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Ebay Selling Tips From A Power Seller
tarablinc1802
Posts: 4 Newbie
Royal Mail Business Collection.
Don't queue, arrange a collection! Once you are selling regularly, you will soon tire of the daily trudge to the post office to send your mail. It costs money (driving and parking) and most importantly, it costs you time. For about £1 a day you can arrange a week-day business collection by Royal Mail. Saturday collections are also available. You can then ensure your orders are dispatched very promptly. You also use all the same postal services (recorded, International Signed For etc) as you can if you take your post to the Post Office (with the possible exception of Guaranteed Next Day Delivery which depends on your collection time). You get all the proof of postings and documentation that you get from the post office and so enjoy the same level of insurance. Sellers offering a prompt dispatch of goods get a good number of repeat customers, trust me! About 10% to 15% of my customers are return customers.
SmartStamp
Don't lick and stick - print! When your volume of sales increases it is well worth subscribing to Royal Mail SmartStamp. Basically for a modest monthly subscription, this software lets you print your own stamps on labels (you know the kind, the type with the strange barcode). The software is easy to use and prints the appropriate stamp for your specified weight, destination and mail type. Your account is debited as you print and it saves loads of time!
Payment
Accept different forms of payment Give the customer choice: let them pay by means other than Paypal. I accept cheques, postal orders and NoChex and I would estimate this generates an extra 5% of trade. Remember you don't incur transaction fees when cashing cheques and postal orders.
Business Bank Account
Get a good business bank account! Your bank will probably not be too happy with you if they suspect you are using your personal current account for business purposes.It is also easier to maintain good finacnial records if you keep your business transactions separate form your personal finances. The Alliance and Leicester and other banks offer fees-free commercial bank accounts. Nice and easy to use, the A&L account can also be accessed from the internet.
Update by Pete July 2006: one downside I have discovered with this account is that they make a hefty charge if you pay a third party cheque into your account and it bounces. If the bounced cheque is from a buyer on eBay, it is next to impossible to recover this bank fee from your customer. And if you do try, you risk getting a neg (negative feedback).
Get a Domain
Buy a Domain Name. Plan ahead.Search for and buy an appropriate domain name. Use this name in eBay, particularly to name your eBay shop. This way, you establish a consistent 'brand' identity across both eBay and on the Web and you may be able to direct some customers to your web site store. Thus my eBay store is called LetsHaveFun and my web site is LetsHaveFun.biz.
Do not just sell on eBay
Sell on the web as well as on eBay Use the domain you have to feed customers into your eBay store. Get your domain hosted and link it to your ebay store. Your domain name seller will usually host a vary basic site or provide free web forwarding. Traffic that finds its way to your web site will then be directed to your eBay shop. When established better, the time will come when it is worth the time and investment to buy or build a web store. I used Actinic and found it to be very good. The initial outlay is quite high but the increased custom is paying this investment off.
Update by Pete, May 2006
My web store has been open about 4 months now and it already accounts for about 40% of my turnover! Slightly more profitable than ebay yet I am able to price lower than on eBay because I have no eBay fees to pay in relation to these sales. With the rising eBay fees it is increasingly important to use other sales avenues.
eBays tools
Make use of eBays tools. Turbo Lister is free and enables you to produce better listings, quicker and to use listing templates. Easy to use, it is well worth getting used to. I never list in any other way than using Turbo Lister. Well worth learning. Selling Manager Pro is not free but is worth the monthly fee if you are trying to make a living from eBay.
Have patience
eBay is not a get-rich-quick option. eBay has to be the most competitive, reactive and ever-changing market out there. It will take you a while to turn a profit. You will have to work very hard and hour-for-hour, the rewards are not spectacular. On the plus side, you can enjoy flexible working hours, and have great fun being your own boss. Avoid any 'get-rich-quick' type schemes or ebooks.
Accounts are not boring!
Keep good records
It is vital to keep very good records, not just for the tax man but for your own sake. Accounts don't just tell you about the past, they can predict the future and tell you where you are going. Good records will also help you to ensure all your orders are sent out, that you do not duplicate orders, help you manage your stock, and are vital when setting prices.
Initially I used Excel to manage my accounts but after a month or so it soon became apparent this was inadequate. So I invested in Quickbooks Pro, and recommend this to anyone looking to set up a small to medium sized business. It has a nice friendly user interface, a good user community, is robust and easy to use, yet customisable. It does not (unlike some other accounts packages such as Sage) make you purchase expensive stationary. Plain old white paper is all you need to print all your needs.
Altruistic tendencies
Use eBay for other means!
