Profit margins

mcja

theonlywayisup wrote: »

I didn't mean you were a fool I meant that there are plenty who are.

Sorry, bad week, being a bit over sensitive.:o I just want to make sure I am fully aware of all the charges so that I do not make an initial outlay and get lumbered with stock I can't shift (or that I put a lot of time into and then make bu**er all from it!!)

soolin

mcja wrote: »

Sorry, bad week, being a bit over sensitive.:o I just want to make sure I am fully aware of all the charges so that I do not make an initial outlay and get lumbered with stock I can't shift (or that I put a lot of time into and then make bu**er all from it!!)

I feel for you, being made redundant is awful and I hope something turns up for you. I think we can forgive you for being a bit over sensitive

The key to making money on ebay is research, you can't do enough of it. Make the 'completed ebay listings' your bedtime reading, think of a category- then just run through completed listings.

If you find an item you think you can source then check out what else that seller is selling. I have a new line that I would never have considered buying as it is completely out of my field. However I saw a seller selling something I really liked, checked out her other listings (she has a shop) found this unusual item, managed to find a source and now sell it myself. There is enough market that we cna both sell and maintain a profit.

When looking at other sellers though you need to weigh up their reputation, I can usually outsell other newer competitors as I am a TRS with a long history of sales, so maybe when first starting out look at the completed listings for smaller sellers and be guided more by them. Once you build up some reputation you can increase your prices a little and maybe venture into other stock.

RFW

mcja wrote: »

Sooo, let me get this right in my head as what I was getting excited about may be a silly pipe dream...if I spend 66p on a product, sell for £1.20 plus postage which I was working on a charge what it costs.

You need to be sure of shifting a lot of stock to work on selling at £1.20. Even the pound shops are on better average profits and they shift massive volumes.

You'll also need to factor in expenses, including tax. Also you need to be prepared for someone to come along and start selling the same item for £1.

Buying and selling looks easy and at a basic level it is, you buy something then you sell it. The selling part can often be the hard bit.

If you think you have something you can sell 20 of at a time (just surmising from your post), then think about listing in lots of 20.

mcja

Thankyou all...am I allowed to post what it was I was thinking of on here? Looks like the kindle going away for a few days then now I have other reading!!

lindseykim13

Unless you want somone to steel your idea i wouldn't post what you were thinking of selling. You may find a way to make it profitable in which case you won't want anyone else to know.

song_of_calliope

If you mean you're thinking about telling everyone here what you're thinking of selling, I highly recommend you don't do that. Otherwise if its a good idea you'll end up with a lot more competition than you bargained for.

Strapped

^What she said. Plus remember that you will only be able to sell a line for a certain length of time before everyone else piles in and it becomes unprofitable, or it goes out of fashion, or a new model comes out, etc. So you need to be constantly changing your lines anyway to stay ahead of the curve.

mcja

glad i asked. It is a changeable idea but i may use it as a bit of a backup while i do something more profitable as this idea can be rolled out to school fetes and other areas as well as personal requests!!

Thankyou all SO SO SO much for the help, advice and guidance, you have been an incredible help and I am sure I will be back, just hopefully as a mega rich business woman!!

marie-20

This is quite interesting!

For me our average sale price is around £3.00 inc postage & VAT.

We are currently making around 50% profit on the actual item cost but as our listings all include free P&P our actual profit figure based upon total sales is around 20% after we have paid out our overheads of 3 part time members of staff, a unit and general bills.

I know it doesn't sound like much but we stated trading in July 2011 and so far this tax year we have turned over around £300K so we have earned i.e. me(!) a wage of around £60K - well I would if I stopped spending it on expanding our stock into all carton quantities and purchasing new lines lol but that said I now hold around £50K in stock . . . . not bad to say I started off with £2K redundancy money.

lindseykim13

mcja wrote: »

Thankyou all SO SO SO much for the help, advice and guidance, you have been an incredible help and I am sure I will be back, just hopefully as a mega rich business woman!!

I'll take my fee then :rotfl: