Tried selling on eBay once...

[AT700]

and it didn't work at all, my customers were great but I seemed to have had trolls constantly trolling me, so annoying! I sold electrical components, mainly speakers that were compatible with your tablets and smartphones. All items were listed buy it now, free shipping. (No best offer)
Here's what my main problem was - constant messages asking if I'd reduce my price. Such as, "If you re list your item at £5 I'll buy it now".
(I used to purchase the speakers at £4 all in and retailed them at £9.97. After fees, shipping and packaging, I made £1.37 per unit).

When I declined and even though my products were very well priced, I received all types of abuse.. haha. So I decided to call it a day.

Anyway, that was then and this is now.
I thought I'd give it another go as I'm in desperate need of some extra cash, so for the last 3 weeks I've been selling a new product line and it's working. Sold 2 items in the first week and now I'm up to 1 sale a day average.

I want to continue with this and make a 'real' business out of it, I see great potential. So I'm looking for help on how I can grow this business? I.e.. Attract more sales, although I have experience in online selling, I'm still quite a novice.
I've considered multi channel selling already but I don't think it'll ever work for me due to listing fees. I buy my products at approx. 60p and retail at £2.47 inc shipping. (Profit of about 50 to 70p per item). If I was to list on alternative platforms to eBay, although I'd know it'd provide more sales it'd drain my profits.

I'm continuing to invest in more stock through a combination of my cash (when I've got some available) and by re-investing profits.

Does anyone have any tips that they could share from when they first started out?

 

[Low Cost Sourcing]

Why would listing on say Amazon drain your profits? If you can get a similar selling price on Amazon you get around the same profit as you do on eBay and there are no listing fees.

You can also sign up for 3 months free to test the water.

Do you only have the one product that you sell at the moment? If so, even if it sells well it can be a good idea to try and find other similar priced products which sell just as well to give you a bit of variety with your stock offerings.

It is easier said than done but you can research products on eBay and see if you can compete with the prices.

If we can help let me know.

 

[e-vulture]

Do you have a micropayments account with paypal ? That can save you some money on these low value sales as the fees are 5% + 5p rather than 3.4% + 20p,

 

[silvermusic]

I buy my products at approx. 60p and retail at £2.47 inc shipping. (Profit of about 50 to 70p per item). If I was to list on alternative platforms to eBay, although I'd know it'd provide more sales it'd drain my profits.

I hate to tell you this but I'll guarantee you're not making that amount, even a basic 100gram large letter at cost (93p first class) in post would make you about half of that. What does it cost you to post this item? This is an area I know well.

You need to be making a clear £1 or more per packet to make it worth your time alone, too many busy fools on eBay competing selling the same stuff. Low value is fine if it's unique, has no competition and has a really good margin.

 

[Dan Eales]

Going back to your OP, it is possible to do a couple of things with the trolls. The first and easiest is to add them to your blocked seller list. You obviously don't want to be doing this to everyone who expresses a negative opinion, but for the more serious ones you can stop them from buying at all. I'm not sure if that would also block messages as well.

The second thing that's always good to do is report abusive customers to eBay. eBay's own messaging system is enough proof to have a strike placed against the customer account if they have been suitably abusive. We have thankfully never had to do this, but it's nice to know that the option is there.

eBay have never been great at seller sided protection. But I like to think that they're getting there. Even if the new metrics are crippling at times and the new eBay product identifier system is a bit of a pain : \

 

[AT700]

@Low Cost Sourcing I currently have a variety, about 25 unique lines - all either beauty products or hair accessories. I was under the impression for a small time seller like me Amazon charged per listing and a 15% final fee?

@e-vulture I currently pay 3.4% + 20p! What is a micropayments account? Can anyone get these?

 

[AT700]

@silvermusic I guarantee you that I am and 74p for all items.

 

[silvermusic]

@e-vulture I currently pay 3.4% + 20p! What is a micropayments account? Can anyone get these?

https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/micropayments

You'll need a separate bank account and email, but be careful you use the right paypal details on the low value items only. Anything much more than about £7 and you'll pay more, for those use your normal paypal account.

 

[AT700]

@silvermusic I agree with you about the timewasters though. There's this one seller who sells an item the same as me of which I buy competitively at 55p. They sell it for £1.55 including postage! Why? It's costing them money!!

 

[silvermusic]

@silvermusic I guarantee you that I am and 74p for all items.