As you may know, I had a heart transplant that saved my life. I am immensely lucky and grateful, and I have been using eBay to send out organ donor information, to promote the need for more registered organ donors in the UK. This is, if you will excuse the pun, something very close to my heart. If you are selling on eBay, why not use this opportunity to promote your favourite cause, charity or simply to raise awareness?
Like what you sell
Choose something to sell that you have some knowledge of, or at least an interest in. It will be more interesting for you and give you and edge over the competition.
Skills
Ok, lets cut to the important question here: can anyone sell on eBay? I think so, yes, But not everyone will succeed. My career background is in IT, programming, and web development. At a younger more naive age I also tried my hands at accounts. Dull at the time but proving very useful now. I am educated to degree level and have many years of work experience in outfits ranging from small startups to large corporations. My work has generally been very customer-focused, giving me an appreciation of 'customer care' which I am applying to eBay.
I am not trying to 'blow my own trumpet' here! I am just trying to tell you what skills I think I have needed to have, to be reasonably successful on eBay. If you are thinking of giving it a go, my last piece of advice would be to give it 110 per cent. Don't approach it in a half-hearted way, or it will show. Still want to try? Then GO FOR IT! Good luck, and have fun!
Investment and budgeting
How much does it cost to start an eBay business? I think there is a lot of scope here. You could invest very little capital indeed and slowly build up your business. If you want more immediate results and plan on selling as a full-time or part-time occupation, the initial outlays can be quite high. I initially invested about £10,000 in stock and capital equipment. On top of this the monthly running costs can be quite a bit higher than you might anticipate.
The capital equipment that I purchased early on included:
1. A bloody good PC with a large hard disk and backup facilities. Remember the computer is your gateway to the market. The quicker it is, the quicker you can work. Backup facilities are essential. At some point you WILL need to recover data!
2. Internet software and backup software (Norton Systemworks including Norton Ghost for automated backups, and Internet Security software). Keep your PC secure.
3. Accounts software (Quickbooks Pro) about £200 I think - worth shopping around for.
4. Web shop software. I went for ActinicCatalog, cost about £315.
5. Postal Scales - eBay purchase, about £22
6. Years prepaid Royal Mail Business collection service incl Saturdays about £375.
7. Photographic equipment including a decent digital camera, tripod, lighting and light tents to take product photos. About £400. Mainly from eBay.
8. Decent printer with scanner, fax, copier (I went for the HP Officejet 7310, purchased on eBay, £250).
9. Decent chair - you will be sitting at a PC for long periods, make sure your workspace is comfortable.
10. Shelving units for storage of stock. Also purchased on eBay, I must recommend the metal shelving units sold by BigDug.co.uk. About £300.
11. Domain names. £30
12. Label Wizard Business Software. Prints super address labels in a friendly, quick way. £20 on ebay.
13. Warehouse materials such as envelopes, packing tapes, bubblewrap, Jiffy bags etc.
14. Broadband internet connection and subscription.
On-going costs include:
1. Electricity annd heating. You will probably be working from home and this will increase your consumption. Put a proportion of the costs down in your accounts.
2. Internet broadband. I managed on dial-up for a while, but Broadband pays for itself; it is so quick it saves me time and thus money.
3. Internet hosting with MySQL database about £70 per year (I chose Fasthosts).
4. SmartStamp subscription - this is a Royal Mail service and costs about £5 per month to print your own stamps, Saves time and effort. Recommened - excellent software calculates your postal costs and prints a stamp. Postal charges automativcally taken from your account. Beats sticking stamps on all day.
5. Packing materials. Bulk buy to save money. I use Zignig who have never let me down and are very competitive.
6. eBay fees. These will be a MAJOR monthly cost. It is easy to list too many items and lose money. Use shop listings as much as possible to reduce costs.
7. Printing supplies. Printer cartridges are quite expensive.
8. PayPal and postage fees. These are significant. They account for about 30% of my expenditure.
9. Customs Duty and VAT. If you are importing goods you will end up paying import duties, carrier handling charges and customs VAT. Make sure you include these costs when setting your prices. They an additional cost of goods sold.
Use eBay!
Buy on eBay!
If you are going to sell on eBay, why not shop there too? It adds to your all-important eBay feedback score, and is usually cheaper too.
Do open an eBay shop. You can then take advantage of the cheap shop listings. Don't get sucked into using the Picture Manager service just because you get a few megabytes of storage space free with your shop, it is far better to host your own photos. Don't over-list on eBay. This is a common mistake (I made it too) and can result in your listing fees being far higher than the income they generate. Remember that sales of shop inventory Good Til Gone items are the most profitable since they have the lowest fees.
