I just wanted to share some of my life and experiences selling on ebay and hope some of you people out there may benefit from my post whether you are a wannabe, newbie or old hand to eBay. Yes, i had all the grand delusions that I mentioned but why not?
If you are like me you have spent the last 5-10 years of your life trying out various e-commerce websites and auction sites such as Oztion (now called Quicksales) or the more well known names such as Amazon, eBid, eCrater, Etsy and eBay.
The allure to most sellers is to make a quick fortune by selling products on the internet to capture the growing online market while seeing the decline of traditional retail stores.
It is easy to THINK BIG as the various motivational gurus would like us to do so we listen intently and start dreaming up everything BIG like a lotto winner would do such as travelling to exotic places with our loved ones while Twittering our friends on the beach while at the same time checking our Facebook like page and then dining out in 5 star restaurants every night of the week without looking at the right side of the menu ! or how about even rolling the dice big time at the Casino de Monte Carlo while your PA parks your Ferrari at the front door. But it only gets better as the next day you decide to take your yacht out on the beautiful calm blue waters while your helicopter waits to take you back to your luxurious beachside mansion where your butler and housekeepers have prepared a gourmet meal for you and your friends. Sounds great doesn’t it? But reality bites !!
I am not against this way of thinking as these things do happen everyday to many of us (plenty on this forum !) and as the saying goes that “You get what you FOCUS on”. And after all if you don’t have a dream how are you supposed to achieve it?
I believe that having a passion for what you do can achieve all the above if you love what you do. Most of us know that success or wealth or both never comes easy but it is possible for anyone who can make a plan and stick with it.
Personally i never found my passion for jewellery until i was in my mid-thirties after having finished a Bachelor of Business degree in accounting/marketing and travelled through France and the UK as a backpacker and enjoying the antique shops and markets. At first i thought i would stay to become a Chef and train at the Courdon Bleu School in Paris as i realised accountancy was not for me but the Cordon Bleu School was and still is an expensive course so i decided i would save and try out another private cooking school in my own hometown here in Perth, West Australia. As fate would have it i broke out in a rash while trying out nearly every recipe in the Margaret Foulton cookbook ! Gees, what will i do now i thought?
On weeknights after work at a bottled water company in the accounts department i would set up a company website in my spare time for my startup employer (now publicly listed) as i enjoyed doing this as a hobby.
After showing my boss the webpage design he offered to pay me some money for actually doing something i enjoyed doing in my free time!! By the way i didn’t accept the money or become a webdesigner but i had to sit down and think about what i really wanted to do with my life as i was not an office type of person where creativity isn’t allowed.
After reading Steve McKnights 130 properties in 3.5 years book while waiting at the dentist i was ready to take ACTION so i bought a house before the market boom in 2002 and then forgot all about the book after i quit my job and wanted to travel. 5 years later i started reading more books from authors such as Michael Yardney and Margaret Lomas and invested in another property which allowed me to take out available equity to start a business. Little did i know that the boom would come and i got lucky !
This was Pre-GFC days for those of you who never experienced the market boom in 2002 -2006.
Now that i have been an eBay seller for 6 years i can fairly say that it takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears to keep this auction site going. But the satisfaction and challenge of making a go of it day in and day out becomes enjoyable if you enjoy helping customers and you actually have an interest in what you make or sell so you can persevere when the economy goes down or you face stiff competition.
For those of you wishing to become an eBay seller there will be serious challenges ahead but also opportunities. There is no doubt you will need to spend 10 hours everyday in the beginning setting up your website for auction and BIN listings, take good photos, research for products that you can establish in a niche market, ongoing advertising, bookkeeping, packing parcels, deliveries, interacting with customers and plenty of emails ! Using social media sites such as Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter to keep your Google indexing as high as possible in the search engines, borrowing funds from the bank to pay suppliers and eBay fees, upgrading your computer, upgrading your software every few years, expanding your product line when competition arrives, backing up your data weekly (seems to be more storms and floods these years so this is a must !) watching your competitors closely. There are a lot more things to consider in the startup years and even if you grow, most of your profits if any will go back into investing in more products ! Forget about an income for the first 5 years as you will be paying back loans in that time. Eventually if you grow big enough you will take on staff and perhaps have a brick and mortar store.