Assuming you're buying for 60p, posting (first class large letter and jiffy bag) and selling for £2.47, with a basic eBay shop you're making within a penny or two 34p, I have an excell spreadsheet which is blindingly accurate, been at this lark a long time.

 

[silvermusic]

@silvermusic I agree with you about the timewasters though. There's this one seller who sells an item the same as me of which I buy competitively at 55p. They sell it for £1.55 including postage! Why? It's costing them money!!

Since Christmas apart from a few lines that often sell multiples in sales I've dumped any product that I can't make a minimum of £1 on. My most popular range sells at £2.99 + P&P and I make £2.02 on it, soon that will rise to £2.10 by bigger bulk buying. I also have the advantage I make all my own products, there's no waste or stuff to shift, it's all made the same day it sells. Multiple sales happen quite often too, which is an area a lot of people don't think about when they start. Find a product that people will often buy multiples of.

 

[Low Cost Sourcing]

@Low Cost Sourcing I currently have a variety, about 25 unique lines - all either beauty products or hair accessories. I was under the impression for a small time seller like me Amazon charged per listing and a 15% final fee?

If you sign up to a pro Seller account you do not get charged any listing fees, there 3 months free subscription then it goes to about £30 per month. There is a final value fee which depends on your category but around 15% is about right for most things.

As stated above, a micropayments account on PayPal will help alot with your margins with low value items.

There are also ways you can lower your postage costs such as a Royal Mail business account or franking. Have a look around to find what is best for you.

 

[AT700]

@silvermusic No shop yet as its not economical for me, I don't yet list/sell enough items. I pay 26p per listing but have 5 to 10 items per listing so it works out cheaper as I spread the cost (2.6p to 5.2p per item). The 60p was just approximate, one particular product I sell for £2.47 costs me 58p.
You'll have recognised from my earlier post that postage costs me 74p, I don't post first class! I pay 5p per jiffy bag too.

I have spread sheet.

Please stop trying to prove me wrong, I've requested constructive answers on how I can develop my business not people trying to break down my figures through assumptions.

 

[e-vulture]

Anyone can get a micropayments account.It has saved me a fair bit of cash. I get the OP's profit to be around 63p with a micropayments account .

I think it could be worth a shop subscription even if you don't do enough sales to justify it, because with a shop you can do Good Till Cancelled listings and you have access to promotion manager.

Good till cancelled will help your search ranking as you won't lose your sales history every month and promotions manager is really good for doing offers on items such as "Buy three save 20%" or "Buy three get the fourth free". These seem to work really well for me on the low value items..

 

[Pish_Pash]

Re these micro-payments (these are news to me...I don't have many products that are low in price, but I'm all for saving dosh)...can the micro-payments be linked to the same main overall Payment account. If so how do you get Paypal to differentiate between payments? For example

Ebay sale of £2.99 ....use micro-payment
Ebay Sale of £15.00 ...use traditional Paypal.

 

[Low Cost Sourcing]

Re these micro-payments (these are news to me...I don't have many products that are low in price, but I'm all for saving dosh)...can the micro-payments be linked to the same main overall Payment account. If so how do you get Paypal to differentiate between payments? For example

Ebay sale of £2.99 ....use micro-payment
Ebay Sale of £15.00 ...use traditional Paypal.

You will need to contact PayPal and advise you would like to open a Micropayments account. They will get back to you and say it is ok to do that and you will then have to open a brand new PayPal business account and contact them to change the type to micropayments.

You will need a different email address, bank account and card details to open the other account so you cannot use the same details.

 

[Pish_Pash]

Thanks ...that sucks wolf's cookies - I only have one business bank account.

 

[Low Cost Sourcing]

Thanks ...that sucks wolf's cookies - I only have one business bank account.

If you have a savings account attached to your business bank account you can use that.

 

[antropy]

and it didn't work at all, my customers were great but I seemed to have had trolls constantly trolling me, so annoying!

constant messages asking if I'd reduce my price. Such as, "If you re list your item at £5 I'll buy it now".

Just don't reply.

 

[MBE1]

/\ /\


Same advice, don't reply, if it is a BIN you have already informed them of the price.

These sort of buyers are time wasters and potentially trouble makers, but few will ever buy except from very desperate sellers.

 

[BartJr]

I've sold a lot on eBay but I had far worse clients, I had people buying electronic goods and replace components. I had no protection on eBay platform since every time buyer would open a case, it would be found in his favour with no option to escalate.

