Going full-time as an eBay seller is living your dream. Being able making a real income, working from home, being your own boss and all the rest of it. It is the promise of a million scams, and it has finally come true – at least for some.
However, what they do not tell you in the success stories, is that becoming a full-time eBay seller is by no means for everyone. You most definitely ought to try it part-time, before even considering taking it up full-time and even then, caution is advisable.
Before you burn your suit, below is a list of questions you should ask yourself.
How Much Do I Earn From eBay Now?
Work out how many hours a week you spend doing eBay-related things (be honest here), and divide it by the average amount of profit you make in a week. If you were doing full-time hours, would you earn as much as you earn now?
Do I Have a Good Job?
Think about what you might loose if you give up your job to focus on eBay. If you are in a well-paid job with good promotion prospects then it is worthwhile reconsidering. You might get a few years down the line and wish you would have stayed in your traditional job, as you would probably be the CEO by now.
Would I Really Make Much More Money?
Unless you are selling a large quantity of small goods, most of what you do on eBay will be waiting for auctions to end and you can wait at work just as easily as you can at home. This is why whether you would make more money on eBay or not, really depends on what kinds of items you are selling. For low value items, going full-time could be a good move. For high-value ones, the chances are you will hit the limits of how much money you have to invest in inventory long before you hit the limits on your time. (see also dropshipping below)
Is my Home a Good Place to Work?
Quite apart from anything else, you might find that the dream of home working is more of a nightmare in reality. People can start to depend on you to get things done that need to be done during the day. If you have a wife and children then they can resent the fact that you are in the house but refuse to have anything to do with them for large parts of the day. Giving in to any of these things and stopping work for a while will cause your profits to fall.
Can I Survive if it All Goes Wrong?
In the end, would you be able to get by if you had a month or two where you sold literally nothing? Or would you be desperately looking around for a job and cursing the day you ever discovered eBay? That is the real test.
If you made it through all these questions, then I guess you are cut out for the eBay life – and even if you did not, you would be surprised just how far you can get part-time.
The next posting will show you how to make you think like the eBay elite – the PowerSellers.
* * * * *
If you seriously thinking of earning, not losing BIG money on eBay, I definitely recommend a very successful product how to market eBay(R) auctions
eBay Fortune , The Definitive Roadmap To Auction Riches -
as a successful eBay Seller, you will need it!
Take Action – Click Here to Download “eBay Fortune , The Definitive Roadmap To Auction Riches”
* * * * *
Another viable and most recommendable option, when starting up an eBay business, is to make use of the drop shipping concept, which you can read about in the post – eBay and Drop shipping – What Is It All About?
Click here to find out more about drop shipping.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Stay tuned,
Christer
BTW
Do you also remember to FOLLOW ME on Twitter?
If you find the information useful, don’t hesitate to Tweet or email the post to your friends and colleagues and set up a link on your own blog!
http://twitter.com/christerfolke
Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed
It is surprisingly simple to get started posting your very first auction on eBay.
* * * * *
Below, the steps what you need to do.
Step 1: Open an eBay seller’s account.
If you have bought items on eBay, then you already have an account. Just log in with it and click ‘Sell’ in the toolbar at the top of the page, then click ‘Create a seller’s account’. If you have never used eBay before, then you will have to open an account first using the ‘register’ link underneath the toolbar, and then click ‘Sell’ and ‘Create a seller’s account’. The eBay site will then guide you through the process. For security reasons, this may involve giving your eBay card details and bank information.
Step 2: Decide what to sell.
For your first little experiment with eBay, it does not really matter what you sell. Take a look around the room where you are. I am confident there is something in there that you are not all that attached to and could put in the post. Small books and CDs are ideal first items.
Step 3: Submit your item.
Click ‘Sell’, and you are on your way to listing your item.
The first thing you need to do is choose a category. The best way is just to type in what the item is and let eBay choose for you. Next, write a title and description. Include key words you think people will search for in the title box, and all the information you have about the item in the description box.
