Eventually that's what I'm hoping to build up to.
My question I guess is more, is it worth taking the initial losses and investing the time & effort in A&E. Do A&E provide sufficient additional sales / profit to make it worth while or do they just cannibalise sales from your own website ?
My own view is that there are probably a whole heap of people who principally buy from A&E and would never shop on my own site and therefore I should have a presence on them, even though its costing me at the outset.
Anyone have any experience of their journey ?
It all depends on what your selling, what experience you have of running a business and reselling and what your ultimate aim / goal is.
If you are looking for pin money, alongside a job then just stick with Ebay and Amazon. Low risk, quick sales, quick cash.
If you are looking at building a proper business then depending on what you are planning to sell will ultimately determine which is the best route to sell. For instance, if you planned to go to auction houses and buy whatever is there, then a website wouldn't work as you need to set the website up around the product, not the other way around and a website is not the best solution for this type of trading.
If you are looking at selling a selection of products that all come under the same category then a website can be worth considering. Say a furniture website, a clothing website, a car website...etc these would all be good for looking at the website route.
If you have got no experience of reselling then I would start slow on Ebay only and learn the ropes whilst learning about websites. If you have no experience then the worst thing you could do right now is to go and spend all your money on stock and then try and sell it all on Ebay and Amazon. The risk of losing your money would be very high as you haven't got the experience of reselling, and even if you do have the experience, you haven't got the experience of reselling on Ebay and Amazon. Put basically, if you don't tread carefully then Ebay and Amazon can and will shut you down overnight. If you sell on Ebay and Amazon, the best way at looking at it, is that you are working for them, if they decide they don't like you then you get fired and they don't give you a second chance.
Ebay is good for getting going quickly though and learning the ropes, just don't put all your eggs in the Ebay or Amazon basket though.
Amazon is stricter than Ebay, so you get banned easier on Amazon then you do on Ebay. As such I'd learn the ropes on Ebay and leave Amazon out of it for the time being. That way if you make a mistake and do get banned then you can always go down the Amazon route to sell the stock you have left.
Regarding the customers, there will be people who love Ebay and Amazon, there will be others that for whatever reason, won't go near them. So by going down the Ebay and Amazon only route you are not advertising to the full market potential.
Another thing to note, a business solely on Ebay and Amazon that is reselling other peoples products can never be worth anything. You cannot sell an account to somebody else, no matter how well you are doing. Your own website however, can be sold so the work you put into it, if successful then you can potentially walk away from the business and pass it onto somebody else for a nice little sum of money.
Good luck and tread carefully,
Chris (Ebay trader).
