Has anyone gone from full time seller to employed full time?

I’ve gone all over the place in 20 years as an eBay seller from a hobby as a college student in the 90’s, to doing it full time in periods of unemployment or underemployment over the years.

For me, I like having a job to cover my bills and have a consistent income if times are lean or rough on top of what I may make in a week selling on eBay.

Being employed full time and keeping up on eBay (I sell about 200 items a month – and also find and list that many items) takes a lot of time – but for me it is worth it.

Overall, you just need to set your financial goals, make sure you can afford your lifestyle, and do what makes you happy. For me, my plan is to work hard now, any extra income goes into my financial plan, and one day earlier then others I will retire or just sell on eBay as a hobby more then depending on the income.

If I ever lose my job, I’ll use those 40 hours to sell even more on eBay, but for now I do what I can to maximize my income and still have a bit of a life.

The biggest headaches I ever had were when I was 100% dependent on eBay income, and sales were slow – it was very stressful.

Good luck in any direction you choose!

If we were to take take salaried jobs again, it’d have to be well paying and close to the time freedom we have now. That means we work from home on our schedule with minimal meetings and office visits. Seems unlikely any employer would allow this.

I assume you’re thinking of getting a full-time job because eBay profits aren’t making you satisfied? Choose the option which gives you the least amount of stress.

So, in all likelihood I will be offered a part time (well, 30 hours) job next week and, unfortunately, I may have to take it. I intend to maintain my eBay business to some degree, but it’s going to look a bit different.

Before I explain what I’m going to try, keep in mind that we also have a very small house and three kids, and I’ve got some attentional issues currently exacerbated by a medical condition, so my space and personal constraints are pretty tight.

My intention is to, in the next month or so, sell off a bunch of my small but decent items to other local scavengers. I’ll maintain the shop, but with a more limited inventory of just my best/ most highly priced items. My goal won’t be to sell every day, but to have a super-manageable inventory of items that will occasionally bring in $100 or more.

Although it seems like it would make sense to maintain all the listings I’ve already got, I need to clean house to make room for the family. My inventory has started taking over living space to an unfair degree and my management system has disintegrated and I’m not able to rebuild everything right now.

Then we’ll see what happens with “the real job.” I haven’t had one in a long time.

Ideally I would expand the eBay business, but my attempts at doing that (within my personal limitations!) haven’t been successful. I think I need external structure and my family needs more of a consistent income. We’ll see what happens over time.

@Habnab – are your children old enough to help with some of the eBay tasks (photos, packing, sorting inventory)?

It could be a good learning lesson on business/finance to have them involved, and they may enjoy seeing how money can be made from someone else’s junk. If you share some of the profits with them as well, they may become really motivated themselves to help sell items.

I don’t have children myself, but I do have my nieces and nephews (between 5 and 8 years old) involved on picking trips when I am in their towns, and I let them pick out some items that I list for them and give them status updates on (unfortunately, they pick out junk that never sells…). I also keep them up to date on the items I found when I was with them, and share a few dollars of the profit with them on those items – they get really excited when I give them the money.