There was nothing I could do, since these were low value items £30-£120.

I ended up having my account with 700 positive feedbacks 0 negative feedbacks suspended because of the defect rate.

eBay customer service was the worst possible experience, bunch of donkeys if you ask me. They got no logic, they are programmed to ensure that buyer is always right.

If I was you, I would create an additional channels of sale, such as gumtree,fb groups, own website etc.

 

[paulears]

I do quite nicely, despite all the fees and charges. I get a few "I'll give you ....." messages, I just say no. I also go out of my way to explain things, over and above when people contact me. I sell mainly microphones, quite specialist ones, and often, despite the warnings in the listings, people still buy ones that won't work with their kit. They email or phone to say the mic doesn't work. I've never had a single faulty one, so I always ask if they have the phantom power turned on, and if they ask what that is, chances are their kit doesn't provide it - and they send it back. Postage is four quid, so a return is a big hit in the margin department. However, I make a reasonable amount overall.

I always am honest with replies, and even when I basically tell them that they really need to spend more money on their other kit, they often buy the mic!

What really gets me is the poor feedback response rate. I always get good feedback, but only 1 in 3 leave it. I've sold nearly 2000 mics, and have a 700 odd feedback record, with no bad feedback, just frequent no feedback.

With the mics, if anyone did have a fault, I'd send them a new one, and cut my losses - people assuming they get a full guarantee like in a shop. However, I did sell much higher priced and higher margin items, but turnaround on faults would be a killer. The Chinese factories always solve problems, but the timescale is bad. The kit I buy for my hire stock - my main income generator - might be a 4 week turnaround in getting a new part and fitting it. For sales, that's too long, and keeping a working spare just in case, of each model is not economic.

One of my mics can be found by Googling it's common title. When Ebay started with the requirement for bar code numbers, and person searching would find the same mic cheaper, with the idiots who make a tiny margin. So I don't use the UK distributors branding in the description, and use the Chinese name on the packaging, and use my own EAN for the barcode, so searching for a cheaper seller produces nothing, as the product appears unique. If they use better key words, they'll find it, but this works for me.

 

[AT700]

Thanks for all of your replies. There's some great tips here, much appreciated.
I agree with feedback and with my account being new, I'm desperate for it! Hardly any buyers ever leave it, I always ask for it too but most ignore.

 

[BlackMagicX]

Why would you waste your time selling anything for under £5 profit? All work and no money, unless you ship it off to a fulfillment centre. You should be looking at selling less, but for higher margin otherwise you'll quit in 6 months. Trust me, iv'e sold everything on eBay.

 

[AT700]

@BlackMagicX
I've thought of 100s of things to sell on eBay. Most of them and especially the products with good margins are either already over populated on eBay or hard to facilitate when having no storage or warehouse.

I wanted to find a niche within in a popular industry and although the margins are small, the potential to sell 100s and even 1000s a day is eventually realistic.

I met a guy in gym who ships between 600 and 1000 items a day, all he sell is socks. The value is low and the margins aren't great but he still makes a very good living.

What Have you sold that makes you £5 + ?

 

[BlackMagicX]

@AT700 He has also created a lot of hard work for himself.

If you want to compete at the price point you're talking about and not spend forever posting and packaging for low margins (remember you need to pay yourself) then you need to create a brand. Something to stand out from the crowd which you have sole distribution rights over. Same product, different name.

With regards to products that make more than £5, you'll need to look at a higher price point. Products from the £50 to £200 range. I dropship products now that make between £20 and £70. I would not consider anything less. Your thinking should be

1. does it sell?
2. does it make a lot of profit?

if it sells, but hardly makes profit then leave it to the drop shippers, liquidators, logistics companies and Chinese.

 

[BartJr]

@BlackMagicX
I've thought of 100s of things to sell on eBay. Most of them and especially the products with good margins are either already over populated on eBay or hard to facilitate when having no storage or warehouse.

I wanted to find a niche within in a popular industry and although the margins are small, the potential to sell 100s and even 1000s a day is eventually realistic.

I met a guy in gym who ships between 600 and 1000 items a day, all he sell is socks. The value is low and the margins aren't great but he still makes a very good living.

What Have you sold that makes you £5 + ?

'Trust me' instead, don't always listen to people on forum.

If you want to find a niche, start with yourself. What do you like to do in your spare time? (hobbies, interests).

