How to start my eBay business

lovinituk

RFW wrote: »

'tis true, a while ago someone started doing just that, problem was they were actually paying at least 20% more than I was, so they never lasted long. Surprising how easy it is to misjudge profit, postal prices, fees, etc and end up losing on a product and that's from an experienced seller, the novice can end up broke pretty quickly

It certainly happens where new sellers appear and start undercutting. This sparks a price war and eventually the larger/experienced sellers give up on that product and moved on. Eventually the inexperienced sellers realise they haven't made any money so disappear and the big players return charging the original price. Then the cycle starts again!

soolin

RFW wrote: »

'tis true, a while ago someone started doing just that, problem was they were actually paying at least 20% more than I was, so they never lasted long. Surprising how easy it is to misjudge profit, postal prices, fees, etc and end up losing on a product and that's from an experienced seller, the novice can end up broke pretty quickly

I see that all the time. i came across one before Christmas who couldn't work out why she hadn't actually made any money when she thought she was raking it in- she had made the mistake of seeing something go for around £10 on ebay- seeing the same thing at a shop near her for £7 and seeing an instant £3 per item profit.

Her calculation went something like:

Bought 30 @ £7 = £210, sell 30 at £10 = £300 giving a total profit of £90 to spend on Christmas. Completely forgot fees until her first months bill came in and via a friend of a friend she asked me why ebay was billing her- forgot paypal fees. Overlooked the fact that as a private seller with less than 100 feedback no one would spend £10 with her when they could buy from a TRS at the same cost. The big sellers didn't budge from their prices, but she panicked about a week before Christmas and started the lot off at cost- and still couldn't sell.

Is now bad mouthing ebay all over the place as apparently 'nothing at all sells on there and the fees are horrendous and it isn't FAIR!'

cestlavie

soolin wrote: »

I see that all the time. i came across one before Christmas who couldn't work out why she hadn't actually made any money when she thought she was raking it in- she had made the mistake of seeing something go for around £10 on ebay- seeing the same thing at a shop near her for £7 and seeing an instant £3 per item profit.

Her calculation went something like:

Bought 30 @ £7 = £210, sell 30 at £10 = £300 giving a total profit of £90 to spend on Christmas. Completely forgot fees until her first months bill came in and via a friend of a friend she asked me why ebay was billing her- forgot paypal fees. Overlooked the fact that as a private seller with less than 100 feedback no one would spend £10 with her when they could buy from a TRS at the same cost. The big sellers didn't budge from their prices, but she panicked about a week before Christmas and started the lot off at cost- and still couldn't sell.

Is now bad mouthing ebay all over the place as apparently 'nothing at all sells on there and the fees are horrendous and it isn't FAIR!'

i've been selling odds and sods over several years on ebay and still sometimes have the same response!

it's easy to forget ppal fees on top of everything ebay take if you aren't a professional seller/ebayer savvy to all their wiles!

Alias_Omega

On another forum, an eBay seller was buying items from china, shipping them over. Sort of £20k price range each time.

No idea what they were selling...

soolin

Alias_Omega wrote: »

On another forum, an eBay seller was buying items from china, shipping them over. Sort of £20k price range each time.

No idea what they were selling...

This is why I will never be stonking rich- I just won't deal with these large values. My comfort zone is really in the low hundreds- I have been left holding stock before now when a market has completely died on me and I am always worried about having too much tied up in stock in case it happens again.