is ebay really worth it?

u751904

I used to sell via ebay years ago. I think some of the rules and charges have since changed. I need to 'refresh' my understanding. I never did it seriously. My question is does anyone still believe that it is possible to still make good money out of ebay as opposed to selling directly via your own internet shop front. I am assuming here that of course effort is put into both 'channels'

I am reading more and more gripes about ebay.

One plus point I can see is that it can been a way of promoting your main internet site.

Any thoughts please?

nickj_2

i would imagine that there is more chance of getting people to see your products via ebay than just by using a search engine ,

paulwf

Someone on Ebay is always willing to sell for less than you do. Once they give up another person will come along and start selling at a loss *sigh*

You need an edge, perhaps with massive buying power or taking the risk of importing direct from China or being the first to get the product to market. However I think the real way to make money is sell something that others can't so it isn't all about price...custom items, art, antiques, something along those lines.

Ebay and Paypal can take around 15% in fees and everything favours the buyer, but the virtual footfall is so much higher than you could generate for your own website. It's hard to make money online, just as it is to make it in the real high st

u751904

Paulwf - that is interesting thank you. 15% fees. Well I guess there are a lot of people doing direct sales jobs for about 20% - 25% (avon for example) so I guess that puts it into perspective. Of course there are other overheads as with any business. I've come to think lately that you need to follow a couple of methods if you want to do this full time. It might be a case of plugging all angles then.

paulwf

u751904 wrote: »

Paulwf - that is interesting thank you. 15% fees. Well I guess there are a lot of people doing direct sales jobs for about 20% - 25% (avon for example) so I guess that puts it into perspective. Of course there are other overheads as with any business. I've come to think lately that you need to follow a couple of methods if you want to do this full time. It might be a case of plugging all angles then.

I'm not sure how easy it is to compare the two - with Avon presumably you mean you get 20-25% comms whereas with Ebay I mean you pay them around 15% (listing, shop fee, final value fee, paypal fee) of your turnover.

I just looked at the category I used to sell in, 6 years ago the largest shops in that category had 200 items listed at any time, now they have close to 2,000. As I know the rrp and markup on most items they are selling I can see that their profit margins are wafer thin, they only make a profit by automating everything and selling in such high volume, but a couple of mistakes and it is so easy to make a huge loss. Next week someone else will be along though.

If you do want to sell jigsaws and made £5 net profit each (that's net not gross) you'd still need to sell 2-4000 a year to make it a full time job...so you are right you would need several sales channels to make it viable. A lot of businesses look profitable but scaling up the numbers to make it full time can be tricky.

ukbill69

They are more focused on the buyers than the sellers, and the sellers pay there wages not the buyers. Wont trade on there no more. To many silly rules.

u751904

paulwf wrote: »

I'm not sure how easy it is to compare the two - with Avon presumably you mean you get 20-25% comms whereas with Ebay I mean you pay them around 15% (listing, shop fee, final value fee, paypal fee) of your turnover.

I just looked at the category I used to sell in, 6 years ago the largest shops in that category had 200 items listed at any time, now they have close to 2,000. As I know the rrp and markup on most items they are selling I can see that their profit margins are wafer thin, they only make a profit by automating everything and selling in such high volume, but a couple of mistakes and it is so easy to make a huge loss. Next week someone else will be along though.

If you do want to sell jigsaws and made £5 net profit each (that's net not gross) you'd still need to sell 2-4000 a year to make it a full time job...so you are right you would need several sales channels to make it viable. A lot of businesses look profitable but scaling up the numbers to make it full time can be tricky.

Very wise words re quantity needed to shift stock. I have already worked out I can't just sell jigsaws. Not many people want to spend more than £10 on a jigsaw. Sorry I wasn't very clear regarding my 'avon' comment. What I was trying to say is there are plenty of direct selling companies out there who are giving you a cut of the sale eg 20% whereby if you stocked the product yourself and sold via ebay surely that must be more profitable.