Use the eBay advanced search to look at products that have finished to see (a) whether they sold, (b) how much they sold for and (c) the volume of sales in the time period shown. This will help you judge whether (a) the market is saturated, (b) the profitability of selling the item, and (c) how much stock you might reasonably expect to sell.
A few words of Caution!
Do not expect instant returns
After 9 months of selling on eBay I am still paying off my capital investment. I have not withdrawn any 'wages' yet, every penny of profit is reinvested. I do not expect to turn a profit sufficient to let me draw a regular wage for the first year of trading. I do not expect my accounts to show any significant profit for the first year. But I expected this, and am in it for the long run.
It is hard work.
I spend a good deal of my 'spare' time researching products, learning how to use software, doing my accounts etc. eBay selling is a time-eater. Only do it if you enjoy it!
You work from home
Working from home is a plus in many ways. Play your music, take a break when you want. But you need to be pretty self-diciplined too. The post MUST be got ready for collection. You MUST be in for the collection. You must restock as you sell. So you MUST be in when a wholesale delivery is expected.
It is menial
Having made the sale, you have to pick the order, pack it, weigh and stamp it, fill in any Royal Mail paperwork (International Signed For, Recorded Delivery books etc) then dispatch it. This can quickly become mundane. Unfortunately, the more sales you make, the more of your time will be spent doing the less interesting tasks. Catch 22!
It is very competitive
eBay is a highly competitive marketplace and reacts quickly to price changes. Some competitors can be pretty ruthless. They will resort to underhand tactics to try to protect their business. You may find eBay contacting you to report some breach of their many policies, for which you could lose your powerseller status, have fees imposed, have to revise your listings, lose feedback, or be othewise chastised. This is more often than not the result of a competitor reporting you to eBay. Keep everything you do within the eBay policies and guidelines or expect to get caught. Good luck though, there are a myriad of policies that are all too easy to breach.
It is all down to YOU
You are running your own business. The buck stops with you. . Any mistakes are down to you and there is no-one else to blame. It is your money that you stand to lose if you !!!! up.
The benefits
Flexible working
I look after my 2 kids and pick them up from school etc. Selling on eBay gives me the flexibility to do this.
Rewarding
Selling on eBay gives me tremendous job satisfaction.
Your success is in YOUR hands
You are running your own business.You are the boss. You answer to nobody. You wear what you like. You do not have to attend endless meetings. You will never have to work for or with someone you do not like. You can work ethically and with a conscience. No office politics. No 'blamestorming'. If the sun is out, you can take a break, without asking. Need a holiday? Just shut your shop and go. No 'annual leave' entitlements to worry about!
Better work-life balance.
You gain greater control over your own life. You enjoy a far better work-life balance. No daily commute to work! No traffic jams, delayed trains, or cancelled bus services.
The Tax Man
Register as a Sole Trader
If this is to become your business, you need to be legit. You will need to register as a sole trader and declare your income. If you don't, your competitors might do so for you.
VAT
You don''t need to register for VAT unless your annual turnover exceeds a certain limit (presently about £60,000 pa).
International Trade
Do sell to other countries. The UK is tiny compared to the world, and eBay is a world-wide community.
Speak every language
You will get contacted by customers from all over the world and this can be quite daunting. Especially if you are as weak at foreign languages as I am! But sure enough, the internet comes to the rescue with some free translation sites. My favourite is world.altavista.com. Bookmark it now!
Most importantly
HAVE FUN! If selling becomes a boring daily drudge then you are not enjoying selling and this will become apparent to your customers.
Don't queue, arrange a collection! Once you are selling regularly, you will soon tire of the daily trudge to the post office to send your mail. It costs money (driving and parking) and most importantly, it costs you time. For about £1 a day you can arrange a week-day business collection by Royal Mail. Saturday collections are also available. You can then ensure your orders are dispatched very promptly. You also use all the same postal services (recorded, International Signed For etc) as you can if you take your post to the Post Office (with the possible exception of Guaranteed Next Day Delivery which depends on your collection time). You get all the proof of postings and documentation that you get from the post office and so enjoy the same level of insurance. Sellers offering a prompt dispatch of goods get a good number of repeat customers, trust me! About 10% to 15% of my customers are return customers.
SmartStamp
Don't lick and stick - print! When your volume of sales increases it is well worth subscribing to Royal Mail SmartStamp. Basically for a modest monthly subscription, this software lets you print your own stamps on labels (you know the kind, the type with the strange barcode). The software is easy to use and prints the appropriate stamp for your specified weight, destination and mail type. Your account is debited as you print and it saves loads of time!
