~Avon Hints & Tips (Part 8) ~ Please read first post :)

I,_Geek

MarsdenCuckoo wrote: »

Have never sold anything on E-Bay but often wondered if I should consider it. Is it easy to set up/expensive

It's so long since I set up my eBay account, but it's probably an easy thing to do. You also need to set up a PayPal account, which I think involves a phonecall to your house as a security check. You link your PayPal account to a credit or debit card (mine's to a debit card for my bank account). This way if you don't have funds in your PayPal account it goes straight to your bank account funds, and it allows you to transfer money to your bank account in a couple of clicks.

Your eBay account should really be a business one. I don't know how they police it but if you listed a lot of items, particularly all Avon, it would look like you're not just selling on personal things. Business accounts can't take advantage of free listing days.

Both eBay and PayPal accounts are free to set up.

Fees if you DON'T have an eBay shop
- PayPal - based on your total incoming money per purchase. Sell something for £9.99 (total including p+p) and the fee's 54p, £3.99 and it's a 34p fee - so the fee goes down proportionally depending on how much money you've got coming in in a single transaction.
- Insertion Fee - 40p for buy-it-now. Not sure how it works for auctions since I always do BINs. As a customer I prefer them. Within this one listing you can list variations on the same item - different colours, sizes etc... So the one listing costs you 40p for 30 days, but you can sell as many variations as you like under than one listing without paying the 40p again.
- Final Value fee - this varies depending on the category. In health and beauty they charge 10% of whatever the item (not including P+P) was listed for. In clothing I'm pretty sure they charge 10% of the whole - I think this was to encourage people to give free postage.
- Pictures - first one is free in health and beauty so Photoshop comes in handy sometimes to get several images into one picture to upload.
- Postage - been sending mine 2nd class.
- Packaging - cheapest I could find a DVD-sized Jiffy was 9p but that was bought in bulk. I get mine for 14p each in a lot of 25. You could get a smaller jiffy for make-up items, but the DVD is a good size for Anew boxes and larger.

Fees if you have an eBay shop
As above apart from:
- insertion fee - 10p for a basic shop (£14.99 per month), 5p for a medium shop (£49.99), free for an advanced shop (£300-odd). The same variations on listings apply, plus I think you get a few more features. I saw someone listing the whole Clinical range under one listing.
- Pictures may also be different but I've never had a problem with the limit of 1 free pic.


I had some Glimmersticks when they were £1.50 net (at the time, the cheapest you'd been able to get one for ages). My plan was to go for listing higher-priced, lightweight items so the postage wouldn't be more than the cost of the item. For example, you could sell a 400ml shampoo at the same as the brochure price of about £2.50, but the postage would cost the same. Who's going to buy it for £5 when you've got reps and Avon's site offering it cheaper.

So I went to see what others were selling the Glimmersticks for. I also looked at Supercurlacious since at the time you could buy them for £1.88 net. Even if I'd had an eBay shop with lower insertion fees, I just couldn't have competed with the prices. Even now I've got some Lift & Firms on at a low price to match others and will make a tiny profit if they sell. I'm not complaining about the tiny profit, but the way others price their goods mean you're kind of stuck. Plus, some items are only on at really low prices once a year. You couldn't replenish your stock by re-ordering the next time they're on cheap. I had to send unsold Glimmersticks back after holding onto them for as long as I could. I'm not prepared to end up with un-returnable goods.

Despite my pessimism over buying in stock to sell for profit on eBay, it's still a great place to sell free or very cheap stock. Avon's popular and you don't make a huge profit but as a last resort it will shift goods.

lozza1985

Nah still not even had a phone call MC let alone a visit!!!

7roland8

I used to have a box of £1 items I would sometimes sell at rent-a-tables etc - but even then they were hard to shift!!

MarsdenCuckoo

lozza1985 wrote: »

Nah still not even had a phone call MC let alone a visit!!!

That's shocking, particularly when they're supposed to be under extreme pressure to rehome animals. Basic courtesy costs nothing. Hope you've rung and complained. :mad:

MarsdenCuckoo

WOW, thanks for all that info on E-Bay, IG. Will give it some thought when I get a 'spare day' LOL Sounds like you know that as comprehensively as you know Avon.
:T

lozza1985

To be honest, I don't trust myself to ring MC as it would not be polite! If they don't get in touch then well just have to look elsewhere. It's a shame, Dh has seen a beautiful bun there, pure white with blue eyes - but at the end of the day, we just need a girl bun to keep ours company, it doesn't matter what they look like, if they don't get in touch in sure well find a lovely lady bun elsewhere.

