posted on January 12, 2003 07:22:57 PM new
First I have a great job as a software developer. But because of the systems I support it is very demanding and pretty stressful. On weeks that I'm on call I could be woke anytime of the night several times a week. I'm on call every third week however I'm also the Lead developer and usually support others when they on call. Anyway the point is I've sold on ebay for about 3 1/2 to 4 years now. I'm only selling in the winter now - while I can't golf. I've developed quite a system and have this down pat as far as managing auctions, and some of the recent changes with paypal, ups and usps make it even less time consuming. I've owned my own business about half of my career so that's nothing new (A video store and a driving range / miniature golf). Based on the types of stuff I sell now and in the past I think I would probably have to gross 30-40K per month to make enough profit to live on. That could be 1500-2000 or more auctions a month.
Is there anyone doing this that thinks they've made a mistake earning a living on ebay? What obstacles have you encountered that you didn't think about to start with? I realize that I would probably work harder selling on ebay but I think it would be less stressful and probably more satisfying.
posted on January 12, 2003 07:25:23 PM new
if you have a great job as software developer,please go back to work.
this ebay business will have you working 35 cents an hour.
posted on January 12, 2003 07:36:18 PM new
If the job market were better, I'd say go for it. You don't know til you try. But as the mother of a highly skilled and out of work Lead developer, I can say with assurance the job market stinks in your field. You won't have a good fall back position.
And if you do decide to do this full time, you can probably kiss golf as you knew it goodbye. ebay has a way of taking over your time. Plus, you'll have to keep updating what you sell. Eventually the widget market gets saturated and profits dive.
My guess is you like risk and won't be happy unless you give it a whirl.
posted on January 12, 2003 08:01:54 PM new
My 2 cents - I am in the process of resigning my full time job for a full time job selling ebay out of my home. Yes, it is risky - but I do have my husband's income - so it is not like we will starve if it doesn't work. I am truly tired of making money for someone else. I am truly tired of dealing with people face to face daily. I have been selling on ebay for a LONG time and am ready to take the plunge. Yes, ebay may take over my life - but that is OK - when I am on ebay I am making money for myself and not padding the pockets of a lazy boss.
posted on January 12, 2003 08:21:51 PM new
Don't do it unless you love doing it.
I mean it.
eBay part-time while you have a full-time job is a lot of fun. You feel flush with cash. Every day brings more checks and money orders. You make plans for that grand vacation.
eBay full-time is completely different. You may find that you have a lot less freedom than you thought you would
Me, I thought more aspects of the business would be automated by this point. I do have a mail server (set up by my partner and myself) that sends out invoices, and boy is it nice that that exists and I don't have to depend on or pay a third party to do that.
But.
I still have no workable way to easily manage the thousands of images I've created. (There may not be a hassle-free solution to this problem.) I have to stay RIGHT. ON. TOP. of people because eBayers are some of the most batter-scained people on earth. Remember, "my eBay" only tracks won auctions for about three weeks and your average eBayer after that time period will not pay and will call you a liar if you claim they won your auction. If you're going to run 2000 auctions a month you had better figure out some way to send out NPB notices en masse. (I haven't.) Perhaps you can write your own tools.
At one point I thought that the vast majority of buyers would use electronic payments, thus freeing me up to travel and sell on eBay simultaneously. The reality is less than 30 percent do. I still have the fun fun fun of processing checks and money orders. I'll be in Ventura next Friday for a Dregs concert but I am having to stay close to home a lot more than I wanted. (My items are small and I can get $10,000 worth wholesale in a couple of boxes.)
Better have a solid source of merchandise. I do, but I worry occasionally that they will raise their prices or make other arrangements. I keep an eye out for other things to sell and perhaps so should you.
posted on January 12, 2003 08:52:17 PM new
My experience is the opposite. I average
about 70% electronic payments, mostly from
PayPal. Followed by Moner Orders, Personal
Checks, cash, Cashier's Checks, and Company
Checks. I haven't done anything special
to encourage the use of PayPal either...
