posted on November 9, 2002 12:22:59 PM
matching expenese with revenues is a must for any good accounting .so please dont tell us you make 40 dollars and yet skip the office overhead since it is part of your home and your sheer experience and joy of hunting books is worth zero expense.
many businesses flop after they emerge from mom and dad's basement or kitchen counter as they dont know or dont want to recognise business expenses.
once again,ebay selling is good if you dont want to build your business,you can be on ebay and get 10,000 +ve ratings and yet if you are gone tomorrow,no one will miss you.
FYI, I have run a bricks and mortar business successfully for 20 years, so I know all about expenses. They constantly come out of the woodwork to sap profit.
As to whether I should count my house as an expense for my ebay hobby, I don't think so. I don't write my house off on my taxes or claim a home office and my household expenses are the same whether I sell on ebay or not.
Now, my time driving to thrift stores and garage sales and hunting should probably be counted as an expense following your line of thinking. I choose not to because that is my favorite part of my hobby.
Thanks for all your kind words of wisdom. It is a pleasure to read your posts.
posted on November 9, 2002 08:52:06 PM
Internet sales are going to get better with time and Ebay will probably not fold and blow away anytime soon - But theres no reason not to make a Loud screech whenever they make changes that hurt us customers (be we sellers,buyers or whatever) Ebay does its best to not fix things that customers complain about- Like fraud - live software changes - search problems- Catagory errors and Indexing problems many more than I can remember. They focus on their agenda without regard to how it affects us as users and the only thing that brings change is negative publicity and massive complaint from its user base (remember checkout).
