I got into business on a small scale after selling my Vintage Star Wars collection. In a week I had sold £750's worth of Star Wars figures, something I just had in a box sitting in the attic. It made me think, this has real potential. If I could source a product with a sound supply, I could sell them all day long and that £750 could double and be a regular income.
It didn't happen over night, I spent months looking for a product. I soon realised if I was every going to make any money I needed to think outside of the box. There were thousands of other sellers with the same products, so my prices were consistently dropping to be competitive. Which made it hard to commit to large amounts of stock, ultimately making it impossible to make good money. It was important for me to sell something that interested me, I think that's what kept me motivated throughout the rough times. I was still working so I had an income I could rely on, however, most of the funds were being pushed straight into the business as soon as they hit my account.
After reading many articles, I learnt that goods could be picked up from China at very low prices. Like I said it was very important to me to sell products that interested me. Which was really electronics (being a technology fan), before I was buying branded goods like Sony, Microsoft, and Samsung. The margins were pathetic, I was lucky to make five percent. I knew that these products couldn't really be brought from China due to the amount of counterfeits and to be quite honest I was fed up of making pennies. So I started to look at non-branded electronics, I emailed many companies asking for prices. I then started to research the market and found I could quite easily make forty percent, of course I would have to pay Tax and NI contributions on top of this. But it still leaves me with a good profit. The great thing is, the products I sell are good quality and the prices I sell at are in most cases fifty percent less than the retail for a similar branded product. Please don't mistake what I sell for 'fakes' or 'look-a-like' products, were now looking into adding our own branding as a production run is being held for all of our orders. The designs are unique in every possible way, they really do look smart! I hate fake products as I understand how damaging they are to the
real companies, so I wouldn't dream of buying or even selling them.
Anyway, I started selling my goods through eBay. Sales were out of the roof, I couldn't believe my luck. That's what I believe it was
luck. Being in the right place, at the right time and all. I had to take on a partner as the work load was getting beyond me and that's not what I wanted. My profits had been sliced in half, which was quite damaging of course. But I don't regret it one bit as our sales have easily tripled since I took on my partner. We now had a good amount of stock and it was arriving weekly in large quantities. So we decided to approach small retailers in our local idea. One of us would go down to there shop after organising a meeting with the Store Manager and hold a demo of the goods. We had a lot of interest and now supply in bulk to a few of the shops in the area. We plan to work on this a lot more in the coming months, hopefully going National. As you can imagine this business has turned into a full-time income for me, as it did take over all of my free time when I was working. So now what I did for a little extra cash had turned into a real business! I can honestly say I earn a lot more now than I ever did whilst working for someone else. However, whats really rewarding about having your own business is the fact that if you work hard you actually see the benefits. Its also great deciding when you can work, I usually work from ten in the morning till three in the afternoon and then later on at night. That way you can spend time with the people you care about. I value that a lot more than the money!
Sorry If I've gone on a little.
