New Seller - Advice Needed

GabbaGabbaHey

OP - there's lots of good advice here, but don't forget the cost of your time. You need to photograph and describe the items that you're selling, manage your listings, wrap the items, bring them to the Post Office, add the tracking number to the listing, respond to questions from potential buyers, deal with returns and requests for refunds, etc, and that's apart from researching and sourcing items to sell in the first place.
You might well find (especially with low value items) that you are working for much lower than minimum wage, and that directing your energies to finding another job (with the potential bonus of social interaction with co-workers/customers, etc) might also be worth considering.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

GabbaGabbaHey said:

soolin said:

I do email them once - and direct (NOT through ebay) thanking them for their purchase and giving them a direct link to my facebook web page

That's almost certainly a breach of GDPR (using personal information for a purpose where consent was not given). I always leave negative feedback when sellers do this to me.

Don't see how, the information is being used with regards to the order, adding a check out our FB page link isn't a problem. 

RFW

If you're sourcing stock from wholesale it's going to be tricky turning a profit and selling enough to keep going.

Some research you need to do:
Check what price others are selling same/similar items for.

See how many have been sold recently (completed item searches are helpful).

Know your products inside out.

Then I'd suggest buying one or two of the items at retail before you commit to putting a lot of money into them. Sell them at a small loss if you need to and see if you can actually get a sale. Getting a sale on Ebay is by no means easy. The days of listing an item and waiting for the money to come in are long gone.
In my experience, with new items you may have a slightly better chance on Amazon. Amazon has more customers but conversely they often have more sellers per item (if they're items bought from a wholesalers.). It is also worth checking prices with Amazon too.

Liberal123

Thank you guys, lots of good advice here and indeed pros and cons. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do but it just never happened for whatever reason. It seems like eBay isn’t like how it used to be back in the day but just to satisfy my interest I do want to give it a go. Start or small, experiment and if it don’t work then at least I can say I tried it!

Liberal123

kangoora said:

You can convert a personal account to a business account, but not the other way around. I would strongly suggest you convert your current personal account to business when you are ready (and set up a new personal account) as it will already have a certain amount of feedback which is crucial when starting up to give buyers confidence. Don't underestimate how long it takes to get feedback as a seller, I think I'm doing well if I get 50% feedback on sales (usually 40%) and if you are doing low volumes 1 or 2 stroppy/stupid/customers from hell can wipe out your feedback reliability rating almost instantly.

The biggest problem you'll have with wholesale goods is that Ebay shops will be able to get whatever you are buying at the same price (if not cheaper due to bulk buying) and sell it for ridiculously low profit margins as they sell in large volumes across a wide range of 'stuff', maybe making a £1 profit per item but selling 100's, whereas as a small business/startup you will sell less but need a lot more profit per item.

Even if you find a niche item and start to make decent money expect 'someone' to pile in and undercut you at some point. This happened to my BIL on Amazon, he got a great deal on some toys from Ireland, they sold well with great margins for 6 months so he ordered a few pallet loads. Within 2 weeks of them arriving the manufacturer started selling on Amazon direct, undercutting him to the point where he was only making 50p per item gross profit (not even enough to cover his utilities/unit rental etc - never mind a wage). Look up something like bathroom taps and you'll see loads of different sellers all selling the same item and undercutting each other by 1p, 20p - all of them squeezing their margins to get that lowest price on a search.

However, having said all the above, some people do make decent money. I agree with the above comment to sell something you have a knowledge or interest in, it could be HI-Fi equipment, golf equipment, baby strollers, toys, left handed corkscrews etc.

Do your research, FULLY calculate costs and profit margins, identify possible opportunities and have a try if you feel you can make a go of it.

As a final point, in a long post (sorry), IMO I think on Ebay that second hand selling is the way to go for a side hustle as long as stuff is bought cheaply enough BUT you do really need specific knowledge in the area at least to start with. I know an ex-golf pro who makes a decent amount of money selling 2nd hand golf clubs he picks up from car boots/auctions. Another I know is a session musician/band member who does the same with musical instruments/amps/stuff. The downside is a lot of time spent trudging around car-boots/reading auction lists to find those gems before other people do. Obviously we know what to buy, what to avoid, how much to pay and how much to sell for and I still end up with unsaleable/broken items around 10% of the time.