Payment
Accept different forms of payment Give the customer choice: let them pay by means other than Paypal. I accept cheques, postal orders and NoChex and I would estimate this generates an extra 5% of trade. Remember you don't incur transaction fees when cashing cheques and postal orders.
Business Bank Account
Get a good business bank account! Your bank will probably not be too happy with you if they suspect you are using your personal current account for business purposes.It is also easier to maintain good finacnial records if you keep your business transactions separate form your personal finances. The Alliance and Leicester and other banks offer fees-free commercial bank accounts. Nice and easy to use, the A&L account can also be accessed from the internet.
Update by Pete July 2006: one downside I have discovered with this account is that they make a hefty charge if you pay a third party cheque into your account and it bounces. If the bounced cheque is from a buyer on eBay, it is next to impossible to recover this bank fee from your customer. And if you do try, you risk getting a neg (negative feedback).
Get a Domain
Buy a Domain Name. Plan ahead.Search for and buy an appropriate domain name. Use this name in eBay, particularly to name your eBay shop. This way, you establish a consistent 'brand' identity across both eBay and on the Web and you may be able to direct some customers to your web site store. Thus my eBay store is called LetsHaveFun and my web site is LetsHaveFun.biz.
Do not just sell on eBay
Sell on the web as well as on eBay Use the domain you have to feed customers into your eBay store. Get your domain hosted and link it to your ebay store. Your domain name seller will usually host a vary basic site or provide free web forwarding. Traffic that finds its way to your web site will then be directed to your eBay shop. When established better, the time will come when it is worth the time and investment to buy or build a web store. I used Actinic and found it to be very good. The initial outlay is quite high but the increased custom is paying this investment off.
Update by Pete, May 2006
My web store has been open about 4 months now and it already accounts for about 40% of my turnover! Slightly more profitable than ebay yet I am able to price lower than on eBay because I have no eBay fees to pay in relation to these sales. With the rising eBay fees it is increasingly important to use other sales avenues.
eBays tools
Make use of eBays tools. Turbo Lister is free and enables you to produce better listings, quicker and to use listing templates. Easy to use, it is well worth getting used to. I never list in any other way than using Turbo Lister. Well worth learning. Selling Manager Pro is not free but is worth the monthly fee if you are trying to make a living from eBay.
Have patience
eBay is not a get-rich-quick option. eBay has to be the most competitive, reactive and ever-changing market out there. It will take you a while to turn a profit. You will have to work very hard and hour-for-hour, the rewards are not spectacular. On the plus side, you can enjoy flexible working hours, and have great fun being your own boss. Avoid any 'get-rich-quick' type schemes or ebooks.
Accounts are not boring!
Keep good records
It is vital to keep very good records, not just for the tax man but for your own sake. Accounts don't just tell you about the past, they can predict the future and tell you where you are going. Good records will also help you to ensure all your orders are sent out, that you do not duplicate orders, help you manage your stock, and are vital when setting prices.
Initially I used Excel to manage my accounts but after a month or so it soon became apparent this was inadequate. So I invested in Quickbooks Pro, and recommend this to anyone looking to set up a small to medium sized business. It has a nice friendly user interface, a good user community, is robust and easy to use, yet customisable. It does not (unlike some other accounts packages such as Sage) make you purchase expensive stationary. Plain old white paper is all you need to print all your needs.
Altruistic tendencies
Use eBay for other means!
As you may know, I had a heart transplant that saved my life. I am immensely lucky and grateful, and I have been using eBay to send out organ donor information, to promote the need for more registered organ donors in the UK. This is, if you will excuse the pun, something very close to my heart. If you are selling on eBay, why not use this opportunity to promote your favourite cause, charity or simply to raise awareness?
Like what you sell
Choose something to sell that you have some knowledge of, or at least an interest in. It will be more interesting for you and give you and edge over the competition.
Skills
Ok, lets cut to the important question here: can anyone sell on eBay? I think so, yes, But not everyone will succeed. My career background is in IT, programming, and web development. At a younger more naive age I also tried my hands at accounts. Dull at the time but proving very useful now. I am educated to degree level and have many years of work experience in outfits ranging from small startups to large corporations. My work has generally been very customer-focused, giving me an appreciation of 'customer care' which I am applying to eBay.
I am not trying to 'blow my own trumpet' here! I am just trying to tell you what skills I think I have needed to have, to be reasonably successful on eBay. If you are thinking of giving it a go, my last piece of advice would be to give it 110 per cent. Don't approach it in a half-hearted way, or it will show. Still want to try? Then GO FOR IT! Good luck, and have fun!
