Business postage help

darkwarrior

I'm interested in getting into selling on eBay in a limited capacity and have found a dried food item in CostCo that is a lot cheaper than other online competition like eBay sellers and Amazon.

I'm curious if someone can give me advice on what kind of postage would be required and the cost to send an item 28.5cm wide by 42cm long x 16cm high to see if such an endeavor would be worthwhile. The pack itself is fairly light, should be about 1032g, styrofoam packs.

ballisticbrian

dark warrior, there's a few big problems. Firstly you've told the whole world your idea and where to get it. Anyone can now copy your exact idea. Secondly, you've asked us to do the work for you in working out both if and how it will make money. This is the one bit of work you need to do yourself. It's called "running a business".

soolin

I have moved this question from the sticky thread as I think it will get overlooked on there.

OP, start by checking RM costs online, use those prices as a benchmark when trying couriers. Always check that your items are allowed or allowed and Insured, as couriers do have a lot of restrictions.

campdave

Presumably you've factored ebay/amazon selling fees into your figures too.

mrcol1000

My Hermes would be much cheaper and more secure as it would be tracked. Just make sure the parcel can be dropped without breaking.

Ignore the naysayers on here. Get a couple and see how it goes. If you think you can make some money out of it then why not?

sequence

You don't need to get a couple to see how it goes, you should be able to work it out without buying any.

RFW

darkwarrior wrote: »

I'm interested in getting into selling on eBay in a limited capacity and have found a dried food item in CostCo that is £10 cheaper than other online competition like eBay sellers and Amazon.

Several alarm bells ringing for me. The first is Costco, whilst they ay have some decent deals for the average buyer they are generally not a good wholesale source for reselling on Ebay or Amazon. Second, £10 cheaper means that you would need to sell at a lower price being new to selling it, so that's, say £2 off at least, that leaves £8, postage/courier rate for a non account customer would be at least £4 with VAT, that leaves £4 for profit of which Ebay or Amazon take their cut. That's all allowing for the fact that the sellers on Amazon and Ebay are already selling at rock bottom prices. If you undercut them by £2 they may very well undercut you again.
I'd say a profit of £1-£2 is possible for a short time, only if you can sell high volume would that be worthwhile.
As you haven't said how much the item costs, the lower the actual price the better chance you have of making a profit, so if it's £1 in Costco and £11 on Ebay then that's great, if it's £90 in Costco and £100 on Ebay then there's no chance.

darkwarrior

RFW wrote: »

Several alarm bells ringing for me. The first is Costco, whilst they ay have some decent deals for the average buyer they are generally not a good wholesale source for reselling on Ebay or Amazon. Second, £10 cheaper means that you would need to sell at a lower price being new to selling it, so that's, say £2 off at least, that leaves £8, postage/courier rate for a non account customer would be at least £4 with VAT, that leaves £4 for profit of which Ebay or Amazon take their cut. That's all allowing for the fact that the sellers on Amazon and Ebay are already selling at rock bottom prices. If you undercut them by £2 they may very well undercut you again.
I'd say a profit of £1-£2 is possible for a short time, only if you can sell high volume would that be worthwhile.
As you haven't said how much the item costs, the lower the actual price the better chance you have of making a profit, so if it's £1 in Costco and £11 on Ebay then that's great, if it's £90 in Costco and £100 on Ebay then there's no chance.

Its £6 in CostCo and £16 on Amazon and Ebay (Something like £16.24).

I get them for myself but seeing how cheap they were I thought it might be a decent thing to sell for tiny profit and build up an eBay reputation as a seller since I have a decent one as a buyer. I was hoping to clear more like £5 per box but I guess there are more things to take into account.

darkwarrior

ballisticbrian wrote: »

dark warrior, there's a few big problems. Firstly you've told the whole world your idea and where to get it. Anyone can now copy your exact idea. Secondly, you've asked us to do the work for you in working out both if and how it will make money. This is the one bit of work you need to do yourself. It's called "running a business".

Not so much asking you guys to do the work, I could look on Royal Mail but I thought this being MSE some users would have ideas outside of RM that might be cheaper as obviously I'd like to clear as much profit per box as possible.

martindow

darkwarrior wrote: »

Its £6 in CostCo and £16 on Amazon and Ebay (Something like £16.24).

I get them for myself but seeing how cheap they were I thought it might be a decent thing to sell for tiny profit and build up an eBay reputation as a seller since I have a decent one as a buyer. I was hoping to clear more like £5 per box but I guess there are more things to take into account.

Does the £16 on Amazon include the postage? If so you are going to struggle to make a profit after your postage costs, fees and buying packaging.

soolin

martindow wrote: »

Does the £16 on Amazon include the postage? If so you are going to struggle to make a profit after your postage costs, fees and buying packaging.

I agree, if the item listed at £16 on Amazon (and you can't tell if it sells at that) you will get only get about £13.50 net inclusive of postage fees. Myhermes postage would be £3.98 collected.