Ebay Business Opportunity - Man or Mouse - Get out of the RAT RACE
The Ebay Business Opportunity: Man or Mouse?
There are so many people trying to figure out a way to make a living selling on the internet. And there are even more people who are looking for specific opportunities within the Ebay community.
I'm here to tell you, I've been doing this for 3 years now and I am doing well! But I've seen some outrageous prices - averaging over $1 million per month of Ebay sales for someone that is currently selling an item with just few hundred bucks worth of starting investment (and yes, it's not a scam).
If you want to be like me and sell on Ebay, then come follow along in this blog post.
After selling on Ebay for several years, I don't really anticipate making a full-time living from this (I am doing quite well, but I expect to make more from other sources). However, I still do it because it allows me to work less than 2 hours a day and spend the rest of the time with my family.
So, how many hours per month will you work?
Homework for this is to figure out what percentage of your income you want to spend on running your eBay business. For example: if you can live off 50% of your income - then you only need an additional 25% of passive income coming in.
So, you'll be able to work less than 1 hour per day.
I've tested this myself, and here's just a few numbers:
If I can earn $1.2 Million (hey, they tried - they should have done this) with only $100 of extra investment each month - then I can get it down to 40% hour productivity.
13 hours per week x 40% hour productivity = 60 hours per month average - that leaves me 6 more hours to spend with my family.
Edit: I'm late, the homework is: Figure out what the minimum amount of investment you need to earn $1.2 Million (or whatever figure you define as success).
How To Turn Your eBay Business Into A Successful One
I'm going to make a bold claim here - and I know it sounds crazy. But, here goes - working less than 1 hour per day with a 50% productivity is possible and you can do it even if you are just starting out.
Here's how:
#1) Decide on a market niche for your eBay business based on your personal interests.
This is the first and most important step. You have to have passion for what you're selling.
The reason why I don't do this professionally is because I believe that every human has a talent that they can use to make money, but only a small percentage of people can become successful by doing it full-time. The rest of us just don't want to work for someone else, so we never become successful.
If you don't have the passion for something - then you're simply going to spend a lot of time trying to figure out what you are passionate about. If that's the case - then this is not really worth your time.
#2) Make a plan to maximize your marketing efforts.
Look at what your competitors are doing and gather information on how they're doing it. Take notes, but don't fear the competition, because they are investing the same amount of time as you invest in this - so don't get discouraged by their efforts.
Look at where their products stand in the market: Are they strengthening their brands (they are building a brand)? Or do they just have a product that is already saturated? You need to make sure that you spend your time on securing sales first and building a brand second.
#3) Build relationships with your customers and get referrals.
All successful businesses have this in common - a customer base of happy customers. Do whatever it takes to earn the trust of your current customers, because if they stay loyal to you and refer more business to you, then you can turn your business into a success. I've done that by becoming their advocate after I bought from them. They look up to me because I'm successful at what I do so they tend to buy from me again and again (that's made me $600 in profit from just one referral).
#4) Get the most out of your shopping cart software.
There's more than one way to turn $5 into $200,000+. Start by implementing these practices in your business:
Don't make any changes to your shipping methods until you've made a profit. If you want to use first-class shipping without paying an extra $10 per shipment, then that's up to you - but don't complain when other sellers do it because they'll do it at a massive discount. Don't try and undercut the competition just because they're doing it cheaper - if they were doing it cheaper, then the market would have enough competition that the price would drop even more. Make sure that your prices are competitive. If you can give away a product, then do it. This is another reason why I don't do this as a professional - I've tried and I just can't sacrifice sales to get free products. The profit margins aren't there and this won't scale to the point where you could eventually earn enough to live on. Tell people that your products are made locally with fair-trade practices - this will get people interested in your business and they'll want to buy from you even if they don't need or want the product right now. Sell products at a discount rather than a premium. If you sell cheap, then your profit margin is higher and you can get more stuff done in the same amount of time. The more work efficient you are, the better your business will become. Have a goal that allows you to make money using only $100 of extra investment each month (and let everyone know). 5% or 10% margins are too little to make any real amount of money. You need at least 25-30%. If you're selling $1,000 of products per month, then this means that you need to sell 3 items per week at $100 each and make $365 from your eBay business. If you do that and are spending 40%, then you'll end up with a profit of $23 per hour. Minimum wage is about $11 an hour so this is above average - if he spent 2 hours a day at minimum wage, then he can live on $50,000 a year from his eBay business.
I've found this model to be the most successful for me:
I make sure that I sell about 1 item per week at 6% profit.
Conclusion
I've written this article to introduce you to the values of making money online. I've written it as a step-by-step plan to help you earn at least $1,000 a month using nothing but your eBay business and the internet. This is how I began earning $1,000 a month at 10 years old with my eBay business - with only a phone and box of toys.
If you want to know more about the fundamentals of earning money on eBay, then check out this article: How To Make Money Selling On eBay (Part 1) . Part 2 will be here soon.