Now set a starting price. $0.01 is the best starting price, as it draws people in to bid who otherwise would not have done it, and items will almost never finish at such a low price. The next thing to set is the duration of the auction: 3, 5, 7 or 10 days. This is up to you, longer sales will usually get more bids, but will also seem to drag on forever. If you have taken a picture, add it now as items with pictures always tend to sell for more. Finally, tick the payment methods you will accept (just PayPal is best for now), and where you will post to (limit yourself to your own country to begin with). Submit and you are done!
Step 4: Wait for your item to sell.
This is just a matter of sitting back and letting eBay do its thing – buyers will find your item and leave bids on it. Some bidders might email you with questions about the item, and you should do your best to answer these questions as quickly as you can.
Remember that if your item does not sell then you can list it again for free.
Step 5: Collect payment and post it.
eBay will sent your buyer emails guiding them through the process of sending you payment for the item. Make sure you have the money before you send anything.
Once you have received the payment, all you need to do is pack the item for posting (make sure to use some bubble wrap), take the buyer’s address from the confirmation email eBay sent you, and write it on the parcel. Put some stamps on, post it, and you are finally done!
I hope you enjoyed selling your first item. Now that you are starting to get into it, the next posting will give you a checklist of things you need to do to become a successful seller.
* * * * *
If you seriously thinking of earning, not losing BIG money on eBay, I definitely recommend a very successful product how to market eBay(R) auctions
- eBay Fortune , The Definitive Roadmap To Auction Riches -
as a successful eBay Seller, you will need it!
Take Action – Click Here to Download “eBay Fortune , The Definitive Roadmap To Auction Riches”
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Stay tuned,
Christer
BTW
Do you also remember to FOLLOW ME on Twitter?
My new content from all my web pages is also going there
If you find the information useful, don’t hesitate to Tweet or email the post to your friends and colleagues and set up a link on your own blog!
http://twitter.com/christerfolke
If you have ever read an article about eBay, you will have seen the kinds of incomes people make – it is not unusual to hear of people making thousands of dollars per month on eBay.
Next time you are using eBay, take a look at how many PowerSellers there are. You will find quite a few. Now consider that every single one of one of them must be making at least $1,000 per month, as that’s eBay’s requirement for becoming a PowerSeller. Silver PowerSellers make at least $3,000 each month, while Gold PowerSellers make more than $10,000, and the Platinum level is $25,000. The top ranking is Titanium PowerSeller, and to qualify you must make at least $150,000 in sales every month!
The fact that these people exist gives you come idea of the income possibilities here. Most of them never set out to even set up a business on eBay – they simply started selling a few things, and then kept going. There are plenty of people whose full-time job is to sell stuff on eBay and some of them have been doing it for years now. Can you imagine that? Once they have bought the stock, everything else is pretty much pure profit for these people – they do not need to pay for any business premises, staff, or anything else. There are multi-million pound businesses making less in actual profit than eBay PowerSellers do.
Even if you do not want to quit your job and really go for it yet, you can still use eBay to make a significant second income. You can pack up orders during the week and take them down to the post office for delivery each Saturday. There are few other things you could be doing with your spare time that have anywhere near that kind of earning potential.
And what’s more, eBay does not care who you are, where you live, or what you look like. Some PowerSellers are very old others are very young. Some live out in the middle of nowhere where selling on eBay is one of the few alternatives to farming or being very poor. eBay tears down the barriers to earning possibilities that the real world constantly puts up. There is no job interview, no yearly performance reviews and no commuting involved – if you can post things, you can do it.
If you know where to get something reasonably cheap that you believe you could sell, then eBay is the place to sell it on and since you always can get discounts for bulk at a wholesaler, that is not exactly difficult. Buy a job lot of something in-demand cheaply, sell it on eBay, and you will already be making money, with no set-up costs – nada.
If you want to dip your toe in the water before you commit to actually buying anything, then you can just sell things that you have lying around in your house. Search in the cupboard for stuff you never use, and you will probably find you have got a couple of hundred dollars worth of stuff just lying around in there! This is what eBay is all about – there is always someone who wants what you are selling, whatever it might be, and since they have come looking for your stuff, you do not even have to do anything to get them to buy it.
Do you then want to get started on eBay? Well, that’s great! There are only a few little things you need to learn to get started. The next posting will give you the low-down.
* * * * *
If you are serious about making serious money on eBay and on the Internet, you must get the book
“The Silent Sales Machine Hiding On eBay”
You want a part of the $24 Billion eBay boom?