I will share with you my start on eBay.

I'm a ww2 enthusiast, I go to reenactments, military fairs etc. I came to the point where I was thinking how to monetize my interest. So I've started to look for ww2 items to buy and sell on eBay. I ended up buying loads, of ww2 items from countries like Poland, Ukraine, Germany and just sold them here on eBay for a nice mark up. Sometimes even 500% return on the purchase. It also allowed me to meet new people who had a common interest but to also make some great connections which for instance granted me an access to the cheap electronic goods.

 

[AT700]

@BlackMagicX I view dropping shipping as risky business.
Once you have an order, you then have to place that order with other people of which you have no control over.
Many things can go wrong, it's a breeding ground for negative feedback in my eyes.

Right now, I might not make much profit but sales are easy to come by and there's hardly any work involved.
All I do once receiving an order is; walk over to the boxes of products I have, pick what I need, print a label, seal the jiffy bag and drop it off at the post office on my way to the gym!

I appreciate you views and opinions but surely drop shipping is harder work than what I'm currently doing?

 

[BlackMagicX]

@AT700 I appreciate your opinion and agree with some of your points however, my goal is to make as much money as possible with minimal amount of work. Dropshipping is a means to an end. It allows you to work a full time job, build cash flow and ultimately import the most popular selling products to be fulfilled by logistics companies and distributors to allow you to focus on what's important, sales and marketing. Not everything can be dropshipped, but it's definitely a good research tool to begin with, with little or no risk. You have to be smart and choose who you work with wisely because if you build a good relationship with them, they will tell you the secrets of import and logistics.

Regards
Steve

 

[paulears]

I took a pile of my hard to shift stock to a car boot and made more money than I did on ebay! Tried it again and nothing went. At least ebay is steady,

The worst thing is the competition. I've just had some samples of a new product from China - that might generate a decent margin - but only until somebody else finds them and sells them for less!

 

[MBE1]

I agree with the idea of higher value items overall, I used to sell approx 600+ items per month, originally I planned to sell items from my old business of mobile phone accessories, but the competition from abroad was crazy.

I ended up selling furniture, using my transport company to do the deliveries, so made money both ends normally.

If I sold car charger I was lucky to make 20p per item, a coat rack or shelf unit could make £60 plus the transport charges. I stopped selling on ebay when they kept changing their rules all the time, it was near impossible to run a true business on ebay, one day you could make a decent amount, the next month not sell anything.

 

[BartJr]

It's good to point out that eBay is in phase of introducing something like 'Adwords' but for the actual listings on eBay. Therefore if someone else has got an access to the same product as you do (quiet common with drop shippers) the winner will be the one, who will put more money into eBay adwords

http://sellercentre.ebay.co.uk/promote-your-listings.html

 

[Leather Briefcase Company]

Back to the original request.
Tips for using eBay or not.
This applies to Amazon or Not On The High Street and other "platforms".
Run your business to establish your own brand and customers as much as possible.
If you have to, work using the big platforms, but always aim to cast free.
In the end, you only make the best returns if you work for yourself, and develop your own brand.
Ebay / Amazon / etc can close you down in ten seconds, and they are judge / jury and they know how to use a rope.
Have no illusions about eBay and the Fat Lady.

 

[AT700]

Thanks @Leather Briefcase Company , exactly my way of thinking. I'm on the big selling marketplaces at the moment because they provide me with customers! Once I have a brand reputation, if it ever gets so far then I will consider the independent route and invest the £1000s the I'll need to attract custom.

@BartJr I don't compete against dropshippers, I sell branded items only which are subject to brand protection - some pull their faces at me for selling on eBay.
With regards to adwords, the value of the products I currently sell is low (£2 - £10) so I doubt my competitiors could afford to purchase adwords without losing most of or all of their profits.

@MBE1 You're right but I don't have any facilities or enough space to store items of size, which are usually the items which reel in better profits, that's why I sell small low value items. I wish I could sell higher value items, its easier, but I can't at the moment.

 

[MBE1]

Make no mistake, selling higher value items is no easier than selling low cost items, it's just as hard.

Best of luck anyway, you will learn a lot, particularly regarding how much control you exercise on things, many people simple get fed up of the lack of control using someone elses platform, which is run for their benefit not yours.

 

[e-vulture]

My rule for ebay is the less they pay the more they expect. I agree that it's best to keep away from any low value items, but it's definitely easier said than done.