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Ebay 'Millionaire' Sellers in Germany and UK Grow 50 Percent in Four Years (reuters.com)
"Millionaire" online businesses selling on ecommerce site Ebay have jumped 50 percent in key international markets Britain and Germany in the last four years, despite currency swings that have slowed growth outside the United States. From a report: Fresh data published on Tuesday by Ebay shows the number of million euro businesses selling on Ebay grew to 1,095 from 731 in Germany last year since 2013 while million pound-plus businesses rose to 663 from 443 in Britain over the same time period. Ebay's two big European markets were collectively responsible for 30 percent of Ebay's total net revenue of nearly $9 billion last year, although reported revenue in both markets dipped amid currency declines against the U.S. dollar. Two examples in the north of England are MusicMagpie.co.uk, which buys used CDs, DVDs and electronics from consumers for resale on Ebay in more than 140 countries, and cycling accessory seller MaxGear, now a 3.5 million pound ($4.51 million) a year business. While the company founded 22 years ago started out as an online auction site for consumers to trade second-hand goods, 80 percent of merchandise now sold via Ebay is new, largely fixed-price items, the company reported in the first quarter of 2017.
EBay is somewhere between Amazon and Alibaba for cheap knock off junk.
A business that sells a million dollars worth of merchandise is not a "millionaire" business. A "millionaire" is someone with a net worth of greater than a million $currency.
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=ebay,amazon
Amazon at eBay's lunch. It's probably mostly access to reviews and dealing with a single company if something goes wrong, both features that eBay doesn't quite have. After eBay decided it wanted to become amazon, it just succeeded in alienating much of it's collectible's audience (that is going more and more to regular auctions via liveauctioneers, etc) and in becoming a Chinese fleamarket of dubious quality goods.
The eBay millionaires are anything but. Revenue != profit. The high revenue sellers are paying a huge chunk in fees to eBay. Labor is big. Profit margins often slim.
The money can be better than being a working stiff in Europe but don't kid yourself, it's not in the league of affording glamourous Porsches for 99% of "eBay millionaires" and a bunch of 12-14h days, and being scared that eBay might decide to kick you off due to a few bad customer reviews out of thousands. I, myself, got a 3 month suspension due to one guy saying he didn't get a $12 item after 3 months of purchase.... the tracking number said he received it 2 days after purchase and then contrary to their own rules, eBay decided my USPS tracking number wasn't good enough. I was a small time seller who didn't put anything online for 6 weeks and was on vacation, so I wasn't exactly following my business email when it went down 1 week and they slapped me for my tardiness in replying 72h after the complaint even though it wasn't expired.
I don't envy eBay millionaires. It's tough work.
AN ONLINE trader who cheated the taxman out of more than £300,000 in VAT receipts has been given a suspended prison sentence. For five years Daniel Waslin, 35, failed to register his business for VAT as he made more than £2.6 million from the sales of remote control golf trolleys and garden furniture imported from China. He evaded paying £323,000 in VAT. HM Revenue and Customs found out about his online auction sales through import checks and he was prosecuted for tax evasion.
http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/new...
Most of e-commerce today is people and companies selling stuff at a loss. Anybody could sell a dollar for $.90. It's really only an achievement to be proud of if your goal is to run up the sales numbers so you can sell the unprofitable business to some dummy who doesn't care about profit.
In our industry (pet supplies), we see that happen over and over again.
I don't respond to AC's.
eBay. For the people that haven't figured out how to cut out the middle men.
So I guess they are now "1.5 million" sellers?
Future generations will think we were all morons for wasting resources like oil and metal to make inferior junk, ship it round the world and have it break immediately and go straight to landfill. And then disguising this monumental waste with a words like 'business' and 'entrepeneur'. Gave up buying crap online from world-owes-me-a-living day traders, only buy through real companies with a reputation to protect now.