As a seller, if eBay closed down tomorrow, what would you do?

[*crikey*mate*]

I know it is unlikely, but it's not impossible. Bigger companies than eBay have fallen, dissolved or just stopped operating.

or even on a smaller scale, if eBay stopped you (as an individual) trading tomorrow.

Some sellers rely on the income derived from their eBay Selling accounts, perhaps not realizing, that they have no lease or guaranteed length of future tenure and no guarantee that they will even be trading next week.

I doubt that a bank would lend money based on income derived from eBay unless it was atatched to a B&M store, but even then, could not see them giving too much credence to those sales.

And the reality is, that you have very little to sell, just the cost price of existing stock, no lease, no fixed assets such as a building, no intangible assets, no transferable goodwill and no transferable reputation.

When you look at it like that, it's not really a very stable or reliable source of income, is it?

[*crikey*mate*]

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@amber-eyed-girl wrote:
Crikey,

I am answering the question as it was put, where eBay is meaningless for the loan. It does not exist, it has closed down.

All that matters is what you had done, what you have and your future prospects. Any domain name you would own (refer to my first answer, as in sellers who have other trading mechanisms) is part of that.

A bank will lend money based on any verifiable income regardless of source. It is a number. Any income could cease tomorrow.

Your leased building could collapse in an earthquake.

The main income earner could be run over.

Your stock could disappear overnight in a sinkhole.

Banks operate on risk assessment. A balance of expectation based on prior earnings. Shifting from eBay to another website or shopfront with a clearly defined continuation of the same business is what they would want.

If you are applying for the loan while eBay still exists, then the value of eBay lies in:

International exposure

Known brand

The first you have with your own website. The second you keep to a large degree, as you have the goodwill of your eBay store and the reputation you have built, and just shift your clients if you want to become independent.

A bank will give full credence to eBay sales as they would the sales of any other business type.

It comes down to the same thing. Turnover. Reliability. Success.

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ok, let that sink in.

laughing at "my stock could disappear down the sinkhole overnight".... (well I can now, but back then )

that really happened a few weeks ago....

I asked one of the KPs to strain the beef stock for me. He strained it. Poured the "dirty water" down the drain and kept the bones.

[chameleon54]

As ebayers we are small business owners living on the edge of the ecenomic mountain. ( or is that abyse ). If someone has the initiative to get a business up and running on ebay, they will just turn their hand to something else if it falls over. I have had ten or a dozen different careers in the last 30 years, most unsecured, self employed and enjoy the challenge of a new enterprise. Got to admit though as I get older the thrill of the chase is starting to dim a bit and starting to think it would be nice to slow down a little. So heres hoping ebay doesnt "just close down tommorow."

[*crikey*mate*]

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@chameleon54 wrote:

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@crikey*mate wrote:

wow, so glad that you survived the cyber attack. Was that the catalyst that caused you to create the set up you have? (Not meaning to be personal, so I undrstand if you can't answer) (plus, this is just a curiosity thing, have wound down my eBay selling now)

with the commercial property, did you buy it outright, so that you can rent it out and create income etc? was that a factor? that the actual purchase would create an income?

I lease a commercial property. I needed an industrial premises for my business plan, but needed it for an estimated 6 months to maybe a year (took 4 months *proud lookin*) before it would produce any revenue (if it ever did), so I stuck an icecream shop out the front to generate an income to pay the rent until the real business got off the ground, until I had a product to sell and market.

Then I took that business and business plan, projections, secured contracts etc to the bank and they were the security for the site I operate my business from (we call it headquarters LOL) and the capital we needed to expand the real business. meet the secured contracts and operate it.

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In answer to your first question, I had two accounts when the interferance with my main account ocurred. My wife and I had already discussed setting up a third account for tax purposes and had consulted the accountant about it, but yes the cyber attack was definatly the catylyst to make it happen. We where dreading starting another business from zero feedback, but got to admit it was a piece of cake.  

As for your second question - Commercial property was actually a hobby farm. ( I was just trying not to give too much information away ) The propery is 100 acres in high rainfall hills country. The kids ride motor bikes there on the weekends and I go for a drive out there in the evenings when I have finished ebaying. Its a beautifull drive, maybe with a quiet beverage,  and this helps clear my head after being on the computer all day. I run a couple of hundred sheep out there so gain some income from them, but the property is only 30 minutes drive from a major city so the income from 200 sheep does not touch the sides of the loan.

As already stated it is mainly the ebay income I rely on to meet the loan commitments and it was the accountants ATO records of previous ebay income the bank used to asses the loan. They asked a couple of questions about ebay, but that was really it. They just studied the figures and assesed the loan on these. As Amber has mentioned previous loan and business history would have played an important part .

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ok, thank you.

200 sheep? Don't tell padi LOL

you were able to buy an asset with eBay income

it wasn't I didn't believe you, I'm just struggling to get my head around it within the context now of the othwer thread.

So, if a bank will rely on past eBay income, it stands to reason that someone buying an eBay business could as well.

....................................................................................................................................

so, if i apply the guideline that a businesses worth is 3 x net profit

how does that affect my reasoning about that part on the other thread.

The implications of applying this principle to something that doesn't even have a lease far less any other guaranteed llength of tenure or security is really confusing me.

or am I talking about two different things?

