register with HMRC within 3 months.

Keep all your receipts for everything you buy for the business, as you can later claim this against your turnover, reducing the amount of tax you have to pay (as you are only taxed on your profits)

With ebay, if there are lots of people selling the same product you need to do something that makes you unique. And don't join in the orice wars game. Work out your costs and your profit margins before hand, there are some people on ebay selling car signs like myself, and for what they charge, and the materials / postage / time and effort, they can't be making much at all, so little in fact that it would be more productive to go and get a part time job stacking shelves.

I worked out my profit per item against the time it takes me to make an item to give me an estiamted hourly wage. See how long it would take you to buy your sweets, list them on ebay, sell them, bag them up and post them. then work out how much your hourly wage might be.

How does the £14.99 fee for a shop work? Do you just pay them via PayPal?

Are the shops easy to setup? And how do you promote them?

Also, is it easy enough buying from cash and carrys and simply stating that your an online buisness. What sort of proof do they need? One cash and carry round here is very insistant on proof. Also, do you pay VAT on the purchases?

Would listing items that my local cash and carry does sell on there be feasible, and then buying and shipping when it sells? Effectively drop shipping if you will?
Or is this a foolish idea?

I have a few ideas of things to seel which so far the competition aren't selling

Vomityspice

Just noticed in your shop that the 'Beer lovers' sign is free. Was tempted to buy it but I am sure it is a mistake!:beer:

goldndelicious

Thansk for that, i'll have to start paying more than peanuts to my monkey

paulwf

indierocker85 wrote: »

How does the £14.99 fee for a shop work? Do you just pay them via PayPal?

Are the shops easy to setup? And how do you promote them?

Also, is it easy enough buying from cash and carrys and simply stating that your an online buisness. What sort of proof do they need? One cash and carry round here is very insistant on proof. Also, do you pay VAT on the purchases?

Would listing items that my local cash and carry does sell on there be feasible, and then buying and shipping when it sells? Effectively drop shipping if you will?
Or is this a foolish idea?

I have a few ideas of things to seel which so far the competition aren't selling

There was a thread on this forum a little while back about selling pick n mix at car boot sales, try and find it if you can.

My advice would be:

- Highlight all the areas you need to research e.g. suppliers, self employment, how to promote on Ebay then break them down one by one. There is an Ebay forum on MSE I think if you have specific questions to ask. You've basically asked how you do EVERYTHING to run your business in one post...it is your business so be prepared to do some legwork, no one can answer all those questions in one post.

- The great thing about Ebay is you can do a trial to see if your idea is likely to work. Go into your nearest town and buy some sweets and set up a personal Ebay account and get selling. (Obviously don't go overboard with a trial as technically you should register with HMRC straight away).

- Call up Business Link after having a good read of their website and book yourself on their free business courses.

Remember with Ebay all their fees combined take up about 10% of your turnover which can be a large chunk of your profit margin. Also there is always someone who is willing to sell for less than you. The trick is to stay ahead of the competition and be at the front of new trends and new products, be careful not to buy too much stock though as markets can get saturated very quickly when the rest catch up.

bluezone101

lol you guys are so funny

COOLTRIKERCHICK

i should imagine they have higher sales than you expected because of christmas,

also i thought you couldnt put links to yuor own websites in the posts

Dirrtland

Remember with Ebay all their fees combined take up about 10% of your turnover

Hi Im Hoping to Make and sell Childrens Alternative clothing Via Ebay (to start with), Im A little worried about the Ebay and Paypal fees,

I tried to test what the paypal would take once, When Sending £1 to my dads paypal account paypal took 22p, so would that be 22p for every £1

When you say Turnover, is that meaning Annual turnover? Sorry to sound thick!!

Regards
Leea

paulwf

Leea,

The business fee structure for both Ebay and Paypal are both easily accessible...

https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-receiving-fees-outside

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/sell/fees.html

So for example if you sold an item for £9.99 you would pay 25p insertion, 8.75% final value fee, plus to Paypal 20p plus 3.4%.

Actually in that example you end up paying around 15%...bearing in mind some some industries only have a gross profit margin of 30-40% and that is before price carving on Ebay that 15% is a huge chunk.

I've seen sellers that I have suspected are making a loss simply because they forget all about selling fees.

paulwf

OP, will you intend this to be your main source of income or will it be a sideline?