Ask Me Anything About Ebay

[cantbeatluck]

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So you, your wife, and a part time shipper profit 120k+ per month. You have almost no overhead to speak of.

Tell me three things you don't like about what you do.

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#1. I havent had a day off in more than 2 years
#2. I have two sets of customers to please the buyer and the consignee
#3. Shipping 500+ items a week can be hard with just the 3 of us

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This is more a question about you than your business. Given that you seem to make a lot of money, why do you choose to work yourself so hard instead of taking frequent vacations? Do you fear that you will lose longtime customers if your store is closed for 1-2 weeks a couple times a year? Or is it just personal preference that you like working and don't care for vacations?

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I have addiction issues, used to be drugs, then online poker, now its working at my business, I hope to retire at 40 and be able to live well on my money and travel at that point.

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how old are you now?

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I am 27

[cantbeatluck]

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Additionally, if you had to start your business over, would there be anything you would do differently when you first started??

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I would have franchised it for 75k set up and 4% of each stores sales for life, I sold it guy did it and hes making millions for nothing.

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What would the 75k startup cost cover? I imagine most of the expense comes from the storefront rental space, no?

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75k much more than I had in beginning...yes the space is where youll spend your money and advertising. I go through 40 bucks worth of ink a day...weird expense but still about 1k a month in ink and paper adds up.

[Jay.]

So, i went on a search for companies in England that are doing this. There seems to be 3 based in London, the mega site being www.auctioning4u.co.uk which seems pretty amazing all around.

So, i wanted to get a quick idea of their profit, so adding up their total sales for the past 3 days (yes, this took ages, over 100 auctions so should be a nice sample to use) was £6.8k, so £68k per month, they take 33% of the final sale minus 14% which OP said for ebay/paypal leaves them w/ 19%, so £155k per year (based on nov sales) before wages/advertising/tax but not including if they skim from shipping and other small profits they have

Just from their feedback per month/6 months/12 months they had 19k feedbacks left in the past 12 months of which 3500 were in the last month, so 100%+ growth, for their first year. Hot!

[cantbeatluck]

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So, i went on a search for companies in England that are doing this. There seems to be 3 based in London, the mega site being www.auctioning4u.co.uk which seems pretty amazing all around.

So, i wanted to get a quick idea of their profit, so adding up their total sales for the past 3 days (yes, this took ages, over 100 auctions so should be a nice sample to use) was £6.8k, so £68k per month, they take 33% of the final sale minus 14% which OP said for ebay/paypal leaves them w/ 19%, so £155k per year (based on nov sales) before wages/advertising/tax but not including if they skim from shipping and other small profits they have

Just from their feedback per month/6 months/12 months they had 19k feedbacks left in the past 12 months of which 3500 were in the last month, so 100%+ growth, for their first year. Hot!

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Thats about right, the first month I made over 100k profit I nearly crapped my pants

[The Don]

1) What percentage of the final sale to you take? (was probably asked but I didn't see it)

2) Where in the US is your business located?

3) Is there a lot of competition that you know of in the area?

[Frequitude]

What is Ebay like on Boxing Day, and "Boxing Week" in general?

[rubbrband]

Can you give and example of what your ads look like and what info you have in them as well as TV ads?

[Sirasoni]

Great thread, read it the whole way through. I'm actually beginning to start to sell some stuff on eBay. I sell authentic jewelry for a huge cut of the suggested retail value, but I'm having some problems mainly because I have such a small feedback rating (and none are selling feedback), the jewelry selection is HUGE on eBay so exposure to my items is almost nil until the item is about to end, and that I'm just new to the ebaying business in general. Also my mom has asked me to sell some of her expensive shoes for her - they're authentic Louis Vuitton and whatnot but it appears hard to genuinely convince buyers that they're real, once again due to my low rating. I do put a considerable amount of time making my pages look good and professional, usually involving some personalized photoshop work for each item I sell, etc.

Do you have any quick tips for someone like me? Other than general tips, some tips you've learned from the inside that could help? Should I just get that book mentioned in this thread?

Thanks [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[1-Lucky-SOB]

I've read somewhere that one way to boost your initial feedback rating, is to buy and sell ebay ebooks for like .10 cents or so.

Has anybody else heard about this method, of generating positive feedback?
Pros and cons to getting some initial feedback this way?
Is this a scam?


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