How to Start an eBay Home Business

The following is a guest post from Start an eBay Home Business.

So you want to have some more money at the end of the month to save for the future, to live a bit better or to be able to afford that new mobile phone? Consider selling stuff on eBay, almost everything you've got at home can be made into money. (What is the best Stuff to Sell on eBay?)

eBay as a Top Money Maker

But this article is not for occasional sellers who want to make a few hundred bucks. We are talking business here, and constructing an eBay home business works just as any other business works, by professionally doing what it takes to get a good profit out of your transactions. Thousands of so-called "Powersellers" on eBay make an entire living out of the site, and with eBay's growing audience worldwide, this isn't going to change anytime soon. Most probably more and more people will use online shops to sell their products, because it takes away the hastle of setting up a real physical shop, paying employees to sell, clean the shop and so on. With drop-shipping, a service offered by many wholesalers to send the bought product directly from them to the client without passing your hands, it is even possible to completely take away the usual paper work and added fees for shipping! And in this case, your own eBay home business is really just a matter of presenting a product and taking the cash once it has been bought - everything else is taken over by the wholesaler.

Successful Selling requires Professional Work

Sounds pretty cool, right? Well, it is. But it is work, and nobody could ever keep that fact from you if he wanted to actually tell you how to get into making a larger profit on eBay. The major advantage over other methods to make money is, of course, that it works through a simple buy and sell scheme: you buy for a low price and sell for a high price and the difference is your profit. That way, as soon as you sell something you will get profit, it is not as with so many other earning possibilities where you have to build something up from zero or where you have to develop a specific faculty of doing something well, because buying and
selling is what works in the real world, too. There is no way to fail at this business if you just have a good look at a few basic guidelines which I will show you now.

1) Building an eBay home business is first of all a matter of getting a well organized system. You have to make a plan to find out what it is you want to sell, because you'll need to figure out whether there is a demand for that product, how to present it and you'll need to find a wholesaler who can give you that product at a low price. Start by deciding what actually interests you as a person, because if you sell items that you know about it'll be easier for you to describe the article and to answer questions of your potential buyers. Then you should see if that product you chose sells well on eBay. Use eBay Pulse for that purpose (you can check different categories and see what sells best) or generally look at the auctions of that product by other sellers - you'll see at what price it can be sold for and how it is presented professionally. Find out where you can get that item from at a decent price and contact the wholesaler to see how you will have to organize yourself, what it will cost to send the products to either you or your buyers, including the additional charges for customs if you get them shipped to your place. Once
you've established that business relationship you should sign up for an eBay account and a paypal account, if you haven't done so yet.

2) Assuming you know what you want to sell and where to get it from, you will have to find out how to present the product. Look at other auctions on eBay to find out how successful other people do it, and start by imitating them. Imitation is the best way to learn here, but be sure not to copy any text or pictures from them because of the copyright law. Some general rules apply, though, to build a good presentation:

• Add good, detailed photos of the product, preferably photos you took yourself, this acts like a proof that you actually own the product and that it is not a mock-up
• Give all the necessary information; technical specifics, the condition that the product is in (used or new)
• State clearly what the shipping costs or additional charges will be, and be sure to explain everything about the warranty (if need be)

3) Rinse and repeat. The steps are always the same, and if you're selling the same product over and over again the work that goes into the description and photos will only have to be done once. Be sure to be very friendly to your buyers. If ever somebody asks to return something, think hard if you shouldn't refund him! Once your eBay feedback score is down because you were unfriendly or failed to provide a refund even though you offered one in the article description, nobody will buy from you anymore. Most people on eBay only buy from seller with at least 99% positive ratings, so keep that in mind. It's better to loose 80$ through a refund once and make 160$ the following day by selling to another person than keeping the 80$ and not
selling anything anymore because you didn't refund and you got a bad rating!

Keeping all this in mind, you should be ready to go and to start your own eBay business. Of course it's a slow earning system at first, because you need to acquire the necessary routine to doing everything right and fast, and that can only be acquired through trial and error. But once you know the nuts and bolts, nothing's easier than that. The more profit you make, the more products you can buy from a wholesaler and the more sales you can make. At some point you might even consider getting an employee to do the work in your stead if you're making enough money! There really is no limit as to the amount of money you
can make on eBay if you're willing to work of it and if you have the patience to do it.

Comments

[Olivia]

I have found that auctions are great places to find items to sell--especially if you live in a less-populated area. Without the extra competition from multiple resellers in the area, you can get really great deals. Garage sales can also be sources of great bargains that can be resold on Ebay. Be creative when thinking of ways to acquire merchandise.

[Noadi]

This is equally applicable to starting a shop on Etsy if you are an artist/crafter or your own retail site. Treat it like a business and get organized, took me a while to learn that on Etsy but once I did things got a lot easier.

[basicmoneytips.com]

I buy and sell occasionally on EBAY but less frequently now. However, I can see that it has really become a power sellers site.

The trick is probably finding a good wholesaler. While I have to evidence, I am guessing the margin on items sold by most power sellers is quite low.

[MasterPo]

Yes, you can make money on ebay with the right items.

The one thing none of these "ebay business" stories ever talk about is: The fees!!!

The fees add up FAST and will KILL your business very very quickly!

Ebay charges when you list, when you sell, for the features to add to your auction to get people to notice, etc. And it may take many many listings before your item sells.

Then there is the payment fee from PayPal (the top way people pay for auctions).

And many so-called "powersellers" use 3rd part systems to manage their auctions and sales. Those aren't free either (not anymore, long ago they were).

MasterPo has yet to meet someone who truly makes a living (muchless a really good living) selling on ebay. If that ever happend MasterPo would love to audit his/her books. MasterPo is willing to be they don't account for many of the fees they are paying and they really don't have the cashflow they think.

[John Michael]

You bet you can make money on ebay! The exciting thing is you can make a lot of money, if you really know what you're doing.

The most important part about making money on ebay is doing the proper research, a lot of "newbies" don't really know how to research properly so the end up and make rookie mistakes and loose money.

The next important ingredient to your success is finding things to sell AFTER you have sold everything in your house!

[Budgeting in the Fun Stuff]

I only use Ebay for items worth more than $20 that I couldn't sell on Craigslist since Ebay and Paypal fees are so high.