Is it possible to make atleast $700 a week selling on eBay?

[she_said_yes_jewellery]

Hi,

I have sold on eBay before as a hobby & just to get rid of a few things.

My question is, to all you professional sellers out there, is it really possible to make eBay your full-time job and earn at least $700 a week?

I'm willing to put the work in and go through all the right channels (registering as a business, paying tax on my income etc), and am thinking of either selling jewellery or clothes & shoes - maybe a bit of all three.

I work a 38 hour a week job and make $650 after tax. I'm just wondering if I couldn't put in the same hours and earn around the same amount WITHOUT my crappy boss & useless workmates.

I'm willing to invest around $3000 on stock.

Also, to make $700 a week, I will need to list A LOT of items in one week, right? I've had marginal success selling on eBay before, but never had enough items to make a decent profit. (I think my best week was $200 profit on around 25 items).

Last question, with eBay selling fees being so high (& will probably go higher), is it worth it?

Successful sellers, please be kind enough to share your thoughts.

[patchoo78]

Keep your job... If you had to deal with some of the buyers on here, you'll wish you only had to deal with your boss and workmates

[digital*ghost]

Possible, yes, but the opposite of easy especially when it comes to two of the most saturated categories on eBay - and I speak from experience because clothes, fashion accessories and jewellery is what I sell (and no, I don't make a living here, but what I do make is currently worth the effort for me - though in saying that I essentially earn below minimum wage per hour).

To make a wage of $700 a week means selling enough per week to clear that kind of net profit after all expenses have been paid, and while still having enough left to reinvest in more stock and other supplies.Without going into extensive detail, that can be a tall order and would generally mean a pretty high volume/turnover of sales for an independent store. You would need to calculate what all those expenses are (everything from stock cost, listing/selling fees to internet bills etc) and determine what kind of stock volume / turnover / profit margin you'd need to keep it sustainable /profitable.

[phorum_junkie*]

If you want to make a success of selling on ebay as a primary income source you need to do a lot of research and create a business model with realistic projections and make sure it is flexible enough to deal with the changes in ebay policy that can happen at any time.

There are a lot of expenses that people don't think about before they start and you need to consider everything from the cost of stock down to paper clips and all the things like fees, postage supplies, ink for the printer etc in between.

You also need experience so spend the time while you are creating your business plan using up the 30 free listings a month to list second hand items you no longer need and do some research in the categories you are thinking of listing in to see how much competition there is, what realistic prices you can set for new items and most important what you can offer that isn't already beoing sold by many other sellers.

You should note that jewllery, clothes and shoes are some of the hardest things to sell as they have the most competition.

[i-once-was-bump]

I am not a "successful seller" however I think that your choice of items would need to be so different to what is already available or so much cheaper than currently available and I don't think that is possible in jewellery, clothing or shoes.

[kopenhagen5]

Butterfly, I think the best advice I could give is to try selling part time, keeping your job.

1 or 2 small lines first perhaps listing so they start and end on weekends.

See how you like it, see how possible you think it is to move to full time, considering you may have some saleless weeks.

A lot of testing the waters needed first.

Most successful people will say, gee I wish when I started I knew what I know now.

So try it first before major commitments.;-)

[kustomizer99]

I used to make about a grand per week doing eBay for around a year and a half - -then it just died off when the global financial crisis (and other factors) set in.

My advice would be for you to look for a better job, and see if you can build up your eBay biz after hours/weekends.

[a_beautiful_room]

Like kopenhagen says: start small.

Rather than giving up your job and throwing yourself into the netherworld of ebay, you need to take it on as a second job. Work nights and weekends for a couple of months and see how you go, and more importantly if you like it !

I started 8 years ago after I had my last baby and decided that I just wanted to make $100 a week, for my pocket money, so I went to an auction, bought a dressing table, painted it white and sold it on ebay, made $160.00 profit on it. I was away. Did the same thing for weeks until my confidence grew and I didn't ever lose any money but I bought cheap items and tarted them up.

However, those were the days when you could make good money on auctions and you can't now. The buy it now system is much harder to get buyers as there is no sense of urgency so it's more volume, less profit, and more stock hanging around that sometimes takes months to sell.

So my advice - invest $1000 of your money, not all of it, and start very small. Once you're earning a bit, then maybe you can chuck in your job and get something part time as a regular "supplement" and this is often a much better balance than relying on the vagaries of ebay.

[flashback_deals]

I believe it is possible, buthe the others are all correct.

Over the years, I have had to change my structure, but is also depends on what you wanna sell. Some areas on here is very competitive, like clothing, DVDs, books and Trading cards.

Some items I know what the sellers pay to get them wholesale and some in DVDs especially do have to sell thousands to make a living each month because some offer low prices

A lot of these sellers who make a living also have professional looking ebay stores as well as their own website

Same with secondhand stuff, sure some charge like it is made of gold, but alot of the big sellers also sell at prices than can be hard to match so you can make a profit

My advice would be to try different products first and do some research, test the market with different items or selling strategies as a hobby to get right what works best for you, then when you go into business, you know what your doing then

It is best to get something working properly before you start doing it as a business becasue at least then you have it sustainable and you know your ideas will work - better that than going in full steam after you quit your job and the business idea ends up a flop

[licoricebabyandfabmama]

I almost want to say change your additude about it right now.  It actually can be alot of work and alot of trouble shooting.  It may not seem like it,  but there is alot to learn about selling on ebay and some days it feels like hitting your head against a brick wall.  Also it can be discouraging at times so if you are in it purely to make money you will probably give up before success ever truly comes to you.   Really to sell new products you need money to invest in purchasing your product so you'll need your job lol,  Im almost thinking about going back to work just so I can make money to buy some more product.   Sell something you love because you will spend hours sourcing and researching your product and that alone can be a whole other can of worms.

Try to find a niche clothing product or jewlery (hard)    When you think you have found something-  do an ebay search then on the left scroll down and hit the completed listings option to see if any of it is actually selling.       It can also be really hard in the begining competing against power sellers because their listings can take up at least the few first pages of a search,  especially with popular items clothing, fragrance etc