How To Start a Business Selling on eBay
By Jose Valdez
Selling on eBay is gives you an opportunity to start a home based business. Many people have already started a home based business selling on eBay and many more will do the same. Virtually anyone can do it.
This guide will walk you through the basics of starting a home based business selling on eBay.
What you need to Start a Home Based Business Selling on eBay
You will need a computer, an internet connection, an eBay account which you can get free at the eBay website. You also need to be familiar with how to list items that are sold, and you will have to be able get the products sold to the person(s) who buys from you.
Getting Started Selling on eBay
Before selling on eBay as a business, you will have to familiarize yourself with the eBay format if you have not already done so. Simply go to eBay.com browse through the categories that you feel you will be selling in. It is also a good idea to register (for free at eBay.com) and buy a few items yourself to get a feel for the process.
A few of the questions you will want to answer are what are you going to going to sell, where you will get products from and at what cost, and who are your buyers going to be?
If you are serious about making serious about starting a profitable home based business selling on eBay, you are going to have to develop a marketing strategy.
The first important decision that you will have make is What to Sell."
What to Sell
What can you sell on eBay? Pretty much anything. When you first start selling on eBay, the items sold will most likely be things that are "lying around the house unwanted."
It is almost always better to focus your time and energy on selling a few items or related items.
Where to find Products for Sale?
A major part of the success of your home based business will being able to reliably find products that you will be able to sell for a profit.
Personal items - Selling personal that you do not want is a great place to start.
Garage and yard sales - You can spend some of your time shopping at garage and yard sales looking for items that you may be able to sell for a profit.
Estate sales - If you have a way of moving a lot of items that are being sold at estate sales, you can make a good profit by practically buying whole estates. However, if a professional is handling the estate sale, you may not be able to buy the items at a low enough cost to benefit you.
Established retailers - You may be able to buy overstock, discontinued, damaged, seasonal products that were not sold from retail stores at a discount.
Buying from wholesalers - If you are careful in who you choose to buy from, what to buy, and all of the costs associated with buying wholesale, this can be a good way to have a steady stream of products to sell. The most important decision may be who you choose as your wholesaler.
Finding a Niche Market
Once you have an idea of what you want will be selling on eBay, you need to focus your efforts more and find one or more niche markets. If you sell books for example, you can consider selling mainly college textbooks. This will allow you to better know the items that you will selling and more importantly your target customers and the categories which they buy from on eBay.
Choosing Categories to list your Products in
Browse the eBay categories that are most relevant to the product(s) that you are selling and list them in the categories that have the most visitors and buyers also the ones the ones that are the most specific to what you are selling. In most cases, you should list your items in no less than 5 categories.
Keeping Track of you Auctions
You will need to be able track an auction from beginning to end. When you begin to have a large number of products listed for sell, you will need to develop a system to keep track of all of them. If you list only a few items at a time, you may be able to keep track of them with a spreadsheet or on a piece of paper. If you will be listing numerous items at once, you want to use software.
If you will not be using software to keep track of the listings, be sure write down the item number, URL, listing price, listing date and time, and the category(s).
When an auction ends, write down the time it ended, the selling price if any, and the buyer's contact information. Index the auctions by auction number for future reference. This system works if you have only a few items listed at a time. It is very important to keep track of all of your auctions, especially for tax purposes.
Posting Pictures
One aspect you will want to become very familiar with will be posting quality pictures. If you will be selling any physical product, this is essential. All that you need to post a picture is a digital camera and a way to upload the image(s) to your computer.
Develop a Strategy for Selling on eBay
Again, I have to stress that when starting an eBay business, treat it like a business if you are serious about making real money selling on eBay. Develop a strategy before you begin to invest any significant amount of time, energy and money into your eBay business. Ask yourself questions such as: What will I be selling? Who will I be selling to? Where will I get the products? Will I be selling a high volume of products at a low profit margin or a low number of items for a higher profit per sale?
Many people have already started and are operating a successful home based business selling on eBay. If owning and operating a home based business is what you want, selling on eBay is one more idea and opportunity to do so.
You are free to reprint this article if you include the following the following text and link
about the author:
Jose Valdez is the owner/webmaster of www.aguidetostartingabusiness.com and www.allhomebasedbusinessideas.com
About the author:
about the author:
Jose Valdez is the owner/webmaster of www.aguidetostartingabusiness.comand www.allhomebasedbusinessideas.com
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What Everyone Should Know About How To Buy Wholesale
By: Melanie Burns
Finding a supplier for the product you want to sell, at a price that you can profit from, can be a big task. The best suppliers for your online sales or auctions do not advertise their services and often cannot be found online.
Those that you can find online tend to be middle-men. It is often difficult to get a good enough price to make any real profit online.
Let me tell you about my simple 2 step system to find an untapped source for wholesale suppliers. This is so simple that it's often overlooked as a source for product. This system involves thinking outside the box and not letting policy stop you. (continued below)
The First Step to find a supplier is to find someone that already sells or has access to what you want to sell. This could be a website, an eBay seller, a manufacturer, a wholesale outlet, or a regular store in your city. This is the easy step. You know what you are looking for and you can search on the internet, not for a wholesale source, but for anyone already selling what you want to sell.
Another valuable source for a local supplier is your local phone book. The yellow pages are the best way to find local sources. This should be the first place you look. Doing business locally with someone that you can meet face to face is a big plus for your business.
Another potential source for your product is to find a distributor who would be willing to private label a product for you. You could get a very high quality product for a much lower price than if it had the name brand label.
The Second and Key Step is to convince the source you found to become your supplier.
Manufacturers and wholesale sources often have minimum orders that might be beyond your reach if you are just starting out. Online retailers, eBay merchants, and retail stores may be your best bet. Try to find a small store who is looking to expand.
But remember, you are dealing with a human being and they can be convinced to do business with you. Just be sure to sweeten the deal for them. One way is to offer the person you are dealing with at your new found source, a percentage of your profits from the products he supplies you.
Be sure to project it out for him. If he can see the benefit of working with you even though it causes extra work for him, you can be successful in making a deal.
You could offer him 20% of the profit from sales of his products. For example you could show him that you project to make at least $100 profit from each product, and you expect to sell 40 of them per month. The $4000 a month means an extra $800 per month in his pocket. You still make a nice $3200 profit for the month in this example.
On top of that, he will be ordering more products from his supplier and may be eligible for a higher price break from them. This way, his reward for the effort to work with you, is making money on both sides.
There are many benefits you can offer your potential supplier, but no matter how you look at it, the main thing it comes down to is MONEY. What's in it for your potential supplier to do business with you? If can you show him that, you have a better chance of making a deal with him and starting your online sales.
NOTE: When looking for suppliers around your city, don't go trying to impress the big stores with your $800 or even $3,000 extra income per month proposal. Try going to the little stores that are looking to expand their business, they are the ones that are usually more open to new opportunities.
The big stores are making hundreds of thousands of dollars per month in profits, so an extra couple of thousand would probably not impress them the least bit.
So now you see that by thinking outside the box, you open the door to many possibilities and increase your ability to make money online with your products.
About the Author:
Copyright © Melanie Burns
This article is free for reproduction but must be reproducted in its entirety including live links and this copyright statement. Subscribe to the iBusiness How2 Newsletter to receive hot tips, how to's, internet business tools, and relevant product reviews by sending an email to: newsletter@internet-business-how-to.com
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