It's funny you are reminding me of these two travelling salesmen I met in a indian curry house. They sold electrical goods mainly TVs etc. I couldn't help over hearing the conversation. The tables were jammed in. Their line was roughly the same - that there was less money to be made these days as the prices had dropped so much.

I'll keep scrachthing my head for a while then... might get some good figures one day.;)

patjenkins

eBay have turned their great online selling site into an absolute joke. They are obsessed with changing the rules in favour of the buyer.

We used to sell on eBay and the search would be ranked by 'time ending' this mean't that you could be towards the top of the search by making sure you had enough product on ending at intervals. Then they changed the default search order to 'best match'. this meant that eBay decided what it thought was most appropriate to you - this saw many sellers revenue drop massively because eBay's best match feature was appalling meaning that you would end up with a load of products that just weren't relevant.

This was bad but many sellers decided to pay the tremendous amount of money (often around £150) to be positioned at the top as a 'featured product'for that search query. Although expensive, this worked fine. Then a few months later eBay changed again!

Now if you are not a 'top rated seller'you are penalised against. Now I'm not up for offering poor service to buyers, but if you do not average 0.5% or less of low DSRs then you cannot be a top rated seller!! 0.5% = 1 disgruntled person (because no one leaves 2 or 3) out of 200 transactions!!!

So in answer to your question eBay is such a minefield now that if I had know this at the start I wouldn't have got involved. You learn to deal with one change and by the time you have there are more restrictions and rule changes! and then despite this there are the idiots out there selling product for cost....

u751904

patjenkins wrote: »

eBay have turned their great online selling site into an absolute joke. They are obsessed with changing the rules in favour of the buyer.

We used to sell on eBay and the search would be ranked by 'time ending' this mean't that you could be towards the top of the search by making sure you had enough product on ending at intervals. Then they changed the default search order to 'best match'. this meant that eBay decided what it thought was most appropriate to you - this saw many sellers revenue drop massively because eBay's best match feature was appalling meaning that you would end up with a load of products that just weren't relevant.

This was bad but many sellers decided to pay the tremendous amount of money (often around £150) to be positioned at the top as a 'featured product'for that search query. Although expensive, this worked fine. Then a few months later eBay changed again!

Now if you are not a 'top rated seller'you are penalised against. Now I'm not up for offering poor service to buyers, but if you do not average 0.5% or less of low DSRs then you cannot be a top rated seller!! 0.5% = 1 disgruntled person (because no one leaves 2 or 3) out of 200 transactions!!!

So in answer to your question eBay is such a minefield now that if I had know this at the start I wouldn't have got involved. You learn to deal with one change and by the time you have there are more restrictions and rule changes! and then despite this there are the idiots out there selling product for cost....

so have you tried other auction sites. I've been catching up on the disgruntled messages about ebay. I've come to the conclusion I'd rather get a market stand. Mind you I know the weather isn't going to help with that one but summer is coming...

I think it is worth checking out other sites by the sounds of things ?

lincroft1710

Then they changed the default search order to 'best match'

I'm a buyer not a seller and always use Advanced Search so I can reset search order to "Time Ending Soonest". Some categories I've browsed have so many items I don't have time to see them all, just those ending within the week.

martindow

There are costs however you sell. Ebay puts you potentially in front of a huge audience and you end up paying fees to ebay and paypal. There can be problems with ebay sales but only a very small proportion cause problems if you describe well and run in a business like way. This forum is full of horror stories but of course people don't post if all has gone well.

With your own web site your main problem is getting the visitors by optimising your pages so that you come up in searches. A great site is useless if people can't find it. Some things are very competitive and difficult to optimise - niche items are easier (but not easy). You also need to take payments - you can use paypal but a lot of people would prefer a 'proper' shop with monthly charges and fees. You also have costs in time and money to build your site and shop.

Some people seem to use ebay and a web site in parallel. Any ebay sales get sent with a leaflet with your web site details and the hope they will then buy direct.