Help for a Teenager? Support the next generation!

[Geeman14]

I know this has probably been asked a million times, but i am yet to find a definite answer.

Im a 16 year old boy from England and i'm looking to make my way in the business sector.

First off I had an idea of selling cases,cables and chargers for ipods, iphones and popular electrical devices on ebay. After research I began to find people saying this market is 'saturated'... Now does this mean, that if i purchase some wholesale, i will not sell any at all? or does it mean that i wont earn a living off them. Because obviously being 16 i have no bills... nothing to pay, so really would only need to sell 10 a day? also could some please give a thorough breakdown on ebay and paypal fee's or is there an online calculator to easily work this out?

Any help would really be appreciated and would love to become active on this forum!

 

[tony84]

Saturated means that too many people are selling the same products.
Have a look on ebay can you find a supplier that will allow you to undercut other people as well as make a profit?
I think that is probably not the market to get into, there are just far too many people selling them.
Paypal fees vary depending on the type of account you have, take a look at their website.
Ebay fees again vary. You have things like insertion fees, fees for adding photos etc so its difficult to give an accurate figure.

 

[Christine Hough]

I can't answer your question as its not my area.
But as long as you are not making a loss, you will be gaining good experience.

Rather than looking for someone to look into a crystal ball and tell you if it will work, start by finding out how much you can buy them for and then work out who your customers would be and where you would find them.

Something is only worth what someone else will pay for it, so research to find out about how much the people you have identified are likely to pay.

If it is more than you paid, investigate further.
How much to advertise, deliver, allow contingency for having to replace some free of charge. That will give you an idea of how many you need to sell to cover the expenditure.

So for example
you buy at 10 and sell at 20
It costs 3 to service each (Paypal fees, packing and delivery)
This leaves a contribution of 7

You need to spend 40 /month on advertising/ hiring market stall or whatever.
And will 'loose' 2 items (breakages; items lost in post; customer returns etc)
You need to clear at least 2x13 + 40 = 66 out of 7 per item sold.

So you need to sell at least 10 per month to pay your way (= 70 )

 

[Merchant UK]

I know this has probably been asked a million times, but i am yet to find a definite answer.

Im a 16 year old boy from England and i'm looking to make my way in the business sector.

First off I had an idea of selling cases,cables and chargers for ipods, iphones and popular electrical devices on ebay. After research I began to find people saying this market is 'saturated'... Now does this mean, that if i purchase some wholesale, i will not sell any at all? or does it mean that i wont earn a living off them. Because obviously being 16 i have no bills... nothing to pay, so really would only need to sell 10 a day? also could some please give a thorough breakdown on ebay and paypal fee's or is there an online calculator to easily work this out?

Any help would really be appreciated and would love to become active on this forum!

Welcome and nice to see the younger generation making an effort to get into the whole of business

Unfortunately, your chosen model is vastly saturated, even poundland is full of £1 ipod, iphone and ipad bits, you just need to see these being sold on ebay for peanuts as lost leaders mainly for posititive rep.

The secret is to find something that people need or want that is not already being done, lets be honest not everyone has an iphone, ipod, or ipad, see what i mean?

They say the simple things are the real money spinners, but just copying the big boys trying to sell apple products is not going to complete with the guy that has 500,000 in a container direct from china

I remember when i was 16, i had a tenner for my birthday and with that i started my own car cleaning business from home, I bought a bucket, hose, chammy, got my uncle to go some leaflets on his PC and advetised my service from my parents home each saturday and sunday, My first saturday i made £12and the Sunday £18 and that was 30 years ago

Imagine now if you did something similar, The profit margins in that type of business is masive.

As i said the simple things that people tend to ignore makes the best money see what "Simple ideas" you can come up with.

and good luck

Gerry

 

[tony84]

when i first started i used to build websites, sell links on them and then sell the sites as profit making. After that i moved onto wordpress put a magazine theme on it and re-wrote articles and sold links and sold the sites for a small fortune (to meet at the time) and all it cost me was £10 for a domain and a few £s for hosting.

Just sharing my story as it might give you an idea like the post above

 

[Merchant UK]

when i first started i used to build websites, sell links on them and then sell the sites as profit making. After that i moved onto wordpress put a magazine theme on it and re-wrote articles and sold links and sold the sites for a small fortune (to meet at the time) and all it cost me was £10 for a domain and a few £s for hosting.

