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If someone had told me 5 years ago that I would develop a business on eBay, particularly with the products I have, I would most definitely have thought they were crazy. Making / selling jewellery wasn't even ever a thing I thought I wanted to do - my entire career is eBay's fault. 
(I'm gettin' to the point, just taking the scenic route, self indulgence thing, sorry 
).
When I opened my store, it was all clothing, I knew I needed a bit of variety, so I started getting some accessories here and there. Then I figured, jewellery is another related area to explore, it ain't hard to put together a few little trinkets....
Well, it is easy to put together a few little trinkets, but it's not easy to sell them. I decided if I was going to try and sell jewellery on eBay on a relatively small scale (back then, it was a huge milestone for me to hit $1000 worth of items in my store :D), they had to be unique in some way, so I started looking on line for tips, tutorials n' stuff....not that they did me much good, I sucked at everything I tried, and even my best ideas turned out horrible, so I had boxes full of findings and a bunch of carp (cheap) jewellery no one wanted, and I was about to break it all down and sell it off in bulk lots when I decided to give one more technique a go.
In the beginning, the clothing sales subsidised my foray into jewellery, but over time things began to change and my jewellery was subsidising the clothing.
So, what do I love about selling on eBay? Small success here made me want to be more successful, lack of more success made me determined to learn how to change that - I started with nothing, was inadvertently inspired to acquire a new skill and ultimately turned that into a relatively successful brand and store. In the process, I have learned a wide range of skills in several areas (design, business in general, accounting, customer service, photography and marketing to name a few).
I get to work at home (pros and cons to that one ๐ - con, not many people who come home from work understand what it's like to not be able to do that, pro, I get to go have a coffee and mull over what to say before I respond to a customer query, and can do so in my slippers, or other attire that would be inappropriate in a retail setting...plus I can play whatever music I want at whatever level I want, with no one shooting me disapproving glances...I can also look at webcomics in between admin duties and no one's gonna reprimand me).
I get to send people packages... Ok, that's a given, and doesn't really seem like a big deal, but when I was a young 'un, I would send away for anything and everything that was advertised for free in magazines and newspapers 'cos I just loved getting stuff in the mail. I had samples and prospectuses of all sorts of different things, though my mother had to field phone calls and explain how old I was when people would call and ask if I was still interested in buying property in some new suburb development. The point is, getting packages in the mail is nifty, and now I send mail for a living. ๐
I have to buy lots of stationery, and stationery makes me feel all important, productive and business-like. You shoulda seen me at the post office when my printer ran out of ink recently - I was all like "I need printer ink. I'm doing stuff....important business stuff."
I get to browse on eBay and call it R&D.
As already mentioned, I've gotten to meet some really awesome people, not just the buyers I mentioned in another thread recently, but everyone who participates here has in one way or another helped expand and refine my ideas, opinions and knowledge base.
@i-love-my-sheep wrote:I could be wrong, but I think a lot of success in business is selling things that people WANT, not what they NEED. People love to spend money on clothes, jewellery, electronics, but hate spending money on essentials, like car insurance or petrol. I think if I was to give up my day (and night) job and sell full time online, I would have to go with something that people want and feel they can't live without.
I honestly think it's a combination of both. My business really took off late last year in the lead-up to Christmas, so when I thought about re-investing, I decided to branch out into craft supplies, which has a wide range of personal benefits, but I was actually really frustrated at the lack of availability anywhere of certain types of findings, so the solution was to stock them myself. ๐
Craft supplies (particularly jewellery findings) is a bit of a need and want type of product, in that while it's something that's a bit of a luxury and can facilitate an interest and hobby, a lot of people make and sell jewellery, so it also becomes a requirement. It's also flexible in that you can provide several price points - anything from small retail lots to bulk wholesale. Stocking the findings actually tripled my average monthly turnover in only a few months. 
I don't have a smart phone as yet, though, so no cha-ching for me. ๐
Bumping for some more inspiration .....
Procrastinating about listing again, and spending too much time reading old threads 
Surrounded by stock that will not sell itself ...
What do you love bout selling on eBay ?
Well it used to be a bit of fun - a great opportunity to earn a few (very few) dollars - and even better opportunity to buy unusual, vintage or collectable things that are hard to come by.
But lately, it's not much fun - too hard to find anything to buy - too much overseas garbage - and the selling bit is getting just too hard, too many changes, not enough support for sellers, terrible new defect policy;
If they bring in the 180 return thing, that will be the last straw for me I think. Better look for a new hobby 