There is no quick way to wealth through any e-commerce platform and those who do achieve wealth are usually in the right place at the right time, very hard workers to the point of being extremely obsessive, very lucky and visionaries. Often the wealthy we see in the media sell to the masses and are usually authors of top selling novels, actors of blockbuster movies, top athletes, social media web developers, apps developers and property developers.
Steve Jobs got it right when he said "If you love what you do you will succeed because there are just too many problems to solve and if you don’t love what you do you cannot sustain this kind of effort for a long period of time"
After reading Mike's TMF book i noted that Steve meant that it is loving what you do ie being an Entrepreneur and not what you sell ie products. Who cares about the products if the profit margin is good. Good on you Mike for making this a point in your book.
Now I know dropshipping isn't exactly fastlane but I've got a supplier who is in Asia and has accepted to do this for me and will help me move into the fastlane.
A few things i asked myself before committing to dropshipping:
* Is my supplier already offering droppshipping to anyone?
No...awesome = less crowded market
* Is the supplier reliable?
Yes...been my supplier for over 5 years but i never considered
asking about dropshipping as customers would think my
stuff is cheap crap if they see it comes from Asia since
i'm selling valuable jewellery. Less risk now as i have
thousands of good feedback.
* Does the supplier have a few good photos of each product?
Don't know yet until next week...This is make or break for me
as i won't sell using their blurred stock photo. Do i pay them to
take good photos of each piece or do i fly overseas and stay
for 2 months to take photos myself?
I'm still getting waiting for them to answer all my questions such
as cost to ship 1 piece, my business name on package (not
theirs), paypal payment for single piece otherwise wire transfer
would cost $50 (my bank plus middlebank fee), return policy for
a damaged piece.
BTW, this is my experience only as i'm no expert.
Ebay is a numbers game.
You need to list at least a thousand products if you are selling established products to make a full time living doing this otherwise you end up spinning your wheels for years for low income
If you are like me you have spent the last 5-10 years of your life trying out various e-commerce websites and auction sites such as Oztion (now called Quicksales) or the more well known names such as Amazon, eBid, eCrater, Etsy and eBay.
The allure to most sellers is to make a quick fortune by selling products on the internet to capture the growing online market while seeing the decline of traditional retail stores.
It is easy to THINK BIG as the various motivational gurus would like us to do so we listen intently and start dreaming up everything BIG like a lotto winner would do such as travelling to exotic places with our loved ones while Twittering our friends on the beach while at the same time checking our Facebook like page and then dining out in 5 star restaurants every night of the week without looking at the right side of the menu ! or how about even rolling the dice big time at the Casino de Monte Carlo while your PA parks your Ferrari at the front door. But it only gets better as the next day you decide to take your yacht out on the beautiful calm blue waters while your helicopter waits to take you back to your luxurious beachside mansion where your butler and housekeepers have prepared a gourmet meal for you and your friends. Sounds great doesn’t it? But reality bites !!
I am not against this way of thinking as these things do happen everyday to many of us (plenty on this forum !) and as the saying goes that “You get what you FOCUS on”. And after all if you don’t have a dream how are you supposed to achieve it?
I believe that having a passion for what you do can achieve all the above if you love what you do. Most of us know that success or wealth or both never comes easy but it is possible for anyone who can make a plan and stick with it.
Personally i never found my passion for jewellery until i was in my mid-thirties after having finished a Bachelor of Business degree in accounting/marketing and travelled through France and the UK as a backpacker and enjoying the antique shops and markets. At first i thought i would stay to become a Chef and train at the Courdon Bleu School in Paris as i realised accountancy was not for me but the Cordon Bleu School was and still is an expensive course so i decided i would save and try out another private cooking school in my own hometown here in Perth, West Australia. As fate would have it i broke out in a rash while trying out nearly every recipe in the Margaret Foulton cookbook ! Gees, what will i do now i thought?
