where's the profit?

[emma_fion]

it is ridiculous to have auction fees $1.50 each even if you dont sell! how does one make money then? especially when buers come to ebay to buy cheap cheap..ridiculous!

[*tippy*toes*]

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@emma_fion wrote:

it is ridiculous to have auction fees $1.50 each even if you dont sell! how does one make money then? especially when buers come to ebay to buy cheap cheap..ridiculous!

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Why are you paying $1.50 for listings? You should get 40 free a month if you don't have a store. There are also 100 free listing promotions at least once a month for non stores. Of course they can stop at any time, but worth taking advantage while they last. If you find you need more free listings than the ones allocated to your account, open another account.

[phorum_junkie*]

If you want to make money out of a business then you have to have a business plan. That means doing your homework to see what is available to sell, how you are to be able to sell them at a profit, what your price point is going to be including all fees, expenses and profits etc etc.

Just buying some cheap stock that hundreds of other sellers are listing and selling at a bottom price will only make you a small profit if you have a high sell through rate. At your sell through rate you will not make any money even if you had three times as many free listings every month.

You are buying in thing to sell which makes you a business seller so try to treat it like a business and take a dispassionate look at your business model.

[saarzi]

One makes money by having a business plan. Find a product that YOU can make a good profit on. That includes finding a method of selling for that product that works (not just "ebay". I mean pricing strategy, finding your target customers and actually targeting them etc etc), and work out your expenses. ALL expenses. That includes all fees!

Profit is constructed. Its something you work out and know before you even start selling. If you dont know how much something will cost you to sell, of course youre not going to make profit. That includes ebay fees, paypal fees, postage, packaging, petrol to get to the post office, printer ink... everything.

Companies dont make profit by pure luck... they have a business plan. Even if youre only selling odd items from around your home... you still need to know expenses etc.. and if Ebay doesnt fit into that plan, then you wouldnt sell here.

[lyndal1838]

You also need to put a bit of effort into your listings.

"Oz seller, fast shipping" does not really cut it for me.

At least you are listing at more realistic prices than the listings that have just finished.  Starting an item at 99cents when you say you are paying $1.50 in fees is madness.  No wonder you are losing money.

[phorum_junkie*]

You could have listed all your October listings, and a few more, as BINs for $19.99 if you had opened a store.

[chameleon54]

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@emma_fion wrote:

it is ridiculous to have auction fees $1.50 each even if you dont sell! how does one make money then? especially when buers come to ebay to buy cheap cheap..ridiculous!

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Hi Emma, It is almost impossible to make a profit and reasonable wages selling very low cost items even when you get them for free. The time taken to source stock, list, pick pack & mail , answer questions, keep appropriate records, organise storage etc. means that you may only really be making a dollar or two per hour worked. Maybe if buyers are almost always buying a number of your items and combining post it may work, but would still be marginal. With limited listings this isn't going to happen often.

I have found I need to get at least $7-$8 for an item that cost me nothing, even to cover basic wages. My average item selling price is $38. Even at this price, profit percentages need to be very high to cover ebay fees, stock depreciation, storage costs etc. and still leave me with enough at the end to make a reasonable salary per hour worked. ( around $30-$35 per hour ) . Sorry but I just cant see that happening with your current type of stock and price points, unless you can increase listing numbers into the hundreds to get larger order sizes.

On a separate point it was pretty disappointing to see you cop a neutral feedback for a 99 cent item of jewellery that the buyer described as poor quality. What did they really expect. Genuine gold and diamonds for 99 cents ?  Some buyers ????

As others have noted, if you wish to run a profitable business you need to asses time taken per item sold, stock purchase cost and sale price, business costs and profit margins in % and dollar terms etc. to find a model that really works.

[*tippy*toes*]

I agree with Lyndal, you need to fix your listings. With the magnets, are they big magnets, or tiny magnets? Are the earrings large, or small? Some measurements at the very least wouldn't go astray. Saying you re an Oz seller with fast shipping doesn't tell potential buyers anything about the item. You say fast shipping, yet you have a handling time of 3 days. Some people would see fast shipping and think you are posting same day by express, meaning they will get it fast. If you post on day 3 as per your handling time and it takes 10 days to get to the buyer, you may find your stars get dinged because the shipping wasn't exactly that fast.

As for making a profit, using the magnets as an example, you are selling 10 for $5, i.e 50c each. Even if you got them for free, by the time you pay eBay their chunk and PayPal theirs, you would be making almost nothing. I would be listing them individually or as a variation listing.

Be careful listing Frozen items unless you are authorised to resell them. Disney is cracking down on people selling their stuff, especially if it's not genuine. You could easily find yourself in court, or at the very least, having to hand over any money made to them from the sale of the item. Yes, you can find other Disney stuff on eBay, but that doesn't make it right. It just means no one has caught up with them yet.

[x3n0m]

"it is ridiculous to have auction fees $1.50 each even if you dont sell! how does one make money then?"

 .. if it wasn't for the free listings many of us wouldn't bother to sell anything here at all .. hard to get excited about selling on ebay on many levels  ..  if ebay had a number it would be 666 ..