It seems that everyone is after the holy grail of only working a few hours a week, and expecting to make a ton of cash. Well, unless you are independently wealthy this is not going to happen. Not with ebay, and not with Amazon. When you are a reseller, or hustler as some call it, you will have to work. Now that's not to say you will work as hard as a 9 - 5 job, there are benefits to working as a reseller full time. That being said, there are ways to work less.
First and foremost, ebay is a game of numbers. If there is one secret that any power seller can tell you it is that fact. The more listings you have active, the more you are going to sell. The greater your inventory the better chance you have of attracting a potential buyer. Think of it this way. If you put a bag of M&M's into a bowl, chances are good that if you reach into the bowl you will get a brown one. That's because there are more brown than any other color. Now if you wanted to increase your chances of getting a green one, you would have to add more green ones to the bowl. Ebay is no different.
So how do you get your "green" M&M's into the bowl? You have to list, list list! And when you are sick of listing, list some more! The trick to really getting sales moving is to list a lot every day. The key is to have newly listed items and ending soonest items on rotation every single day. Your goal should be to start with listing 10 items a day. As you get comfortable with listing, and your listing time improves increase that to 20 a day. In 5 days you will list 100 items. In a month you will have 400 new items listed. You'll find that as your inventory grows, so will your sales. Adding that much inventory will get you to a consistent set of daily sales.
Now you will still have to deal with the ebay "roller coaster" ride, but you will fare better than someone who only has a couple hundred listings. To realistically have a shot at selling full time on ebay, and making a comfortable living, you should aim for 2,000 listings. This should get you an average of $2,000 per week in sales. Of course that is dependent on what you are selling. If you are selling something no one wants then you are just taking up space. But if you do your homework and sell the items that are in demand then you should have every expectation of making $2,000 in sales for your weekly average.
Now that does not mean you WILL make $2,000 every week. It means that will be your average. You may do $1,500 one week and $2,500 the next. So the average between those two is $2,000. If you keep that in mind and not let slow downs bother you, you will have a much easier time handling the ride. You want to stay focused on the end goal and not get caught up in the small things you cannot control.
The goal here is to get to 2,000 listings as fast as you can. The quicker you get there the quicker you will have your freedom! There is no other secret to ebay than this.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome!
DeleteI completely disagree. The ebay selling business is not about how much crap you can list, but rather if you are selling what someone wants to buy, simple as that. I rarely go above 200 items in my store and I routinely make more every week than a lot of sellers I follow that keep 800, 900 even 1,000 items in their store. Why? Because 100 quality items are better than 900 crap items! Quality items sell faster and for more money and have less issues overall than cheap low cost, low quality goods. That being said, yes you can spend a whole lot of time, money and energy into buying and listing 2000 items and yes you may get a few more sales, but you also spent a lot more time, money and energy to do it. My motto is work smarter not harder. You don't need 2000 items to run a store, just my humble opinion.
ReplyDeleteWhile you are correct, the majority of sellers do not have access to those types of items. I know of one seller who only lists around 400 items and sells about $150k a year. My post is more of a generalization for the average seller.
DeleteWell, just to be clear I am not talking about high dollar collectibles and designer clothes. Most things I find at my local thrift stores or garage sales. It does take time to learn good brands and what items pay off better. I reread my comment and I hope I didn't sound snarky. I didn't mean to. I just know that sometimes newbie sellers look to blogs to learn how to do ebay and some people would read your post and think that 2000 items is overwhelming, not to mention expensive, and give up before they even start. You can start with 50 free auctions, learn the biz, and work your way up. Thats all I'm saying.
ReplyDeleteNo, it didn't come off as snarky. I know what you are saying. Most new sellers haven't developed an eye for that stuff and it does take time. It also depends on what level of income you want to achieve.
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