MarsdenCuckoo

7roland8 wrote: »

I used to have a box of £1 items I would sometimes sell at rent-a-tables etc - but even then they were hard to shift!!

Know what you mean. I've tried at car boot sales but was rained off. Having said that, am told they're great places to recruit - one man's meat and all that.

I do manage to sell a few things fairly effortlessly by offering bargain boxes to local organisations - they get 10% for their own funds. Doesn't always work to my advantage though because sometimes things 'go missing'.

dingdongavoncalling

I,_Geek wrote: »

On the tax return they'll ask for the following figures:

- Turnover - this is the total amount of money you've taken in. This is added up for you on each invoice in bold at the end of each list of products. Under "brochure price". However, if you've bought products for yourself from the brochure you need to deduct these seeing as you didn't take any money in for them. When I rang HMRC they also said to include the total amount of credits received from Avon in your turnover figure (deduct any credits for personal items, though).

- Expenses - this is one figure and it's the total of:

- How much the items you sell cost you to buy. This is the "your cost" figure on your invoices. Again, don't include the cost of personal items.
- How much money you've had to hand back over to customers (full brochure price) when doing returns.
- Any expenses bought from Avon. Listed under "items with no discount on your invoice".
- Any expenses not bought from Avon like printer paper, mobile phone top-up etc...

Basically, turnover is all your incoming money and expenses are all your outgoings. Turnover minus expenses equals your net income, which is the figure that can be taxed.

If you sell moneymakers, or stock in any other way via carboots or eBay, again keep track of how much you take in for each item and how much it cost you.

I break things down every campaign by running through an invoice, and keeping separate tabs on MMs sold and things sold on eBay. It's easier to break it down like that so if you want to double-check something you don't have to start from scratch.

An alternative is not to remove personal items as suggested above. However, this means you won't have an accurate figure and it will make it look like you've earned money you haven't, leading to a higher tax bill if you get taxed. For example, if I buy an item that's £10 brochure price and costs me £7.50, it looks like I've earned £2.50 on the invoice. In truth, I haven't taken in £10 from anyone and I've just spent £7.50.

I haven't done a course, but would recommend some sort of professional advice (even if it's from a free source like Tax Aid or maybe Citizens' Advice if they offer this kind of thing) if you're not confident in working through an invoice or dealing with figures.

EDIT: The tax return also asks about Capital Allowances, but these are big long-term spends that you probably haven't made.

Thanks, I Geek, for the tax help and everyone else who replied about xmas presents! I'll have to see what bargains I can grab for those customers who have ordered every time!

lozza1985

WEll, DH rang the rspca, the paperwork didn't get faxed till late yesterday, so got to wait till the co-ordinator gets the details, then they'll pass it to a local volunteer who will then contact us for a home visit....very long winded. DH told them so!

But, in the meantime took the cats to the vets as they were doing a free dental check up & claw clip today to support a cats in need fundraiser going on in store, and the veterinary nurse who is mental about rabbits was there (thats who looks after them when we're on holiday), so talked to her and the cats in need lady. CIN lady said she has a lot of people saying the same thing as us, that everything takes so long, and its such a pain and the rspca is so awkward, that they end up getting a cat from CIN instead. She said she has no problem with house cats, every cat is different and some are quite happy like it so whats the problem - at this point both cats are looking ever so adorable in their carriers lol. But - they both suggested a small charity that re-homes rabbits, and they'll both do a recommendation so that we don't need a home visit, which I thought was so sweet, saying as I've never even met the CIN person before! So, going to email and see if that pans out. Though as we're building the new hutch tonight, I might pop into the local pets at home tomorrow to see if they have any lady buns needing re-homing, as the nurse said with the tempermant of our boy bun, it'll be fine to bond him with a female really soon after they've been neutered as he's so laid back. So feeling much more positive that we aren't such awful people afterall!

missminx

The trouble with the rspca is that they are too busy with paperwork. They need less of that rubbish, and more rescuing and re-homing going on. It's getting like fostering, they are desperate for people to do it, and then rule them all out. :mad:

I have accidentally acquired a cat, she did her own home visit and just never left! Having a dog very soon too, if it wasn't madness here before it will be then!
I can understand a home visit for people who haven't had a dog / cat before as they would be able to point out hazards/ risks etc before you had the animal. A home inspection is cheeky and doesn't actually tell them anything, it's just saying 'we're going to judge you based on this...' Grrrrr I think the small charities are far better. Hope you get what you want very soon