---
"Cannot say. Saying, I would know. Do not
know, so cannot say". -- Zathras (Babylon 5)
posted on January 12, 2003 09:05:54 PM new
Fluffy: The technical stuff I have down, for example tonight I just had to click a button to send all invoices for tonights auctions, and that could even be automated. Same with NPB's, things that need shipped, etc. Your right about it being fun part time. Anyone doing this with employees?
posted on January 13, 2003 01:36:07 AM new
I have a B&M , a website and sell on ebay all go hand in hand with 3 employees it is a full time job plus, ebay is the biggest in time consumption
posted on January 13, 2003 05:17:21 AM new
I quit my full time job back in May of last year. This is not the first time I had attempted to come home to work. I tried in 99 but my youngest son was still at home. I just couldnt make a go of it with the little one at home. Well this fall he started Kindergarten. So come May I put in a very happy resignation. I work from the time they get on the bus to the time they get off. Am I making myself rich? No way. But am I making more than I did per hour at a "real job"? Yes, and I have time to clean, laundry and make a large dinner every night. For me it has been a blessing but I have always been just the second income in the home. I am not the major bread winner in our family. I also have the luxury that if it had not worked I could go back to my job at any time. So there really was no risks.
posted on January 13, 2003 05:39:11 AM new
How is your health? Do you have, or can you buy health insurance without going broke doing that alone. Plan on spending several hundred dollard per month for this.
posted on January 13, 2003 05:56:05 AM new
2000 auctions a month? That sounds to much like work to me. Why take something that's fun and make it stress.
posted on January 13, 2003 07:21:01 AM new
2000 auctions per month,once upon a time when everyone woke up to selling on ebay,they need pc,scanner and camera and you laugh all the way to the bank.
of course today every field is so congested and it is hard to mark up any item for a fat profit.
the easy money is over selling on ebay or any auctions,i see some nice retailers liquidating stuff on ebay ,once those stocks are depleted,they would have a hard time replenishing.
of course sometimes we see the handwriting on the wall,one;s job may be here now but gone tomorrow,so plan ahead.
i would not quit my full time job until i absolutely have to,like someone ask,how is your health and how much do you know about ponying up your own health insurance premium?? afew hundred dollars a month is the norm if you are healthy
posted on January 13, 2003 07:42:24 AM new
If you are healthy and young!
My husband and I just turned 55 and our health insurance went up to $750 a month. And, that was just for major medical.
We had to cancel. It had gone up $150 a month for two years straight and for the first time in my life we are uninsured and just praying we stay healthy.
They don't want anyone over 50 on the insurance rolls so be careful about losing good insurance if you have it.
By time we reached 62 our insurance would have been $1150 (and that was at the current schedule without any increases other than for age). And, no, we have never used it!
So, considering if we became ill we couldn't afford to pay it anyway, and by 62 we couldn't afford to pay it at all, we just cancelled it in May. Now, I am considering going back to work just for the insurance.
posted on January 13, 2003 09:24:08 AM new
That's a good point about the health insurance. I'm 42 and I'm sure that it won't be getting any cheaper as I get older. I guess you would just have to make enough to compensate for that and other benefits of working for a big company.
I'm really thinking that it's not wise to do this if all you can make is approximately what you make working for someone else but, if you could double your salary it might be pretty tempting. I've felt for a few years that this is possible. I've even watched some sellers that gross 250K + a month ... listing thousands of items. My problem with that is you would probably have to start hiring people (and then managing those people would take up a lot your time). I wonder if there are sellers out there that actually have a sizable work force using many different ebay ID's. I've toyed with a strictly commission base system but I worry that a smart employee would see what's going on and become a competitor.
