Ebay...can you make a regular income

williamD1964

Short and sweet. I am wondering if there is anyone here making a regular income through ebay. By this I mean an income of £1500 a calandar month after tax and ebay fees.

If there is, I would like to hear from you, if only to confirm it can be done

lincroft1710

By my (very rough) calculations that means making at least £25K p.a. profit from selling, so if you were achieving even 50% mark up, you would need to be selling about £38K worth of stuff p.a. Any less mark up and you would need much higher sales figures and your turnover would be heading you towards the need to register for VAT.

You would either need a few high end items or an incredible amount of low end sales - buy 4,000 at around £6.65 and sell at £10, to allow for bad debts, contingencies, etc.

williamD1964

This seems possible if the right item/s were bought/sold. As I said, does anyone have experience of actually doing this or anywhere near this?

hornetgirl

I don't personally, but I do know someone who does. He sells high end goods and his turnover is slightly below the VAT threshold.

lincroft1710

williamD1964 wrote: »

This seems possible if the right item/s were bought/sold.

Which is the biggest problem you will encounter, buying and selling the right items.

Go to eBay jewellery section and look under completed listings for watches such as Rolex, Chopard, Longines etc. See how many don't sell and note the BIN or opening bid price.

BTW if I were making that sort of money on eBay, I would be keeping quiet about it and not mentioning it on an open forum, even under a pseudonym.

davehills

Undoubtably, it is possible to make an income via ebay but I'd wager the number of people clearing £1500 is low; a lower income would be more feasible.

I suspect that people over estimate the potential of online businesses as a whole; most people who I know that have tried fail to make much money online.

williamD1964

lol, thanks a lot for all your input

custardy

lincroft1710 wrote: »

Which is the biggest problem you will encounter, buying and selling the right items.

Go to eBay jewellery section and look under completed listings for watches such as Rolex, Chopard, Longines etc. See how many don't sell and note the BIN or opening bid price.

BTW if I were making that sort of money on eBay, I would be keeping quiet about it and not mentioning it on an open forum, even under a pseudonym.

yup,plus you have to remember theres plenty of eBay powersellers who will undercut a rival(even at a loss) for as long as it takes to push them out of that market.
often the money for new sellers(unless the have good contacts and finance) is in finding a niche product with little/no rivals

PS,you know theres an eBay board on the forum?

williamD1964

Hi Custardy, I did but wanted to throw it directly at the forum rather than just the Ebay site. I didn't think about the powerseller problem. Thanks for the heads up. I suppose thats why I come here, for excellent advice

hermum

You can always take a look at the people who are already selling what you would like to sell. Put their ID into Goofbay seller history that will tell you how much they sold, was unsold & fees for up to 90 days.

ootie

I am self employed, part of which is ebay selling, but it's only an extremely small part.

My other jobs are mostly home based too, but not via internet, via a company I've worked for for many a year.

I also work out of the home now and again, and if necessary I take part time jobs to up my income.

Ebay can, undoubtedly, make a living for some, but I would imagine it's really hard work!