Thank you kind sir, lots of good information here. Much appreciated. 

GabbaGabbaHey

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Don't see how, the information is being used with regards to the order, adding a check out our FB page link isn't a problem. 

Because the information is being processed outside the eBay system. As a (personal) buyer buying from a (business) seller, I have consented to transactional messages through the eBay system. I have NOT consented to that business seller holding and processing my personal data (e.g. my email address) outside the eBay system, nor using it for purposes outside those required to fulfil my order (e.g. marketing).

forgotmyname

soolin said:

GabbaGabbaHey said:

soolin said:

I do email them once - and direct (NOT through ebay) thanking them for their purchase and giving them a direct link to my facebook web page

That's almost certainly a breach of GDPR (using personal information for a purpose where consent was not given). I always leave negative feedback when sellers do this to me.

I've been lucky then in my 21 years on ebay In fact I often get thanked for confirming dispatch and reminding them of the tracking details in my emails and my communication star is currently at 5*.  I buy a fair bit and from business sellers nearly always get a standard email with information about dispatch and more often than not a link to their web page or a discount code and have never felt the need to neg anyone. 

Good to see how opinions vary, one email would not be an issue for me. I did report one seller who spammed my email after
a purchase.  Between 3 and 6 emails per day advertising items unrelated to my purchase, 7 days a week. 

I do think ebay should be keeping email addresses away from sellers though. No reason for a seller to have your email
when they can easily message the buyer on ebay itself.  One reason I use a different paypal email to my ebay.

I dislike the fact some sellers print my email and phone number on small letterbox sized packages. But accept that some
couriers may call or text with a delivery slot.

I guess we all have our opinions on what is acceptable use of our data.


Back to the OP.    Make sure you calculate the waste percentage and change of mind returns and faulty returns with
nothing wrong with them.  If it can get broken in the post then add extra, if its electronic add more again.
Its not a simple case of buy it for £10 and sell for £20. You think its a big profit until you add the postage which maybe
£3.50 + the envelope/packet itself another £1? So its now £5.50 profit.  Ebay/Paypal fees and your profit has dwindled
to a point where you wonder if its worth selling.  Then a few get returned so you lost the outward postage and had to pay
the return postage.  Now your into a loss, simple mistake to make.. Price everything up and make sure you account for
losses.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

forgotmyname said:

soolin said:

GabbaGabbaHey said:

soolin said:

I do email them once - and direct (NOT through ebay) thanking them for their purchase and giving them a direct link to my facebook web page

That's almost certainly a breach of GDPR (using personal information for a purpose where consent was not given). I always leave negative feedback when sellers do this to me.

I've been lucky then in my 21 years on ebay In fact I often get thanked for confirming dispatch and reminding them of the tracking details in my emails and my communication star is currently at 5*.  I buy a fair bit and from business sellers nearly always get a standard email with information about dispatch and more often than not a link to their web page or a discount code and have never felt the need to neg anyone. 

I do think ebay should be keeping email addresses away from sellers though. 

They are starting this now, similar to what Amazon do

sellercentre.ebay.co.uk/business/news/september-2020/email-visibility

I would assume to further their mission to stop off eBay sales, which is understandable. 

RFW

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:They are starting this now, similar to what Amazon do

sellercentre.ebay.co.uk/business/news/september-2020/email-visibility

I would assume to further their mission to stop off eBay sales, which is understandable. 

They were blocked from Amazon sellers completely for a while. Until some sellers pointed out that they did actually need to email buyers for good reasons (customised products, etc).
I used to email a newsletter to buyers and asked new Ebay buyers if they wanted to subscribe. That was using their emails from Paypal. I don't need to do it any more and doubt it's legal the way I did it (it was over 10 years ago now).

martindow

A lot of carriers ask for the recipients' emails and phone numbers.  If sellers could not access these the customer would not receive tracking info and delivery timeslots.