eBay: Plan B?

[MarillionFan]

Local bric-a-brac merchant has been leafleting the area recently, actual line from his leaflet:

"Will buy coins for cash"

Coins? You've got me confused with Fiddleabout

[Clippy]

Another year and another pro-eBay story in the news.

Interestingly, the business profiled sells CD, DVD's, Games etc which are sold by almost every UK retailer imaginable but still has a healthy turnover.

Profitability can't be that low on these items then as he has a staff of 40 with a turnover of £6m and projected growth of 100%+.

[d000hg]

If you are dedicated and put the hard work in, no reason not to make a decent living. It's probably boring but for someone who isn't a high earning professional, it's quite aspirational to have such low barriers to entry compared with getting a real shop.

[MarillionFan]

Another year and another pro-eBay story in the news.
Interestingly, the business profiled sells CD, DVD's, Games etc which are sold by almost every UK retailer imaginable but still has a healthy turnover.
Profitability can't be that low on these items then as he has a staff of 40 with a turnover of £6m and projected growth of 100%+.

Jesus. What a headache. 200000 feedback in last 12 months

£6m turnover. £1.2m in VAT. £500k in Ebay Fees.
Postage £2 per package, so assume £400k and a profit margin of 30% maximum on CDs/DVDs leaves a GP of £1.44M minus 900k Fees and Postage for £544k profit before 40 staff(10k each) and warehousing, rates, bills etc etc.

Rather be a contractor.

[d000hg]

£2 for p&p a DVD is about 3X what it actually costs but for small items like that the amount of work has to be pretty substantial. OTOH if you can't be a contractor and don't want to be a clerk or whatever, it's a way to genuinely make your own business.

[Clippy]

Jesus. What a headache. 200000 feedback in last 12 months

£6m turnover. £1.2m in VAT. £500k in Ebay Fees.
Postage £2 per package, so assume £400k and a profit margin of 30% maximum on CDs/DVDs leaves a GP of £1.44M minus 900k Fees and Postage for £544k profit before 40 staff(10k each) and warehousing, rates, bills etc etc.

Rather be a contractor.

Thing is, a lot of these eBay success stories don't seem to be able to upscale out of the eBay ecosystem.

Not that there is anything wrong with that but surely as a business they should be exploring other routes to market.

[MarillionFan]

Thing is, a lot of these eBay success stories don't seem to be able to upscale out of the eBay ecosystem.

Not that there is anything wrong with that but surely as a business they should be exploring other routes to market.

As pointed out above, if you weren't a contractor then a 100k salary/profit for a business like this would be incredible. Is their value in the business itself??? Probably. But the thing with EBay is others can easily replicate the basic business. I haven't bothered to look, but Goofbay has a great tool for analysing an eBay account to see what they've sold, fees etc

Good luck to them though.