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First off, while I have been selling on eBay for quite some time, I’ve only had a store for the last few years, and so I’m by no means a veteran seller. But I pay attention and I make good observations (the science side of me), and so I’ve learned some things that I thought I’d share. This comes from the last 2 podcasts where it was mentioned that people ask about store sizes as well as just generally selling on eBay. Here you go.
When I started thinking about the business concept, I still used just free listings, filling as many as I could per month. I played games with stopping listings and not re-listing until the next month when my cycle renewed. I didn’t spend any money on it, I typically had around 50 things listed at any one time, and I made a little bit of pocket money every month. The big thing was it taught me how to sell, how to scavenge, how to ship, and how to deal with customers. I did this probably for a year or two, maybe even a little longer.
After that I moved to the basic store (I skipped the starter one). It gives you 250 listings per month. I don’t do auctions, so I don’t count those listings. I got it up to 250 as soon as I could (took about a month or so). With that, I was making approx. $1000 or so a month. Not bad for $21.95. After about a year and a half, I was starting to again play around with listings to stay within my limit as I had more than 250 things listed often but I didn’t want to spend anything on them. I decided to take the plunge and go to the next level. So now I have a premium store, I get 1000 listings per month. Jay and Ryanne always talk about 500 items, and I’m not quite there but I’m getting there. Right now I’m just at 400 or so, slowly making my way to 1000. My monthly income has grown, but I too am a turtle just slow and steady.
I recently bought a new house and moved. It was a bit unexpected, and has been really crazy, so I haven’t had time to do anything with eBay. I’m still selling 7-10 things a week, list it and forget it. I’ve sold a lot of things that I had listed for at least a year or two. It’s kind of self-sustaining, and having the store and listed items allows me to work on other things at times when life gets in the way. So the store has been coasting, and still producing money. Not $1000 per week, but for the number of items I have I feel I’m doing OK.
It works. I don’t know anything about anchor stores or such, right now I can’t imagine doing that (who knows what time will bring). I like the premium store – it’s a nice size with nice perks. It’s easy to make $60 a month on ebay to cover the cost of the store, especially if you have at least 500-600 items listed. So for me it’s very much worth it.
When you start selling, I started with things around the house. Start with something cheap and small and easy to ship (clothes are good for that, but they bring different difficulties that I feel I wouldn’t have enjoyed when starting out). You will make mistakes (I have made many, and still am learning every day). You don’t want to make mistakes on an expensive item, so wait on those until you feel comfortable with it – then jump in and see how it goes. I’ve done well with the shipping part. People commend me on my fast shipping and nice packing.
Enjoy. Sorry for the long ramble. It’s been a while since I posted. Take care
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I don’t know at what level sellers get the random free listing offers, whether it is all sellers or what, but these can be a way to temporarily at least increase listings. The thing is, you have to check your eBay messages regularly because they don’t forward these to email and there is a short time to use them.
I received an offer in the past week for 500 free listings. I’m not going to use up the allowance of my Dec anchor store free listings so it is not really anything that saves me any fees. But, just a thought and small advice if you aren’t already using these.
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@old-dad: Thanks for the tip about watching eBay messages for special offers. Until you left a similar comment about 6 weeks ago or so, I was wondering why these offers never came to my email box. One must watch “my eBay” messages.
A few months back, I missed an offer to upgrade my store; offer already had expired by the time I saw it in the messages.
I used the 500 free listings offer in both November and December. I have a basic store with about 300 listings right now and like to end and restart many of my listings every 30 days, so those offers come in handy.
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