[*crikey*mate*]

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@chameleon54 wrote:

As ebayers we are small business owners living on the edge of the ecenomic mountain. ( or is that abyse ). If someone has the initiative to get a business up and running on ebay, they will just turn their hand to something else if it falls over. I have had ten or a dozen different careers in the last 30 years, most unsecured, self employed and enjoy the challenge of a new enterprise. Got to admit though as I get older the thrill of the chase is starting to dim a bit and starting to think it would be nice to slow down a little. So heres hoping ebay doesnt "just close down tommorow."

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ya shoulda bought a bigger boat and operated fishing excursion thingies, then ya could fish all day and earn a living LOL

[digital*ghost]

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@crikey*mate wrote:

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you're a cracker! Do all your stored smileys have a little message on them?

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No, just a few of the recent ones, after conducting a test when I uploaded this image a few weeks ago.....

eBay is a host like any other website - one that just happens to have something of a controlling interest, both in terms of profit and how everyone's stock is presented, as well as putting up some boundaries surrounding how a business operates, but I disagree that they handle the business aspects. They definitely encourage me to adopt certain practices, but my business is almost always more successful when I ignore them. 😄

I have all my listings in HTML template form, which - if I really wanted to - could be easily ported to another site, if I wanted to present my items in exactly the same way I do here (but I wouldn't). eBay don't actually give me anything except format and traffic, plus a bit of buyer confidence by association - I still own everything that is presented in my listings, eBay just host it for me. 

The traffic is eBay's biggest asset, and that's what you're paying for to list here - to not have to pay for advertising and still achieve a good result, and/or to not have to spend a good chunk of time spruiking your wares any and everywhere you can, so for a lot of people it won't be as simple as porting products to a new site... But in the case of eBay itself ceasing to function, then it's not just a matter of sellers not having a place to go, it's also a matter of buyers having to look for somewhere else to go, though other choices for buyers are relatively wide and well-established. 

So, that's why I am using eBay to establish a brand name (if you google my business name, you will find several other places where I "hang out". They are not as well-maintained as they would be if I wasn't concentrating much of my efforts on eBay, but it's all working to cultivating that brand name and I actually get quite a lot of traffic to the other sites (and enquiries via them) even though my efforts there are pretty lacklustre. 

I put my brand name in listing specifics, I tag all my original stuff, when my articles are published in magazines, I ask for credit to go to [my name] of [my business name], never even mentioning eBay, and anyone that wants to use images of my work has to use ©[my business name], so that if/when I no longer have an eBay presence,  my brand name will still have a general presence, and instead of people going "I wonder what happend to that eBay seller...." the hope is, "hmm, let me try googling [brand name]". 

[chameleon54]

Second confession for the day. I grew up on a farm and had commercial farm intrests for many years. ( hence the hobby farm & sheep ) Farms run on mind boggling loans without any certianty of an income today, tommorow, next year or the year after that. I was in marginal country where you could make good money maybe once every ten years and then lose money ( literally ) for the next three years straight. Banks still loan farmers huge sums of money. Believe me ebay income is as secure as Govt. bonds compared to farming.

[amber-eyed-girl]

When I read your post, with the sheep, I thought of exactly that...the uncertainty factor of any enterprise is taken into consideration by the bank for any loan.

A farm is tangible security, but not if you cannot sell it to recoup the loan money for the bank, if it is doing badly. But banks will lend.

Crikey, really, it is about risk.

Many factors come into play but the income is viewed as a number. So eBay income is treated like that of any other store. The number matters.

[amber-eyed-girl]

"laughing at "my stock could disappear down the sinkhole overnight".... (well I can now, but back then )"

Just call me psychic Crikey

(Puts on silk turban and looks thoughtful)

[*crikey*mate*]

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@chameleon54 wrote:

Second confession for the day. I grew up on a farm and had commercial farm intrests for many years. ( hence the hobby farm & sheep ) Farms run on mind boggling loans without any certianty of an income today, tommorow, next year or the year after that. I was in marginal country where you could make good money maybe once every ten years and then lose money ( literally ) for the next three years straight. Banks still loan farmers huge sums of money. Believe me ebay income is as secure as Govt. bonds compared to farming.

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my family have cattle and dairy farms.

The real value (I thought) for the banks and business worth is in the land. I just remember when I was young, my father concentrating on aquiring neighbouring properties, so that the land area was bigger iykwim, a bigger piece allowed for more options, not only for the existing business, but also for the sale of the property in the future. It also prevented close competition.

he did the same with POS businesses. he started with 1  shop. then as more of that type became available in the same suburb and then surrounding areas, he bought those too, eventually controlling the local market and blocking direct competition from entering iykwim.

Because of the market share, this increases their value so that each one is now worth more as part of the collective as opposed to if they were sold off separately.

eg - say he had 10. sell to 10 different people who all have to compete with each other, and thus the market controls them - worth $1000 each.

sell those same 10 to the same person - complete market control - worth $5000 each/ so $50,000 instead of $10,000 for the same businesses

[*crikey*mate*]

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@digital*ghost wrote:

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@crikey*mate wrote:

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you're a cracker! Do all your stored smileys have a little message on them?

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No, just a few of the recent ones, after conducting a test when I uploaded this image a few weeks ago.....

. 

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yes. people do pay attention to the text in the images. That has been pointed out to me a few times, (with nefarious intentions) so that now I rethink the names of my files before I upload them anywhere.but I never thought to write a little message in them LOLOLOL, just something I could remember for when I searched it LOLOLOL