Investment and budgeting
How much does it cost to start an eBay business? I think there is a lot of scope here. You could invest very little capital indeed and slowly build up your business. If you want more immediate results and plan on selling as a full-time or part-time occupation, the initial outlays can be quite high. I initially invested about £10,000 in stock and capital equipment. On top of this the monthly running costs can be quite a bit higher than you might anticipate.
The capital equipment that I purchased early on included:
1. A bloody good PC with a large hard disk and backup facilities. Remember the computer is your gateway to the market. The quicker it is, the quicker you can work. Backup facilities are essential. At some point you WILL need to recover data!
2. Internet software and backup software (Norton Systemworks including Norton Ghost for automated backups, and Internet Security software). Keep your PC secure.
3. Accounts software (Quickbooks Pro) about £200 I think - worth shopping around for.
4. Web shop software. I went for ActinicCatalog, cost about £315.
5. Postal Scales - eBay purchase, about £22
6. Years prepaid Royal Mail Business collection service incl Saturdays about £375.
7. Photographic equipment including a decent digital camera, tripod, lighting and light tents to take product photos. About £400. Mainly from eBay.
8. Decent printer with scanner, fax, copier (I went for the HP Officejet 7310, purchased on eBay, £250).
9. Decent chair - you will be sitting at a PC for long periods, make sure your workspace is comfortable.
10. Shelving units for storage of stock. Also purchased on eBay, I must recommend the metal shelving units sold by BigDug.co.uk. About £300.
11. Domain names. £30
12. Label Wizard Business Software. Prints super address labels in a friendly, quick way. £20 on ebay.
13. Warehouse materials such as envelopes, packing tapes, bubblewrap, Jiffy bags etc.
14. Broadband internet connection and subscription.
On-going costs include:
1. Electricity annd heating. You will probably be working from home and this will increase your consumption. Put a proportion of the costs down in your accounts.
2. Internet broadband. I managed on dial-up for a while, but Broadband pays for itself; it is so quick it saves me time and thus money.
3. Internet hosting with MySQL database about £70 per year (I chose Fasthosts).
4. SmartStamp subscription - this is a Royal Mail service and costs about £5 per month to print your own stamps, Saves time and effort. Recommened - excellent software calculates your postal costs and prints a stamp. Postal charges automativcally taken from your account. Beats sticking stamps on all day.
5. Packing materials. Bulk buy to save money. I use Zignig who have never let me down and are very competitive.
6. eBay fees. These will be a MAJOR monthly cost. It is easy to list too many items and lose money. Use shop listings as much as possible to reduce costs.
7. Printing supplies. Printer cartridges are quite expensive.
8. PayPal and postage fees. These are significant. They account for about 30% of my expenditure.
9. Customs Duty and VAT. If you are importing goods you will end up paying import duties, carrier handling charges and customs VAT. Make sure you include these costs when setting your prices. They an additional cost of goods sold.
Use eBay!
Buy on eBay!
If you are going to sell on eBay, why not shop there too? It adds to your all-important eBay feedback score, and is usually cheaper too.
Do open an eBay shop. You can then take advantage of the cheap shop listings. Don't get sucked into using the Picture Manager service just because you get a few megabytes of storage space free with your shop, it is far better to host your own photos. Don't over-list on eBay. This is a common mistake (I made it too) and can result in your listing fees being far higher than the income they generate. Remember that sales of shop inventory Good Til Gone items are the most profitable since they have the lowest fees.
Use the eBay advanced search to look at products that have finished to see (a) whether they sold, (b) how much they sold for and (c) the volume of sales in the time period shown. This will help you judge whether (a) the market is saturated, (b) the profitability of selling the item, and (c) how much stock you might reasonably expect to sell.
A few words of Caution!
Do not expect instant returns
After 9 months of selling on eBay I am still paying off my capital investment. I have not withdrawn any 'wages' yet, every penny of profit is reinvested. I do not expect to turn a profit sufficient to let me draw a regular wage for the first year of trading. I do not expect my accounts to show any significant profit for the first year. But I expected this, and am in it for the long run.
It is hard work.
I spend a good deal of my 'spare' time researching products, learning how to use software, doing my accounts etc. eBay selling is a time-eater. Only do it if you enjoy it!
You work from home
Working from home is a plus in many ways. Play your music, take a break when you want. But you need to be pretty self-diciplined too. The post MUST be got ready for collection. You MUST be in for the collection. You must restock as you sell. So you MUST be in when a wholesale delivery is expected.