posted on January 13, 2003 09:29:12 AM new
BTW: 2000 auctions a month I feel is only about 1/2 of what one person could handle with the right tools. The most I've ever done has been a little more than 9000 in one month working full time for my current employer. That did run me into the ground but my first 40-50 hours a week were taken up by my real job. Also that's why I kind of take it easy now.
posted on January 13, 2003 09:45:35 AM new
Health insurance is key. I work a full-time job in the "real" world just for the health insurance benefits. I'd love to work strictly from home but the outrageous cost of insurance is prohibitive. And recent events in my life have made it very clear that I cannot go without insurance! Two days after my job's health insurance benefits kicked in, a visit to the emergency room on the morning of Christmas Eve revealed a very large tumor on my kidney....I had no idea it was there until the intense pain sent me to the hospital. Five days in hospital and $20,000 in bills later, I'm here to tell you that is insanely risky to go without health insurance. I was fortunate to get by for 1 1/2 years without it...more fortunate than I could've possible guessed.
Moral of the story is: if you want to quit your job to go full-time on eBay, factor in the cost of health insurance! You may find you'll need to keep that full-time job in the "real" world after all.
posted on January 13, 2003 10:27:58 AM new
nufsaid, you could probably make some money selling the tools you've developed, to us sellers-
Wish they were for Mac, but that's too much to hope for
"And All Shall be Well, and All Shall be Well, and All Manner of Things Shall be Well"
posted on January 13, 2003 10:41:16 AM new
I've been doing eBay since mid 1997 (basically part-time) with most of my business from Nov to April. I seldom sell during the summer unless its a specialty item that sells year round (ie--toy trains).
I put every red bloddy cent of true profit on my mortgage and paid my mortgage off in 10 years instead of 30. That way I figured not only did I make a profit on eBay, I put it into one of the few things left making any appreciable value. Not sorry I did it. Living off the husand's good job and still putting items on eBay. January has still been my consistent hottest month.
But as I go into nearly my 7th (??!!!) year, I can tell you that its changing.
I once heard a man say the way to get rich is to copy someone else who has done it. He advised to seek out a business that is service oriented and not product oriented.
In products, someone can always do it better or cheaper and eventually its harder to make any marginable profit. I think that he's right as far as new products go (vintage gives you a little more lee-way but you can even now see the prices dropping!).
Personally, keep your sofware developer job.
My husband is on call out EVERY night. I won't tell you what he does, but IF you were to see him, he'd be one of the last persons in your life you'd be with. Him and his little white chalk outlines.
posted on January 13, 2003 11:10:15 AM new
It's a 50/50 toss-up on keeping the kidney, fluff. They managed to tie off the blood supply to this "beast" attached to my kidney, and now we wait for the tumor to shrink, hopefully, to a more manageable size in order to remove it and leave the kidney unscathed..or at least most of the kidney. If they tried to remove the tumor now they'd have to take the kidney with it. I know...you can live with one kidney, but I'd prefer to save this one if possible and so would my urologist.
posted on January 13, 2003 11:43:34 AM new
shething: Keeping fingers crossed for you. You could live with one kidney, sure, but you'd be listing to one side when you walked.
posted on January 13, 2003 11:50:41 AM new
Fluff: I was factoring the sell through in that figure. Right now it's at about 85% because some things that I'm doing I price to get what I need (ones where a penny auction wont work because they are saturated) and some things I price at a penny where I see demand for the product.
posted on January 13, 2003 11:52:17 AM new
Be sure to make the doctor give you whatever he cuts out. I don't think I have seen any other tumors on eBay.
posted on January 13, 2003 11:54:46 AM new
Shething: I hope it all works out OK. I had a lady that worked with that gave up a Kidney to her brother. I hope it's not malignant. I don't if there is any way to tell but I'd be very aggressive if it was.
posted on January 13, 2003 11:59:36 AM new
i practice pretty much close to self insurance.for 125 a month,my deductible is 12k and if i am hospitalised ,my co payment is 1k.
so 13k will be out of my pocket ,the rest will come out of my insurance company.there is no way i can exceed that deductible as long as i am healthy,but the savings from insurance premium paid for my regular medical expenses.
so far it is working out okay.
posted on January 13, 2003 12:00:50 PM new
Thanks, nufsaid. Doc says it's not the malignant type, thankfully.
