I once looked at what it would take for me to make a decent income selling on eBay full time. I looked at what I was selling then and calculated the # of auctions I would have to run to get a percentage closed successfully, to get a percentage paid to yada, yada, yada.
Wow, it was a lot of auctions. It made me really think about what I was selling, if that needed to change, if I needed to move into different merchandise, etc.
It also made me realize that to support that level of auctions, and still have a life, my selling had to be very, very streamlined where the process of acquiring inventory, preparing it for listing, writing descriptions and taking photographs, packing and shipping, etc. is as efficient as possible.
That, to some degree, may affect what you sell.
I don't think anyone doubts that the POTENTIAL is there for someone to make a full time income on eBay. But not everyone maximizes that potential.
Those that are successful, long term, on eBay are those that realize that their eBaying is a business and treat it as such. Some sellers find other avenues of producing income. You have to broaden your perspective and look at it in it's totality. eBay is only one piece of the puzzle.
For me, I have a mail order business. In it's simplest form, that's what it is. I sell online (through various avenues) and I sell offline, but it is all mail order. Looking at it this way allows me to broaden my horizons and look into other ways of selling my merchandise (even on a wholesale level to other sellers) and tap into other streams of income.
So eBay is a part of it, but it is not everything.
This makes me less stressed by the changes that eBay makes that can be detrimental to small sellers because eBay is only one piece of the puzzle.
I don't know that you really need to "ask" people about selling on eBay full time. Seems that if you have the business skills to know how to "run the numbers" (create financial statements to analyze profitability and CASH FLOW) and you can hack out a decent business plan, those two things, more than anything, answer the question for you.
One of the challenges about selling on eBay, though, is knowing that you have good, steady sources of merchandise to sell. And not just to sell, but you have to be able to acquire it at prices low enough to sell on eBay because in many categories, eBay is a real bargain basement because of all the competition among sellers.
And sometimes you need to have a fair amount of cash to be able to take advantage of a good deal. Sometimes, merchandise, whether new or used, whether collectible or not, may only be available in a large quantity.
You say that you sell records, postcards and such. Do you have alternate avenues for selling your merchandise if it does not sell on eBay? One of the things we look at before buying anything is if it doesn't sell on eBay, can we sell it somewhere else for a decent amount of money? If the answer is no, then we don't buy it.
Anyhow, there is a lot to think about, but it has to be thought about from a business perspective because there is a big difference between the hobby seller and the business seller.
posted on May 1, 2001 05:14:50 PM
And when does the hobby seller BECOME a business seller, IRS-wise? Am getting concerned about that. I'm quite small-time, I only bring in about $200-300 a month. At what point (or should I already have,) do I need to declare it a business and/or file as income?
posted on May 2, 2001 09:41:48 AM
Quote:
And when does the hobby seller BECOME a business seller, IRS-wise? Am getting concerned about that. I'm quite small-time, I only bring in about $200-300 a month. At what point (or should I already have,) do I need to declare it a business and/or file as income?
You should already report it as income. The IRS classification of "hobby" versus "business" only affects whether or not you can qualify for any of the deductions that small and/or home based businesses can use. The income is supposed to be reported regardless.
posted on May 7, 2001 10:50:37 AM
There's something to be said for the glut of part-time and amateur eBay sellers making it hard for the full-time sellers to succeed. But the turnover in sellers and bidders is what makes it very interesting. I expect eBay's volume to rise as much as 50% in the next year.
