eBay: Plan B?

[Clippy]

Most of the time you only hear negative stories of eBay sellers finding it difficult but some seem to be doing OK.

[MarillionFan]

Turning over one £1m on Ebay/Amazon is not difficult.

Ive managed to push sales to £20K in November alone with only 10% of the stock I have available to me. I calculated a business model a while back for something I was planning to do with one of my suppliers (basically advertise their entire stock catalogue of (£1m worth) online using a SQL Server/Ebay web service I had mocked up.

Basically Ebay is a numbers game. You turnover a percentage of the amount advertisied. Worst case this is 3-5% per month. So on £1M, worse case - £30000 - £50000

The problem is logistics & margin. Ebayers work off smaller margins. So a £1m turnover business isn't going to make you £500k. It's going to be closer to 10-20% MAX!

And to turnover £1m in goods requires a large amount of space & effort.

Not worth the effort when you can pull down 100k contracting IMO.

[AtW]

I calculated a business model a while back for something I was planning to do with one of my suppliers

When will you calculate that you should stick to punching people and posting tulip on CUK using one of your great many sockies?

[MarillionFan]

When will you calculate that you should stick to punching people and posting tulip on CUK using one of your great many sockies?

Shut it. BBC are around later to film me in a white lab jacket & dodgy perm while I stroke my moustache and stand in a 1970s style server room.

[d000hg]

Turning over one £1m on Ebay/Amazon is not difficult.

Of course not, when you're drinking a pint with your mates. Actually doing it requires a lot of work... which therefore counts as difficult.

Seems like 10% is a reasonable margin, for the average person a profit of £100k/year is the stuff of dreams. I'd find it deathly boring doing it as a job, how anyone with a brain can cope with the tedium of running a shop I don't know.

[AtW]

Seems like 10% is a reasonable margin

You might not get 10% after Ebays margins are factored in - the real success is them.

[minestrone]

I bought a 5m jack to phono cable yesterday for 2 pound including P&P at a buy it now price.

Who actually makes money off that?

[MarillionFan]

I bought a 5m jack to phono cable yesterday for 2 pound including P&P at a buy it now price.

Who actually makes money off that?

It's a joke at that level.

Best year for me was 360k via two shops and 40k via the Internet. That still only netted 30k net profit versus 90k for IT for the year. To make any real money out of retail is a miracle and beyond me.

[Clippy]

It's a joke at that level.

Best year for me was 360k via two shops and 40k via the Internet. That still only netted 30k net profit versus 90k for IT for the year. To make any real money out of retail is a miracle and beyond me.

Not in clothing (or food) - margins are about 40% I believe.

[MarillionFan]

Not in clothing (or food) - margins are about 40% I believe.

Not sure where you get those margins??

Tescos average margin on food is 3%. furniture I'd 60 and gifts 50. When it comes to Ebay everyone wants a bargain, hence the lower margins. 10-20% is the norm on Ebay