How to start an eBay business
Recently I got asked this question again. Usually when I talk to a group of people that I haven’t met, discussions move on to what you do for a living. I tell them about the companies that I am involved in and often I get called an entrepreneur (something I am still uncomfortable about).
When I mention my eBay businesses I sometimes get quizzed quite a bit.
The other day I was caught in a corner of a room by someone who was very keen to start an eBay business. As we got talking it got me thinking more about how we started our businesses and how they grew.
So I thought I would start with the basics in this post and I will start to write some entries about my own businesses, how and why they were started, how they grew, how eBay has changed over the last few years, what we do now that is different, and what we will do in the future.
Firstly you may know that there are heaps of websites out there about starting your own eBay businesses and making a amazing wage working from home. As always if it sounds too good to be true, it definitely is. So what you will get from me is the no bullshit opinion from moi.
Enjoy it
When looking for a product or service to sell, choose something that you know and like. If you like fishing, by all means open a fishing store and compete with me. If you like golf, don’t decide you want to sell gold fish supplies. You might make the same margin but you will get sick of fish tanks and plastic coral when your interests lie elsewhere
Do the groundwork
Don’t jump in headfirst. Look at the market online. Check out the relevant eBay categories.
- Are there many sellers in the category?
- Is the category dominated by brand name products?
- Is there a lot of bidding activity?
- Are there many small sellers, or a just a few big sellers?
These a similar questions should be asked to do some analysis. Are you likely to make a profit? Are you going to source your product from overseas, from China for example? or locally?
Brand and positioning
Where will your products sit in the market? Will they be high quality and high priced compared to your competitors? If there are many people selling cheap versions of your products you might be better to source better quality items and aim for the consumer who wants to pay more. I wouldn’t have thought it possible to build your own premium brand using only eBay, but we have done it and so can you.
Stay tuned, I will add some more information soon, and get into some more detail about the best ways to source products, and how to make sure you are even making enough money!
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