Starting a Business on eBay.co.uk For Dummies

Dan Matthews, Marsha Collier

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780470026663
• eBook ISBN: 9781119997634
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Starting a Business on eBay.co.uk For Dummies covers all the essentials an eBay user or budding entrepreneur needs to start a money-making venture by trading on eBay.co.uk. It features straight-talking advice on every aspect of starting and growing a successful business, including; setting-up shop, running successful auctions, delivering goods, keeping customers happy, and maximising profits.

Part I

Getting Serious About eBay.co.uk

In this part . . .

B ecause eBay.co.uk continually makes improvements, some of its features are like hidden gold nuggets. In this first part, we delve into the finer points of eBay.co.uk with you. Perhaps you’ll discover a thing or two you didn’t know or had forgotten.

Chapter 1

Using eBay.co.uk to Launch Your Business

In This Chapter

Getting serious about your business

Making decisions about what to sell

Having what it takes to make a living online

Running an efficient auction

You’ve decided to get serious about your sales on eBay.co.uk, so now you have to decide how much time you have to devote to your eBay business. We talk about all kinds of eBay businesses in this book. Even though you’re not quitting your day job and selling on eBay full time (yet!), we still think you’re serious. A large portion of sellers, even eBay PowerSellers (those who gross more than £750 a month in sales), work on eBay only part time.

eBay sellers come from all walks of life. A good number of stay-at-home mums are out there selling on eBay. And so many retirees are finding eBay a great place to supplement their income that we wouldn’t be surprised if the Pensions Service creates a special eBay arm for them. If you’re pulled out of your normal work routine and faced with a new lifestyle, you can easily make the transition to selling on eBay.

In this chapter, we talk about planning just how much time you can devote to your eBay business – and how to budget that time. We also talk here about working out what to sell. eBay businesses don’t grow overnight, but with dedication and persistence, you may just form your own online empire.

Getting Down to Business

Before launching any business, including an eBay.co.uk business, you need to set your priorities. And to be successful at that business, you must apply some clear level of discipline.

We won’t bore you with the now-legendary story of how Pierre Omidyar started eBay to help fulfil his girlfriend’s Pez dispenser habit, blah, blah, blah. We will tell you that he started AuctionWeb with a laptop, a regular Internet Service Provider (ISP), and an old school desk. Omidyar and his friend Jeff Skoll (a Stanford MBA) ran the 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week AuctionWeb all by themselves. When we began using the service, we had a lot of questions and we always got prompt, friendly answers to our e-mails. When the site started attracting more traffic, Pierre’s ISP began to complain about all the traffic and raised his monthly fees. To cover the higher costs, Pierre and Jeff began charging 25 cents to list an auction. Pierre was so busy running the site that the envelopes full of cheques began to pile up – he didn’t even have time to open the post.

When Pierre and Jeff incorporated eBay AuctionWeb in 1996, they were each drawing a salary of $25,000. Their first office consisted of one room, and they had one part-time employee to handle the payments. Pierre and Jeff started small and grew.

Choosing eBay.co.uk as a part-time money maker

A part-time eBay.co.uk business can be very profitable. We stress repeatedly in this book that the more time and energy you spend on your eBay business, the more money you can make, but for now we move on to the lowest possible level of time that you should devote to your business.

Maybe you enjoy finding miscellaneous items to sell on eBay. You can find these items somehow in your day-to-day life. Suppose that you can spend at least a few hours (maybe three) a day on eBay. Now you must include the time you take to write up your auctions. If you’re not selling only one type of item, allow about 15 minutes to write your auction, take your picture or scan your image, and, of course, upload it to eBay.co.uk or a photo-hosting site.

How much time it takes to perform these tasks varies from person to person and improves according to your level of expertise. Every task in your eBay auction business takes time, however, and you must budget for that time. See the sidebar ‘Some handy eBay.co.uk time-saving tips’ for pointers.

Only you can decide how much time you want to spend researching going rates for items on eBay.co.uk and deciding which day or time your item will sell for the highest price. You can take great photos and write brilliant descriptions, but cashmere cardigans don’t sell for as much in the heat of summer as they do in winter. Doing your research can take up a good deal of time when you’re selling a varied group of items.

Consider also how much time shopping for your merchandise takes. You may have to ...

Table of contents

• Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I : Getting Serious About eBay.co.uk
• Part II : Setting Up Shop
• Part III : Serious Business!
• Part IV : Your eBay.co.uk Admin
• Part V : The Part of Tens
• : Further Reading