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.

[the3coopers]

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?

Easily.

am thinking of either selling jewellery or clothes & shoes - maybe a bit of all three.

NO - do it on something else. ANYTHING else really, as those are the 3 most saturated categories on ebay.

Also, to make $700 a week, I will need to list A LOT of items in one week, right?

No - you can make $700 by selling one $2000 item. It all depends on your costs.

It's a LOT easier to make decent money selling higher priced things, but you must be price competitive.

And that is the key - the more competitive your Item Category is, the more items you have to sell to get a decent income. If you sell cheap

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

Ebay fees aren't expensive. It is one of THE cheapest places to run a business. You should allow for your overall Cost Of Sale to be around 12%

So if your item sells for $10, ebay and paypal take $1.20, leaving you $8.80. If your item cost is $5, then profit is $3.80 per unit.

Ignoring the costs of stock holdings, packaging, tax, etc - to make $700 you would need to sell and post 184 of those items per week. That means about 5 items per working hour, over a 40 hour week.

As you see, it's all a numbers game. But the key is to have the lowest quantity of sales, because that is a fixed overhead. It's much less work selling 92 items for $7.60 profit each than it is to sell 184 items giving $3.80 profit each.

I hope that makes sense.

[the-kazbar]

Running your own business is much harder than working for someone else where you are getting a guaranteed wage each week (not to mention sick leave, annual leave, superannuation, a lunch break etc)

You often work longer hours for less pay and need to constantly adapt and learn.

It is not nearly as easy as people think so I would try it before you throw in your job, as your boss may not be as bad as you think 😉

[beach_and_home]

To answer your question, Yes, it is possible, but not in the first week. You build up to it. It takes time and experience to become a successful full time seller. Best to start selling on ebay while you still have another job. Just build it up gradually and IF you then find you are making $700 per week, then quit the other job.

[putney32]

another important fact to put into your business plan is eBay's SELLER LIMITS

until you have established yourself as an honest and trustworthy ebay seller, eBay will put limits on the number of items / value of items you may list each month

these limits stop scammers listing 100s of $2,000 items, or even thousands of $5 items in their first weeks/months on ebay and running off with the money, however, they also stop good honest hard working sellers from making too much money during their first weeks/months on the site.

so the advice to start out now, selling and learing how it all works, and staying in your job until you find out if you are good at it and if your products are saleable and if you want to spend so many hours a week working for yourself (for sure you'll need more than 7.5hrs a day),

and have a backup plan/ bank balance for the lean weeks or the weeks eBay limit your income.

goodluck

[i-once-was-bump]

whitebutterfly1988 the more I think about your question the more I liken it to going to your local Westfield and standing in the food court asking everyone there if it is possible to make at least $700 selling clothes, shoes or jewellery in that Westfield.

Sitting in the food court are some shop owners and lots of buyers and other disinterested people just there to drink coffee.

Is that the correct way to make such a decision?

In Australia about 90% of small businesses fail within the first 2 years and most of those failures happen because the would be small business owner does not do the hard slog before opening their business.

What you are wanting to do on eBay is open a small business and it scares me that you think it is so easy.

[phorum_junkie*]

Running your own business is much harder than working for someone else where you are getting a guaranteed wage each week (not to mention sick leave, annual leave, superannuation, a lunch break etc)

You often work longer hours for less pay and need to constantly adapt and learn.

That is so true. I do not sell because I need the money, I started off just selling my no longer wanted clothes and it kind of got out of control. Now, even if I discount the time spent on the boards, I probably work for about four bucks an hour lol.

If I did have to rely on the income I know I could streamline things, I know I could source wholesale stock (I just buy retail in the sales), I know I could organise things better, boxes and piles all over the floor probably aren't the most efficient way of stock control lol,  and I know I could probably net $700 a week but I do want the odd hour or two off a day (and of course there are my cooking obligations ;-)) and to sustain that level I would have to stop shutting up shop and coming home to the UK for half the year.

[flotsam-jetsom]

In a word OP - yes it is possible, but expect it to be gradual and take a few years (rather than months) Good Luck

[gigabean-au]

Definitely possible (hey, we do it! As I'm sure a number of others posting here do) - but unless you've already got a lot of experience selling things online and a lot of money to throw at it don't expect it to happen straight away. 
Start small, build it up over a few years, start looking more seriously into the fields you're interested in selling (if you want to sell gardening stuff - KNOW your gardening tools!).

There's lots of online business podcasts floating around which can give you lots of good ideas... thanks to those I've automated a lot of things in our business and now we can run our profitable ebay store plus still work full-time jobs.

Going to get that mortgage paid off quick-smart!

[traimee]

some good advice.

The hardest part starting out i think is getting a supply of the right items.

Those are hard categories and i'd add electronics to it.

good luck

[healthwise2011]

What a vast majority are explaining here is right.. Anything is possible (and sky's the limit when it comes to weekly eBay earnings) and you reap what you sow, but it's certainly not without hard work, lotsa unpaid hours, and making mistakes along the way - and it does take time.

You really need to find a 'niche' market these days if you want things to move along quickly and research is key.  Know who your competition is for similar products, learn about keywords, simple marketing, presenting your ebay store (if you open one) and gradually add items of various categories to help cross promotion of your items.  And frequent forums, like this one, and ask questions - replies can be very helpful in alot of instances.

And don't leave your job just yet... The way things are, appreciate having one and the luxuries it brings.  Being self employed or having a home based business is definitely much harder than it seems... you never 'escape' it, it's always there, there is always something to do, paperwork seems endless, and getting loans based on self employment is definitely much harder these days.

Just build your ebay business slowly and learn as much as you can along the way while having a full time job.

Patience grasshopper... Patience 🙂