It is menial
Having made the sale, you have to pick the order, pack it, weigh and stamp it, fill in any Royal Mail paperwork (International Signed For, Recorded Delivery books etc) then dispatch it. This can quickly become mundane. Unfortunately, the more sales you make, the more of your time will be spent doing the less interesting tasks. Catch 22!
It is very competitive
eBay is a highly competitive marketplace and reacts quickly to price changes. Some competitors can be pretty ruthless. They will resort to underhand tactics to try to protect their business. You may find eBay contacting you to report some breach of their many policies, for which you could lose your powerseller status, have fees imposed, have to revise your listings, lose feedback, or be othewise chastised. This is more often than not the result of a competitor reporting you to eBay. Keep everything you do within the eBay policies and guidelines or expect to get caught. Good luck though, there are a myriad of policies that are all too easy to breach.
It is all down to YOU
You are running your own business. The buck stops with you. . Any mistakes are down to you and there is no-one else to blame. It is your money that you stand to lose if you !!!! up.
The benefits
Flexible working
I look after my 2 kids and pick them up from school etc. Selling on eBay gives me the flexibility to do this.
Rewarding
Selling on eBay gives me tremendous job satisfaction.
Your success is in YOUR hands
You are running your own business.You are the boss. You answer to nobody. You wear what you like. You do not have to attend endless meetings. You will never have to work for or with someone you do not like. You can work ethically and with a conscience. No office politics. No 'blamestorming'. If the sun is out, you can take a break, without asking. Need a holiday? Just shut your shop and go. No 'annual leave' entitlements to worry about!
Better work-life balance.
You gain greater control over your own life. You enjoy a far better work-life balance. No daily commute to work! No traffic jams, delayed trains, or cancelled bus services.
The Tax Man
Register as a Sole Trader
If this is to become your business, you need to be legit. You will need to register as a sole trader and declare your income. If you don't, your competitors might do so for you.
VAT
You don''t need to register for VAT unless your annual turnover exceeds a certain limit (presently about £60,000 pa).
International Trade
Do sell to other countries. The UK is tiny compared to the world, and eBay is a world-wide community.
Speak every language
You will get contacted by customers from all over the world and this can be quite daunting. Especially if you are as weak at foreign languages as I am! But sure enough, the internet comes to the rescue with some free translation sites. My favourite is world.altavista.com. Bookmark it now!
Most importantly
HAVE FUN! If selling becomes a boring daily drudge then you are not enjoying selling and this will become apparent to your customers.
0
Comments
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Nice... then you get the "Your account has been limited - Routing Code etc." or "Notification of Limited Account Access OMARCP", your Paypal fund frozen for no reason and there you go strawberry picking again... :eek:
I am not sure it's worth investing so heavily on eBay nowadays.... no offence, nice post though.*_*_* Department of Redundancy Department *_*_*0 -
So are you Peter Thake, or just an admirer of his work?<--- Nothing to see here - move along --->0
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admirer im not taking credit:P i thought it would help alot of people here as i looked and havent found such a useful post for ebay yet0
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tarablinc1802 wrote:If you are going to sell on eBay, why not shop there too? It adds to your all-important eBay feedback score
If you buy on your selling account your asking for trouble.
at why anyone would buy all that software and hardware when starting up. It could have been done far cheaper
I always wonder why people post others work without referencing them until someone points it out........................0 -
I think it's a comprehensive and helpful list : New ebayers should take note.
Thank you xAre you a Thrifty Beatnik?0 -
Or you can use paypal postage, or RM own services.... without subscription. Better yet, if you really are big enough to need all this.... stuff.... then get a franking account and actually save money.tarablinc1802 wrote: »SmartStamp
Don't lick and stick - print! When your volume of sales increases it is well worth subscribing to Royal Mail SmartStamp. Basically for a modest monthly subscription, this software lets you print your own stamps on labels (you know the kind, the type with the strange barcode). The software is easy to use and prints the appropriate stamp for your specified weight, destination and mail type. Your account is debited as you print and it saves loads of time!
Maybe, but paypal is at least instant- you get some strange people who want their stuff yesterday despite paying by cheque.Payment
Accept different forms of payment Give the customer choice: let them pay by means other than Paypal. I accept cheques, postal orders and NoChex and I would estimate this generates an extra 5% of trade. Remember you don't incur transaction fees when cashing cheques and postal orders.
You also have to factor in cheques getting lost, cheques you can't identify etc.