Sorry to steer the thread away from your initial question. I just wanted to make a point. If I could afford to carry my own health insurance, I go fulltime on eBay in a heartbeat!
posted on January 13, 2003 12:01:18 PM new
Interesting thread...For starters, I suggest anyone who is employed develop ancillary income streams, given the certainty of job loss over one's lifetime. EBay is an attractive alternative so far as retail sales are concerned because entry and exit expense are affordable compared to B&M.
Exactly how profitable it can be is a function of due diligence re what you are selling and how flexible & resourceful you are.
My model is based upon selling a combination of new products, close-outs and overstocks( refurb and new) that I buy from a number of sources that I have developed. Initially, my primary inventory was household appliances. ...but I have since expanded into sports equipment, pens, beauty supplies, cameras, telephones & have even had certain items manufactured over seas. In each case, the items I chose to pursue were the result of exploring categories on eBay and finding the source and pricing available...Many times a bust, but every so often, I'd find an item that I could source & expect to resell for sufficient gain.
In certain cases, I have to buy a skid or more of inventory. I utilize public storage, which is surprisingly affordable for such purchases. Other times, I am ordering directly from the manufacturer in small lots.
Some categories, (ready to wear, for example)...I have developed sources for but have not yet sold....rainy day inventory, I'd like to think.
My capitalization was based upon investing in myself and a certain confidence that I could realize a fair return with minimal downside. As part of my sourcing procedure, I ascertain whether or not I could liquidate with confidence at my cost of acquisition. This coupled with adequate past sales history from eBay, is an important element in deciding whether or not to buy.
However, there is no avoiding the assumption of risk....and this, more so than anything else, is the primary obstacle for many who would aspire to make a decent income off eBay.
I am in awe of someone who can list thousands of items....very hard work, logistically as well as time consuming given the amount of correspondence required in even an uncomplicated auction.
My model has been to employ FP auctions and single item; never having more than 20 auctions running at any time. This has produced gross sales on eBay of ~ $150K with a GPM of 42%. I combine this business with brokering deals for inventory that I don't want myself but that is, nevertheless, of value. I also consult with businesses and individuals re on line auction possibilities.
I basically massage my various contacts to the best possible advantage.
I have also developed freight connections that allow me to offer such services at very good discounts.
All in all, it comes down to multiple income streams. Most importantly, though, it is about your personal inventory. By this I mean who and what you know. I can speak to most anyone and after 5 minutes or so, come up with possible business scenarios on eBay. For example, your Driving Range experience might be a good source for vendors and suppliers....its all a matter of taking stock of your experience and knowledge and then following through with research.
posted on January 13, 2003 12:38:29 PM new
Pandorasbox: I agree. My experience is not unlike yours. I haven't done as much gross but I've sold similar types of things from similar suppliers. I was so in to it a couple years back that I even built a 40 x 60 Morton building for storage. (we live 5 minutes out of town on 7 acres).
One key to list a bunch of items is looking for loads with lots of identical items. Another is the software that you use to create your auction with. I guess my goal is to always analyze a process and make it faster. Right now if I have a new item that I've never listed before it takes me about 5 mins to take the picture, create the ad, ftp the image to the web server and list it. After that if I have several others of the same item listing just takes a few seconds.
You made a good point about a persons life experience being a source of potential ebay supply. Three years after I sold my video store I still get auction notices for stores going out of business. Talk about a great way to get a lot of product cheap. Wait till the end and they are selling entire racks for next to nothing.
[ edited by nufsaid on Jan 13, 2003 12:40 PM ]
