A. Dear
Doreen:
eBay has become a very important marketplace for home business owners.
Many people are making a living or earning additional income by selling on
eBay.
One success model of eBay is the couple Jay and Marie Senese (username
jayandmarie) of the 1-cent CD fame. They have the highest positive feedback
number of all sellers on eBay. Their business model is to buy very low cost
CDs in bulk (those that CD stores sell in their discount bins) and offer
them on eBay at a starting price of 1 cent. Their success is based on the
fact that they stumbled on a sustainable business model with products that
people really want. They sold their business -- where else but on eBay --
for starting bid of $5 million!
But while some are enjoying phenomenal success on eBay, selling on eBay
is not as easy as some portray. For one, competition is getting tough, as
more sellers flock to eBay; with even the big boys joining the eBay
marketplace. Big businesses such as Sears, Dell, Hewlett Packard among
others are now using eBay as an additional sales channel for their products
(including returns and defective merchandise). With more and more sellers
participating in the eBay marketplace, it has become harder for listings to
be seen by potential buyers. Just go to eBay and check out completed
auctions and you will find many listings that ended without a single bid.
Add to that the increasing listing and final value fees, and eBay is
slowly becoming an expensive marketplace. Imagine if you list 100 items, but
only 10 ended up with bids – and all of them your minimum bids. A 10%
selling rate is all too common, with some even seeing worse selling
percentages. If this low sell-through rate persists, you will start to feel
the pinch of all the listing and other fees associated with selling on eBay.
To be successful on eBay, you only need to do one thing: Sell products
that people actually want.
The article
“How to Find the Hottest Products to Sell on eBay” lists the various ways
eBay helps sellers like you to determine exactly what the hot items to sell
on their marketplace, as follows:
If you want to earn serious money from eBay, you need to have a well
thought out business model. Buying from garage sales and selling on eBay is
fun, and good getting a few dollars here and there from eBay. Sometimes, you
luck out on an item and hit big, but many times it will just be so-so
(assuming you can even get the price you paid for it). In terms of fun
factor, it is great. But not from a business standpoint; it is not
sustainable and it will not be often that you can luck out in finding a
great cheap item in flea markets only to sell for tens of thousands in eBay.
About the PowerHomeBiz.com Guide:
Isabel Isidro is the
co-founder and VP-Managing Editor of PowerHomeBiz.com, an online magazine
for home business entrepreneurs that provides guidance on starting, running
and managing a home-based business.
The opinions expressed in this column are
those of the author, not of PowerHomeBiz.com.
Users
should not treat the Guide's response as legal, accounting, or
professional advice as all answers are intended to be general in
nature. Such advice can only be properly given by qualified
professionals who are fully aware of a user's specific geographical areas or circumstances, such
as
an attorney or accountant.