Neg territory, but I'll conceed it works for some people.
only if you plan to actually use it, otherwise it's just a waste of moneyGet a Domain
Buy a Domain Name. Plan ahead.Search for and buy an appropriate domain name. Use this name in eBay, particularly to name your eBay shop. This way, you establish a consistent 'brand' identity across both eBay and on the Web and you may be able to direct some customers to your web site store. Thus my eBay store is called LetsHaveFun and my web site is LetsHaveFun.biz.
as above...Do not just sell on eBay
Sell on the web as well as on eBay Use the domain you have to feed customers into your eBay store. Get your domain hosted and link it to your ebay store. Your domain name seller will usually host a vary basic site or provide free web forwarding. Traffic that finds its way to your web site will then be directed to your eBay shop. When established better, the time will come when it is worth the time and investment to buy or build a web store. I used Actinic and found it to be very good. The initial outlay is quite high but the increased custom is paying this investment off.
Update by Pete, May 2006
My web store has been open about 4 months now and it already accounts for about 40% of my turnover! Slightly more profitable than ebay yet I am able to price lower than on eBay because I have no eBay fees to pay in relation to these sales. With the rising eBay fees it is increasingly important to use other sales avenues.
50% of the above is unnessecary.Investment and budgeting
How much does it cost to start an eBay business? I think there is a lot of scope here. You could invest very little capital indeed and slowly build up your business. If you want more immediate results and plan on selling as a full-time or part-time occupation, the initial outlays can be quite high. I initially invested about £10,000 in stock and capital equipment. On top of this the monthly running costs can be quite a bit higher than you might anticipate.
The capital equipment that I purchased early on included:
1. A bloody good PC with a large hard disk and backup facilities. Remember the computer is your gateway to the market. The quicker it is, the quicker you can work. Backup facilities are essential. At some point you WILL need to recover data!
2. Internet software and backup software (Norton Systemworks including Norton Ghost for automated backups, and Internet Security software). Keep your PC secure.
3. Accounts software (Quickbooks Pro) about £200 I think - worth shopping around for.
4. Web shop software. I went for ActinicCatalog, cost about £315.
5. Postal Scales - eBay purchase, about £22
6. Years prepaid Royal Mail Business collection service incl Saturdays about £375.
7. Photographic equipment including a decent digital camera, tripod, lighting and light tents to take product photos. About £400. Mainly from eBay.
8. Decent printer with scanner, fax, copier (I went for the HP Officejet 7310, purchased on eBay, £250).
9. Decent chair - you will be sitting at a PC for long periods, make sure your workspace is comfortable.
10. Shelving units for storage of stock. Also purchased on eBay, I must recommend the metal shelving units sold by BigDug.co.uk. About £300.
11. Domain names. £30
12. Label Wizard Business Software. Prints super address labels in a friendly, quick way. £20 on ebay.
13. Warehouse materials such as envelopes, packing tapes, bubblewrap, Jiffy bags etc.
14. Broadband internet connection and subscription.
On-going costs include:
1. Electricity annd heating. You will probably be working from home and this will increase your consumption. Put a proportion of the costs down in your accounts.
2. Internet broadband. I managed on dial-up for a while, but Broadband pays for itself; it is so quick it saves me time and thus money.
3. Internet hosting with MySQL database about £70 per year (I chose Fasthosts).
4. SmartStamp subscription - this is a Royal Mail service and costs about £5 per month to print your own stamps, Saves time and effort. Recommened - excellent software calculates your postal costs and prints a stamp. Postal charges automativcally taken from your account. Beats sticking stamps on all day.
5. Packing materials. Bulk buy to save money. I use Zignig who have never let me down and are very competitive.
6. eBay fees. These will be a MAJOR monthly cost. It is easy to list too many items and lose money. Use shop listings as much as possible to reduce costs.
7. Printing supplies. Printer cartridges are quite expensive.
8. PayPal and postage fees. These are significant. They account for about 30% of my expenditure.
9. Customs Duty and VAT. If you are importing goods you will end up paying import duties, carrier handling charges and customs VAT. Make sure you include these costs when setting your prices. They an additional cost of goods sold.
You can use your normal computer, and freeware (for example norton is not worth the space it takes up on your harddrive)
Don't buy on the same account.Use eBay!
Buy on eBay!
If you are going to sell on eBay, why not shop there too? It adds to your all-important eBay feedback score, and is usually cheaper too.
Do open an eBay shop. You can then take advantage of the cheap shop listings. Don't get sucked into using the Picture Manager service just because you get a few megabytes of storage space free with your shop, it is far better to host your own photos. Don't over-list on eBay. This is a common mistake (I made it too) and can result in your listing fees being far higher than the income they generate. Remember that sales of shop inventory Good Til Gone items are the most profitable since they have the lowest fees.
