Starting an Ebay Business: What problems did you encounter that you wish you had someone to mentor you with?
I have run a store on eBay a couple of different times.
I didn’t really run into anything that I would call a "problem". There were some things that were different than I expected, but no real "problems".
The biggest problem is finding items that have these key ingredients going for them:
1) High Profit Margin – It’s hard to find items to sell on eBay that have a high enough mark-up to cover eBay and PayPal fees and still leave enough for you to make a real profit.
2) Finding Items Regularly – If you do find an item with a good mark-up for profit, it is usually hard to find/ get easily. Remember, if it is easy to find and sell, and makes money, then odds are there are already many others selling it on eBay. This in turn cuts into number one because it starts shrinking your profit margin.
3) Finding Unique Items – 10 years ago, eBay was a big deal because it was new, there weren’t as many users and there were plenty of things that you could sell and make money on. Today, there are so many users and sellers, that there isn’t much of anything that has Number 1, 2, and 3.
Basically, in a nice way, I’m saying that I didn’t like selling on eBay. I had items that made money from time to time. It was just too inconsistent. Add that to the fact that if the buyer pays with PayPal, you will lose roughly 10% of the gross sale, and there’s not a whole lot of money to be made on eBay. eBay makes the money most of the time for what you sell.
To give an example, I thought I had finally found something to sell on eBay that would be my money maker. I was buying vintage video games in lots, breaking them down, and selling them one at a time for a pretty good profit. A lot of times, I would buy the game on the average of $1.50 and sell for $3.00+. I did really well at it for about 6 months. I took a $500 investment and turned it into roughly $2500 in 6 months.
Where I got hosed was other people started noticing that I, along with a handful of others were making good money doing this. Within a couple of months it seemed like half of the people on eBay were selling them. I would see eBay stores that sold a wide selection of clothes but had 1 category at the bottom for vintage video games and were undercutting me by 20-30% on pretty much everything.
This basically cut my profit to nothing, and made it go from something very profitable to something that I was virtually doing for fun. So I ended my eBay store soon after, liquidated my stock and gave up.
Basically, if I were you, I would investigate the internet and outside sources thoroughly for items to sell that contain all of the elements that I named above. One or Two dollars here and there will only lead to burnout and disgust very quickly.
Good Luck with your store!
4 Responses to “Starting an Ebay Business: What problems did you encounter that you wish you had someone to mentor you with?”
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Thank you so much for everything throughout the summer. I think that it is a wonderful thing that you are doing to put aside time from your busy schedule and running your company to be able to assist new entrepreneurs. I am glad to have made some great business connections throughout this summer and will contact you for advice in the future!
Brittany Sirtonski, Owner/Managing Director - Dare to Dream Dance and Visual Arts summer camp for girls
I didn’t have any problems because I was lucky enough to do it right.
I went to the discussion boards (under the Community tab at the top of every ebay.com page) and read through about 20 pages of topics on every board that looked like it might be applicable.
Took about 4 months.
Then I asked questions for another month.
THEN I started selling.
References :
I had a sourcing problem. I need a steady source of supplies that I will be able to sell for at a profit. If you know the answer to this I would greatly appreciate some feedback.
References :
I know of a free news letter that you can subscribe to that can help you get things going and show you how to get started. Contact me here for more info.
References :
I have run a store on eBay a couple of different times.
I didn’t really run into anything that I would call a "problem". There were some things that were different than I expected, but no real "problems".
The biggest problem is finding items that have these key ingredients going for them:
1) High Profit Margin – It’s hard to find items to sell on eBay that have a high enough mark-up to cover eBay and PayPal fees and still leave enough for you to make a real profit.
2) Finding Items Regularly – If you do find an item with a good mark-up for profit, it is usually hard to find/ get easily. Remember, if it is easy to find and sell, and makes money, then odds are there are already many others selling it on eBay. This in turn cuts into number one because it starts shrinking your profit margin.
3) Finding Unique Items – 10 years ago, eBay was a big deal because it was new, there weren’t as many users and there were plenty of things that you could sell and make money on. Today, there are so many users and sellers, that there isn’t much of anything that has Number 1, 2, and 3.
Basically, in a nice way, I’m saying that I didn’t like selling on eBay. I had items that made money from time to time. It was just too inconsistent. Add that to the fact that if the buyer pays with PayPal, you will lose roughly 10% of the gross sale, and there’s not a whole lot of money to be made on eBay. eBay makes the money most of the time for what you sell.
To give an example, I thought I had finally found something to sell on eBay that would be my money maker. I was buying vintage video games in lots, breaking them down, and selling them one at a time for a pretty good profit. A lot of times, I would buy the game on the average of $1.50 and sell for $3.00+. I did really well at it for about 6 months. I took a $500 investment and turned it into roughly $2500 in 6 months.
Where I got hosed was other people started noticing that I, along with a handful of others were making good money doing this. Within a couple of months it seemed like half of the people on eBay were selling them. I would see eBay stores that sold a wide selection of clothes but had 1 category at the bottom for vintage video games and were undercutting me by 20-30% on pretty much everything.
This basically cut my profit to nothing, and made it go from something very profitable to something that I was virtually doing for fun. So I ended my eBay store soon after, liquidated my stock and gave up.
Basically, if I were you, I would investigate the internet and outside sources thoroughly for items to sell that contain all of the elements that I named above. One or Two dollars here and there will only lead to burnout and disgust very quickly.
Good Luck with your store!
References :