Expert: Marvinator - 1/13/2006

Question
I need to know the truth! What do I need to do to make a living from ebay. My husband and I are both unemployed at this time. I am a RN that needs to stay at home to help our disabled 8 year old son. My husband went to work today and the office was closed, shut down. The owner is being sued so he closed his business and moved out of town.
My husband wants to stay home and help me with my son. So with all this said, we need info on how to build a business selling on ebay. we know it takes time, but its better than having no other plan, while my husband looks for another job or stays at home to help me.
How do some of these ebayers make thousands off one sale. I couldn't believe some of the things I saw selling for thousands.
I just need the truth instead of having people buy their books with alot of hype.
Thanks!

Answer
I do happen to have written an Ebook on the subject, but I'm not going to hawk it here.  You want the truth.

The truth is that running an Ebay busienss can be a long hard row to hoe.  My wife currently has a feedback rating of over 10,000 and has been a selling member of Ebay for going on 8 years. She is one of the originals. I joined only months after she did and I've been quite successful myself.  I'm not trying to brag, but only to show you it CAN be done.

My wife works 6 days a week, sometimes 12-18 hours a day and makes a nice living.  She's not rich by any means and those who think they can get rich off of Ebay have been watching too many TV News Shows on ABC.  But my point is, if you're ready for hard work, and have a good head on your shoulders, you can at least SUPPLEMENT an income using Ebay. I currently work a full time job and she brings in a good amount for our household.  For you, Ebay income HAS to be considered ADDITIONAL as there is no guarantee that you will make money.  With the right product just about anyone can make sales, but I'm not really ready at this time to say that you will support a family.  I mean let's face facts here.  You're not going to open an Ebay Busienss and make a living from day one - you know that, right?

Now, that said, Let me point out that there are literally HUNDREDS (maybe even thousands) of sellers who have tried what you're going to try and have gone under.  Some have lost their houses, their life savings and  yes, have had to return to the workforce just because they kept thinking that the key to ebay was within their grasp, they just had to try this, or that, or change this in their auctions or that with their product.  

There are millions of sellers on Ebay right now, right this second. Almost 90-95% of them are hobbyists.  This means they make very little money.  A few auctions each week, no big plans.  Of the 5-10% left, most are brick and mortar stores, or companies which have income through other avenues - they don't rely on Ebay to support their bottom line.  Only a minor amount of the sellers on Ebay are Mom'n'Pop operations (which is what you will be considered to be) and of THAT group, very few make actual money (meaning more than their Ebay fees and a few dinners out). Before you go into this, you had better make the decision right now, are you going into this as a business, or as a hobby.

Before you continue as a business, I suggest you get together with someone who knows what they are doing and  examine your resources and put together a business plan.  Without a plan, you are just throwing money at a problem and hoping something happens.  

Now, let's get down to the nitty gritty of what you need to know and what there is ahead of you.  First and foremost, never assume.  Assuming anything on Ebay means you need to ask a question.  Ebay is not a regular business and has many different ways of handling business type dealings.  Before you say "Gee, I think that we could...."  ask!

Resources:  Get over to eBay and find the  HELP section.  This is the most underused section of Ebay.  ESPECIALLY the A-Z Index.  You can find a clear answer to something quickly using this index.  Just think of the key words.  Like FEES for example. Click F...look down for Fees: Insertion and Fees: Final Value. Click each one and bingo there's the answer.  And let's not leave out the one little link that so many people never know about.  LIVE HELP.  Live Help can be found on the Ebay.com main page in the upper right corner just below the Sun Java logo.  They can't resolve problems, but when you're looking for information these guys really know the system.  

Next is the Site Map.  It's at the top of most every page.  Start (oddly) with the CENTER column.  Click every link and learn as much about the system as you can.  Yes, it will be boring and you may already know a lot of it, but you need to know so do it.  Next, go to the RIGHT column and start clicking.  Learn all the community resources.  THIS is where you go when you don't know the answer, or find yourself ASSUMING.  You can find resources here to help you with your product too.  There are discussion groups for just about every category on Ebay and lots of experts to bend an ear.  (Let's not forget you also have me, here that you can ask questions of at any time.)

Now, that brings us to a really difficult part of the deal.  Product.  WHAT exactly are you planning on selling?  I'm going to assume you may already be thinking of something so I'm going to skip over my usual rants about how to go about finding something.  If you need that rant, write again and I'll go through it for you.  

So you have a product and you're ready to sell it.  Nope. Research first.  Do a search on Ebay and find out what that type of product is selling for.  Can you sell it and make a profit?  Yeah, it may be a nice item which sells for $500 but if you have to buy it for $250 and you only sell one a week, that's less than  $1000 a month after fees.   You can learn this by doing a search for the item and then expanding that search to include COMPLETED Items.  (The completed items search goes back only 30 days, but if you do this regularly every few weeks, you will see a pattern of sales emerge.)

At this point I could launch into everything about how to list an item but this information is available on Ebay so I won't go into it just now.  Listing items takes very little know how, but it's the MARKETING of your product which will make you sales.  As an example, I hate the word LOT in my titles, as I feel it demeans the items i"m selling.  Yeah, it's a haphazard collection of buttons off old clothes, but the word LOT may cost me money in bids.  So I use different words and I never use that word. "1000 OLD BUTTONS IN A TUPPERWARE BOX" gives more value to the auction than "LOT OF 1000 BUTTONS OFF OF OLD CLOTHES".  You see?   Marketing.

I don't want this to be long and boring.  After all you just wanted to know what it takes to get going. I hope I've given you a lot of think about: Business Plan,  Product, Knowledge of the system, patience and just a bit of Marketing.  As you do more in your Ebay experience, feel free to return here and I'll help whenever I can.   Remember it can be done, but it WON'T be done overnight.

Please feel free to return here and get more info as you find more questions.  Thanks and good luck.