posted on January 13, 2003 01:12:57 PM newI am in awe of someone who can list thousands of items....
Well, it's not hard to list thousands of items per week. It's hard to follow through on *sales* of thousands of items per week without hiring help.
There's a seller I know, lists under two eBay ids. She runs about 7000 auctions a week, more or less. Sellthrough averages 11%, so that's only about 770 successful auctions a week. She has herself and a full-time employee, so that's 385 auctions per week per person. In a five-day work week that's 77 auctions per day per person. I ship a bit more than that per day myself, so you can see this is doable *if* you hire help.
I seem to recall that I calculated once she was paying eBay more than $50,000 per month in fees. I guess that's great if you want frequent flier miles, but I thought I'd try the higher-sellthrough lower-fees approach myself.
posted on January 13, 2003 01:27:14 PM new
Fluffy;
It isn't the actual listing..its the back and forth of each transaction...each auction generates queries...either answered or ignored, pre and post sale, from buyers, payment services, acknowledgements, etc..
What I see is that with such a churn, you are necessarily limited in the amount of research and sourcing you can do.
posted on January 13, 2003 08:15:56 PM new
I don't do ebay only fulltime, I also do half plus I have a couple of other internet businesses (not sales oriented, more technical) - I started in 1995, and only felt comfortable quitting summer 2001 when my wife got a full time job with benefits. My wife is an educator, so we get long breaks (practically the entire summer together) and even though I end up taking a break from sales then, I have my other business I can keep doing as long as I have a computer in front of me.
It really depends on your position, if you have a family, etc. I would have done this much sooner if I was single, but with a spouse and kids, I didn't have that freedom. Good luck with whatever decision you make!
posted on January 14, 2003 01:42:45 AM new
On the health insurance thing... I just read something intereting. Ebay offers a reduced rate insurance policy thru an outside carrier for health insurance. Im curious what the rates are on this one and how they compare to one that an individual would find elsewhere. Anyone know?