What are you waiting for?
Take action now!
The book reveals ways to sell on eBay where your risk of loss is virtually eliminated.
Where you risk almost nothing and your profits can be massive.
In just a few months time this book shot up to be the most popular eBook site on the Internet.
Click here now to download the book!
* * * * *
If you immediately want to roll up your sleeves and start getting your hands dirty, then I fully recommend the following product,
a product having far more pros than cons
You Immediately Can Start Making Money On eBay(R) And Get Your Own Website.
You Get Immediate Access To 500 True Drop Shippers!
You Get A Free Turnkey Ecommerce Website Stocked With 200,000 DropShip Products.
You Get Free Hosting And Free Domain Name!
* * * * *
You don’t have to have anything on stock yourself
No financial hassle or gamble !
Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity !
Click HERE To Get Dropshipping Wholesalers Now!
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Stay tuned,
Christer
BTW
Do you also remember to FOLLOW ME on Twitter?
My new content from all my web pages is also going there
If you find the information useful, don’t hesitate to Tweet or email the post to your friends and colleagues and set up a link on your own blog!
http://twitter.com/christerfolke
So what is a PowerSeller?
PowerSellers are the people on eBay who have made it, recognisable by the little ‘PowerSeller’ badge next to their name. You have probably seen these people around – and to succeed on eBay, you must think the way they do.
How does People Get the Right to Call Themselves PowerSellers?
eBay gets to decide who can be a PowerSeller and who cannot, and they have strict requirements. To get in at the minimum PowerSeller level, you must have a feedback rating of at least 100 (minimum 98% positive) and sell at least $1,000 worth of items every month for three months in a row. There are different levels of PowerSeller membership as you sell items of greater value: $1,000 total is bronze, $3,000 is silver, $10,000 is gold, $25,000 is platinum and $125,000 is titanium.
If PowerSellers ever fail to meet the required amount of sales, or their feedback falls below 98% positive, then they lose their PowerSeller status. In short, the only people who get to be PowerSellers on eBay are the people who have been successful for a quite a while, and are on track to stay that way.
The Shop and the Marketplace.
This is the most important part of understanding how PowerSellers think. They don’t see what they are doing as being some random bazaar, or a hobby – instead, they see themselves running a business.
Put it like this. If you run a stall in a marketplace, the odds are that you have a general area of business, but you mostly just sell whatever you can get your hands on that week. If your dodgy buddy got his hands of a job lot of something at a discount, then that is what you will be selling. This might be fun – and when you have a good week, you will have a really good week – but it is no way running a real business long-term.
PowerSellers think far more like shop owners. They sell the same things again and again, every week – regular stock for regular customers. They do ‘boring’ business things like keep inventories and budgets. They know what they are going to be selling, how much they buy it for and how much they expect to sell for. Just like a real shop, there can sometimes be hard times, but their income is stable and their business is slowly growing
The best advice I can give you in thinking like a PowerSeller is, please do not take long-term risks for short-term gains. Look after your reputation, manage your selling properly, provide good customer service and the rewards will come to you in due course. And eventually you will get a little badge next to your name that makes people trust you more!
One possibility that you might have realised so far is what eBay can do for any other businesses you might already have. Remember, millions of people visit eBay every day – why keep everything separate when you are starting to tap into that kind of power? In a future posting, I will show you a few ways how you can use eBay to grow your other business areas.
* * * * *
If you seriously thinking of earning BIG money on eBay, I definitely recommend a very successful product how to market eBay(R) auctions – eBay Fortune , The Definitive Roadmap To Auction Riches - you will need it!
Take Action – Click Here to Download “eBay Fortune , The Definitive Roadmap To Auction Riches”
* * * * *
Another viable and most recommendable option, when starting up an eBay business, is to make use of the drop shipping concept, which you can read about in the post – eBay and Drop shipping – What Is It All About?
Click here to find out more about drop shipping.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Stay tuned,
Christer
BTW
Do you also remember to FOLLOW ME on Twitter?
My new content from all my web pages is also going there
If you find the information useful, don’t hesitate to Tweet or email the post to your friends and colleagues and set up a link on your own blog!
http://twitter.com/christerfolke