Use the eBay advanced search to look at products that have finished to see (a) whether they sold, (b) how much they sold for and (c) the volume of sales in the time period shown. This will help you judge whether (a) the market is saturated, (b) the profitability of selling the item, and (c) how much stock you might reasonably expect to sell.
If you do you are assuming that every transaction you make is going to be smooth and sucessful.
There are revengeful people out there and this is just giving them ammo.
No offense to the OP, but this is why I am picking holes.A few words of Caution!
Do not expect instant returns
After 9 months of selling on eBay I am still paying off my capital investment. I have not withdrawn any 'wages' yet, every penny of profit is reinvested. I do not expect to turn a profit sufficient to let me draw a regular wage for the first year of trading. I do not expect my accounts to show any significant profit for the first year.
We were in profit from month 2.
Because we had to be, granted, but mostly because we didn't !!!!!! around with all this nonsense.
The average small business needs a no frills approach, and this is just overcomplicating it.This is my opinion. There are many others like it but this is mine:kisses2: Fiancee of the "lovely" DaveAshton :kisses2:I am a professional ebay seller. I work hard at my job, I love my job, if you think it's silly that's your problem not mine.
0 -
With all due respect, there are a lot better 'deals' to be had with RM than those you describe. If you have a business account with RM your postage costs will be cut by a third, even more if you opt for another business service. If your volume is good, your discount is great.
Your business model is flawed if you are not in profit after 9 months. Sorry.
Whilst some of your pointers are relevant they are not aimed at a serious business seller. If you have a RM collection for instance, you do not need be IN for it, likewise with deliveries. But then I have an excellent relationship with wholesalers, delivery drivers and suppliers alike. I call the tune and they hum it.
This forum is an excellent means of expanding all our collective knowledge, as knowledge held by one individual is nothing at all.0 -
Hi a very long post and not very useful for someone starting out on ebay I believe this article was initially wrote to put people off of selling or starting a business on ebay.
Point one if I thought that when I first started selling on ebay I would need an investment of £10000 and to subscribe to monthly payments all over the place just to stand a chance of becoming a powerseller and building a business on ebay I would have run a mile and never opened a seller account.
Point two some of this advise works but only after you have built a seller account up to the stage where you are selling large quantities of stock daily.
Point three most if not all of these computer upgrades are unneeded my favourite was this one "8. Decent printer with scanner, fax, copier (I went for the HP Officejet 7310, purchased on eBay, £250)" why do I need a fax when everyone I am going to deal with online will have an email address if you have a normal printer this will do just fine.
The thing I get out of this is that if I were to take this advise on board right now I would need so spend a couple of thousand myself and my seller account is running ok without all of this extra kit.
My advise is to keep your spending when you first start out to a minimum and only buy something if you find out your business needs it and you will get use out of it.
And most important as has already been pointed out you need to have one buying account and a separate seller account the main reason for this is you don't want your customers reading your feedback and finding out what you paid for something you are now trying to sell and make a profit on.0 -
Hi a very long post and not very useful for someone starting out on ebay I believe this article was initially wrote to put people off of selling or starting a business on ebay.
Point one if I thought that when I first started selling on ebay I would need an investment of £10000 and to subscribe to monthly payments all over the place just to stand a chance of becoming a powerseller and building a business on ebay I would have run a mile and never opened a seller account.
Point two some of this advise works but only after you have built a seller account up to the stage where you are selling large quantities of stock daily.
Point three most if not all of these computer upgrades are unneeded my favourite was this one "8. Decent printer with scanner, fax, copier (I went for the HP Officejet 7310, purchased on eBay, £250)" why do I need a fax when everyone I am going to deal with online will have an email address if you have a normal printer this will do just fine.
The thing I get out of this is that if I were to take this advise on board right now I would need so spend a couple of thousand myself and my seller account is running ok without all of this extra kit.
My advise is to keep your spending when you first start out to a minimum and only buy something if you find out your business needs it and you will get use out of it.
And most important as has already been pointed out you need to have one buying account and a separate seller account the main reason for this is you don't want your customers reading your feedback and finding out what you paid for something you are now trying to sell and make a profit on.
I agree, most of it is unnecessary. especially with the printer. A basic one will do (£30) its only for postage labels and the odd photocopy. Maybe the odd picture to be printed.
But £250 is ridiculous. why spend so much money before you have sold anything.0 -
"7. Photographic equipment including a decent digital camera, tripod, lighting and light tents to take product photos. About £400. Mainly from eBay."
If you need to buy all this stuff to start your shop, I bet you won't know how to use it.0
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