Slashdot Mirror
Can eBay Make You Rich?
adamlazz writes "For 11 years, eBay has been a great resource to buy or sell goods without leaving your computer. And with many stories of people getting rich exclusively from doing business on eBay, NewsFactor has decided to go in depth with these stories, and explore what it takes to really make your million on eBay. From the article: 'A tiered system designed to reward qualified sellers, the PowerSeller program is by invitation only, and has a number of criteria that must be maintained to keep the designation. At the lowest level, Bronze, a PowerSeller must average at least $1,000 in sales per month for three consecutive months; have an account in good standing; and get an overall feedback rating of 100, with at least 98 percent of the comments marked as positive.'"
Making millions? Hard. Making enough to live on? Not so hard if you have a mind for business and something to sell that isn't your moldy used clothes from the basement.
/. posters, eBay doesn't like this because they loose out on a later fee. However, there isn't a tinker's damn they can do about a piece of paper in the package I send out saying, "Thanks so much for being a customer, if you need anything else..."
.50 cents each from your basement is going to be more trouble than it's worth (though, somehow, you see people doing this all the time), but if you actually have a product to sell you can really make a go of it.
I do it just about every week (make a living off of eBay). I left a shitty office job with a decent chunk of savings in my bank account, deciding to live off of my savings until I needed to find another shitty office job to subsidize my writing and art ambitions.
It's a couple of months later, and with the exception of one week where I had to take a few bucks out of savings, eBay has paid for my gas, groceries, cable, etc. And the week after I had to dip in I was able to replace the money with an eBay surplus.
People complain about eBay and PayPal fees, but don't seem to get that eBay is providing the world's stage for you; it's the best damn advertising you can get. Yes, eBay has some ridiculous policies, but there are ways to work with them, and around them. For example, when I send out a package I include an enclosure with my name and website and an invitation for a future order. As previously stated by other
In fact, that's how the lion's share of my large orders come from. Someone buys one off of eBay, then comes back and spends a couple of hundred bucks with me, off eBay. I guess someone would say that that wasn't really making money off of eBay, but I disagree; I would never have found that customer otherwise.
As to PayPal, you just have to be careful with them. They are HEAVILY slanted toward the buyer, and their fees can be noticable. However, it is so convenient it is worth it for me. I have a PayPal debit card that I use for everything (and get 1% cash back instantly with each purchase, which helps ease the pain) and I never have to bother with money orders and checks and waiting and all that B.S. For orders under twenty bucks I don't worry about it, but I get delivery confirmation on anything above that to protect myself as much as possible.
Now, I completely realize that this could dry up tomorrow, that eBay sales and the follow-up sales won't last forever, but right now it sure is nice to be working no more than 90 minutes a day and making enough to live off of. I get great pleasure in making nice packages for people to recieve as well, and I have time to live my life instead of living in a cubicle. What it takes to make it on eBay is to understand how it works, and to know what will give you the best profits. Selling old clothes for
I guess the moral is don't quit your day job...unless you have the savings to back it up in case it doesn't work out and you have a decent mind for business and a good product to sell.
AE
Two words:
Yahoo! Auctions.
Yahoo! does not charge ANYTHING to list, sell or buy. When enough people start switching to Yahoo! auctions, it will put eBay out of business. Yahoo! ought to actually start a new site, use the same software to run it, and advertise it on television the way eBay does with their site. eBay also actually has a contest with the US Postal Service - there are actually ads in the Post Office to get people to enter an eBay contest.
Add to that the fact that PayPal (owned by eBay) charges you a fee on the TOTAL price (including shipping & handling) - you end up paying eBay TWICE.
It's time to stop paying eBay and start using services that actually make sense for the seller.
Hopefully Yahoo! will purchase StormPay or any of the other online payment services, keep the fees low there and take down the eBay behemoth.