Just sharing my story as it might give you an idea like the post above

Excellent Tony and yet a simple idea with a reasonable profit margin

 

[Geeman14]

Thanks for the replies guys its really appreciated!, another thought of mine was the toy sector... WIth christmas coming up, easter shortly after, and childrens birthdays all year round? what are your thoughts on this? and what are your suggested steps for a lad of my age to take in business? is ebay the best place to sell online? or are their other means of sale ie; how good is amazon? is it worth looking into? as an old man once told me, trial and error will win in the end, but nowhere days, trial and error could cost a bit of money (of which not many of us have to spare) i don't want to rush into any niche market, website or idea. Im open to all suggestions and any experience you can share with me will be appreciated, took into account and more than likely used in the future!

 

[swiftpete]

Count on ebay taking 18-20% of your gross. Their fees are extortionate nowadays. That includes the paypal cut, but as they're part of ebay then it's all the same thing now. You obviously also have to add postage to that.
Ebay 'helpfully' changed their final value fee recently to make it 'easier to understand'. What that meant was they increased it to make them more money.

 

[Merchant UK]

Toys??? How many people out there are selling toys especially now on the run up to christmas

Tescos, Asda fighting it out to sell the cheapest toys, how are you going to be better and cheaper than them, you'll be spending too much money for too little profit which means you'll need to sell mega loads just to say you've done well.

Is it really worth all that hassle??

 

[Geeman14]

Being the age I am it really is hard to decide on what to sell, I know noone will give their ideas away, but it seems every item I ask people if I should sell on ebay it seems the market is saturated and it would be a waste of time? is this true?

 

[tony84]

This is what you should be doing.
Go to local Wholesalers.
Price up items that you can afford - most have a minimum spend of £100.
Go on ebay/amazon or wherever else you plan on selling - is there enough profit in it. You should be looking at atleast 50% profit on top in my opinion. (ie buy for £10, sell for £15).

It might not be the first thing you see, you might have to spend a few days going round suppliers.

You could maybe get a relative to take you to a show at the NEC or the Olympia in London - http://www.springfair.com/sfi/website/Default.aspx?refer=1 (thats one that i receive emails about... although i have just unsubscribed). They will probably try to get an order off you then but dont be afraid to just ask for prices and how long it takes to deliver the items to you. This gives you time to go off and research the items to see if there is a profit in them.

All i would say is stay away from jewellery thats another one thats saturated.

 

[Fred_the_frog]

I know this has probably been asked a million times, but i am yet to find a definite answer.

Im a 16 year old boy from England and i'm looking to make my way in the business sector.

First off I had an idea of selling cases,cables and chargers for ipods, iphones and popular electrical devices on ebay. After research I began to find people saying this market is 'saturated'... Now does this mean, that if i purchase some wholesale, i will not sell any at all? or does it mean that i wont earn a living off them. Because obviously being 16 i have no bills... nothing to pay, so really would only need to sell 10 a day? also could some please give a thorough breakdown on ebay and paypal fee's or is there an online calculator to easily work this out?

Any help would really be appreciated and would love to become active on this forum!

Same
Research what people spend their money on at the moment, usually food&drink & bills, then find a product that they will buy. You can buy drinks cans that automatically heat up. I've never actually seen one, but I know they exist. Maybe research into these and see what you can do, considering winter is coming up

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-heating_can

 

[Fred_the_frog]

Also, You can buy retractable dog leads in discount shops for under £3. They sell on eBay for sometimes up to £10.

 

[Surge Computers]

Being the age I am it really is hard to decide on what to sell, I know noone will give their ideas away, but it seems every item I ask people if I should sell on ebay it seems the market is saturated and it would be a waste of time? is this true?

That is true, some markets are saturated, but if you have a decent USP, people will choose you over your competitors. I'm a tad older than you are, but i think you need to do things locally rather than doing eBay work. Doing services such as window cleaning, car cleaning, computer repairs, dog walk and garden services are a great way to earn cash on the side. I'm sure there are many more ways to make money, i'm just trying to state simple ones which require little capital to start up.

 

[benjihubbs]

Being the age I am it really is hard to decide on what to sell, I know noone will give their ideas away, but it seems every item I ask people if I should sell on ebay it seems the market is saturated and it would be a waste of time? is this true?

I'm 16 as well and had and still have the exact same problem as you. I have been looking around for things that aren't saturated for about 6 months on and off and still haven't found anything that eBay doesn't have loads of. Yes I have found a few bits that weren't on there, but it turns out that's because nobody actually wants them.

Have a look around on the wholesale/joblots section on eBay, that's what i did and got a few bulk bargain, nothing special (Hairclip things, telephone extension cables etc), and some of them have sold. Although recently I have been too busy to keep relisting and the fees are extortionate!

But it is just about trial and error, have a look around, buy a couple of something and see how you get on. Your not going to find something overnight that hasn't already been thought of. Good luck!