The Best Secrets of Great Small Businesses
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Question
Who has experience with operating an eBay business?
My husband and I are seriously looking into starting up our own eBay business. We have been researching on the internet a lot and are getting ready to head to the bookstore to buy some eBay books for further insight. For a little background information: My husband has made his career in the automotive field as a professional mechanic for high performance cars. He is also a driving instructor part time during the summer at the race track. He is looking to get away from actual mechanic labor... last week, his boss lost all the toes on one of his feet due to a heavy equipment accident and it really shook us both up. Since we want a family in the relatively near future, his health is a priority and we both want him away from an environment where serious life-altering accidents are common and cancer-causing chemicals are used daily. But his very high knowledge of cars and their components is something that his new career needs to be focused around. He has always wanted to own his own business, and has the ambitious but realistic attitude to do it. We've used eBay a lot before. If we need extra cash, we'll find a few unneeded car parts kicking around in our garage and list them and make a surprising profit. Likewise, he has also been able to purchase broken cars for very cheap, easily and quickly fix what's wrong with them, and flip them for usually double what he paid for them OR part them out and make several times more off the individual parts than what he paid for it as a whole. We were thinking about doing this with more frequency and making a business out of it on eBay, and track the costs and profits. I think we would make a great team doing this because he has his expertise in the area we will focus on, and I love doing all of the organizing and administrative tasks involved with something like this. We've considered costs, such as all the regular office supplies and packing materials. A basic eBay store, we learned, is only $15.95 per month. The best part we think about this is the overhead is very minimal - we can work from home. Neither one of us plans to quit our day job right away or anything drastic. Our goal is to start small and work our way up, hopefully to the point where we can quit our boring 9-5's and operate this way full time [[with the exception that he would still instruct professional driving]]. Has anyone ever been able to do something like this successfully? Sure, I've read the testimonials on the internet - but all those are just advertisements. What some fore warnings that you can give us that we may be overlooking? What are some common mistakes? What are some little success secrets you discovered? And very importantly, do you operate a business with your spouse, and how did it effect your relationship? Thank you for your input. We just want to do this right, and want to hear from someone who has done it before.
10 months ago - 3 answers
Best Answer
Chosen by Asker
Your first stop should be eBay's Guide to Seller Services pages ... eBay's Seller Central has all the resources you need to learn about the basics of selling on eBay pages ... The key to a successful eBay selling is simple -- Sell products that people actually want. If you want to earn serious money from eBay, you need to have a well-thought out business model. Selling on ebay is getting tougher -- just look at the number of auctions that closes without a bid. Go to the boards on ebay and you will hear even oldtimers complaining about how stiffer competition plus higher fees make it so much harder to sell on ebay. One success model of ebay is the couple Jay and Marie Senese (username jayandmarie) of the 1-cent CD fame. They have the highest positive feedback number of all sellers on eBay. Their business model is to buy very low cost CDs in bulk (those that CD stores sell in their discount bins) and offer them on ebay at a starting price of 1 cent www ... Their success is based on the fact that they stumbled on a sustainable business model with products that people really want. eBay has several ways for you to determine exactly what the hot items to sell on their marketplace: Items In Demand = the most popular items currently within that particular category. To see the In Demand page, go to pages ... Hot Items by Category Report = a monthly report that lists the fastest growing categories on eBay for the previous month. Go to pages ... and select "Hot Items by Category" from the menu on the left. eBay Pulse = "a daily snapshot of current trends, hot picks, and cool stuff on eBay". Go to pulse ... to see eBay Pulse in action. Merchandising Calendar = eBay promotes specific categories on its home page each month. Savvy eBayers know that this home page exposure results in more interest in such categories. Go to pages ... to view the current Merchandising Calendar. As for items to sell, you can: 1. Buy bulk liquidation items such as those at Liquidation.com. The capitalization may be big, but the idea is to sell the items individually and profit from it. 2. Find manufacturers of items you want to sell and buy discounted items from them 3. Make deals with retailers in your area, and offer to buy their unwanted items for deep discounts. jayandmarie - the most successful ebay sellers - made deals with music stores where they will buy the entire inventory in the discounted bins, and then sold the items on ebay for 1-cent starting bid. 4. Look for possible partners on the Web, preferably outside of the US. Import items from them and sell them on ebay. There's huge profits to gain from this approach. 5. Check out deals from outlet stores. Focus on brand names, which you will find to be easier to sell.
Source(s)
eBay Selling Tips: How to Achieve Higher Detailed Seller Ratings www ...
by imisidro
10 months ago
Asker's Rating: 
Other Answers
If you are serious about making this a business then you need to seriously think about what kind of business entity you will have; is it a partnership, LLC, sole proprietorship. Once you figure that out then look to your state to register that business entity. You also need to register for a sales license in your city because you will have to collect sales tax on any sales done within your state (is different for each state, look into it). You may also need to file a DBA (Doing Business As) with your city if you are operating your business under a name other than your own. If you are going to buy items for resale then you need to register for a reseller's license so you won't have to pay double sales tax on inventory items. Set up a business bank account so you can keep your business expenses and profits seperate from your personal. I would also talk to a lawyer to get all the legalities ironed out and also would look into a CPA to make sure your accounting activities are in order. If you aren't going to enlist the help of a CPA, then make sure all of your accounting practices are sound. Make sure you keep records of everything, use quickbooks or other accounting software to make things easier on you, also make sure you have a backup of your files, both digital and physical. If you do anything wrong and are audited by the IRS, then it will come back to bite you big time. And make sure you don't spend your sales tax money! If you do then you will be puting yourself into a hurting. Also, look into merchant account services other than paypal because Paypal is not a bank. They can, for any reason they see fit, freeze your funds and also take them away. They are a great service and offer buyers another way to make payments to you, but they are only a conduit for your money, don't start to rely on them or you might find yourself on the losing end of a frozen account dispute. You have a lot of things to look into. Good Luck!
by James S- 10 months ago
Hi, I make a living from selling on ebay and have done for 2 years. From reading what you have written I would say you already seem to have the right idea and if you have already run a business then you just need to transfer you offline business online. Selling car parts on ebay is an excellent idea especially if you have the knowledge and contacts/suppliers and have already sold parts with success then you just need to step it up a gear. Maybe specialise in four or five popular makers (Ford/BMW), your husband will know what parts are most commonly needed/required. take a look at other ebay car part sellers feedback, see what they sell to get a feel for it and what sells. with the P&P costs you will probably sell more lights and wing mirrors than engine blocks or entire suspension systems. Your correct in saying the basic ebay shop subscription is fine, the 'anchor' stores are a waste of money in my opinion.
by Dub_Station- 10 months ago