On weeknights after work at a bottled water company in the accounts department i would set up a company website in my spare time for my startup employer (now publicly listed) as i enjoyed doing this as a hobby.
After showing my boss the webpage design he offered to pay me some money for actually doing something i enjoyed doing in my free time!! By the way i didn’t accept the money or become a webdesigner but i had to sit down and think about what i really wanted to do with my life as i was not an office type of person where creativity isn’t allowed.
After reading Steve McKnights 130 properties in 3.5 years book while waiting at the dentist i was ready to take ACTION so i bought a house before the market boom in 2002 and then forgot all about the book after i quit my job and wanted to travel. 5 years later i started reading more books from authors such as Michael Yardney and Margaret Lomas and invested in another property which allowed me to take out available equity to start a business. Little did i know that the boom would come and i got lucky !
This was Pre-GFC days for those of you who never experienced the market boom in 2002 -2006.
Now that i have been an eBay seller for 6 years i can fairly say that it takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears to keep this auction site going. But the satisfaction and challenge of making a go of it day in and day out becomes enjoyable if you enjoy helping customers and you actually have an interest in what you make or sell so you can persevere when the economy goes down or you face stiff competition.
For those of you wishing to become an eBay seller there will be serious challenges ahead but also opportunities. There is no doubt you will need to spend 10 hours everyday in the beginning setting up your website for auction and BIN listings, take good photos, research for products that you can establish in a niche market, ongoing advertising, bookkeeping, packing parcels, deliveries, interacting with customers and plenty of emails ! Using social media sites such as Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter to keep your Google indexing as high as possible in the search engines, borrowing funds from the bank to pay suppliers and eBay fees, upgrading your computer, upgrading your software every few years, expanding your product line when competition arrives, backing up your data weekly (seems to be more storms and floods these years so this is a must !) watching your competitors closely. There are a lot more things to consider in the startup years and even if you grow, most of your profits if any will go back into investing in more products ! Forget about an income for the first 5 years as you will be paying back loans in that time. Eventually if you grow big enough you will take on staff and perhaps have a brick and mortar store.
There is no quick way to wealth through any e-commerce platform and those who do achieve wealth are usually in the right place at the right time, very hard workers to the point of being extremely obsessive, very lucky and visionaries. Often the wealthy we see in the media sell to the masses and are usually authors of top selling novels, actors of blockbuster movies, top athletes, social media web developers, apps developers and property developers.
Steve Jobs got it right when he said "If you love what you do you will succeed because there are just too many problems to solve and if you don’t love what you do you cannot sustain this kind of effort for a long period of time"
After reading Mike's TMF book i noted that Steve meant that it is loving what you do ie being an Entrepreneur and not what you sell ie products. Who cares about the products if the profit margin is good. Good on you Mike for making this a point in your book.
Now I know dropshipping isn't exactly fastlane but I've got a supplier who is in Asia and has accepted to do this for me and will help me move into the fastlane.
A few things i asked myself before committing to dropshipping:
* Is my supplier already offering droppshipping to anyone?
No...awesome = less crowded market
* Is the supplier reliable?
Yes...been my supplier for over 5 years but i never considered
asking about dropshipping as customers would think my
stuff is cheap crap if they see it comes from Asia since
i'm selling valuable jewellery. Less risk now as i have
thousands of good feedback.
* Does the supplier have a few good photos of each product?
Don't know yet until next week...This is make or break for me
as i won't sell using their blurred stock photo. Do i pay them to
take good photos of each piece or do i fly overseas and stay
for 2 months to take photos myself?
I'm still getting waiting for them to answer all my questions such
as cost to ship 1 piece, my business name on package (not
theirs), paypal payment for single piece otherwise wire transfer
would cost $50 (my bank plus middlebank fee), return policy for
a damaged piece.
BTW, this is my experience only as i'm no expert.
Ebay is a numbers game.
You need to list at least a thousand products if you are selling established products to make a full time living doing this otherwise you end up spinning your wheels for years for low income
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