How long did it take for you to be successful on eBay?

For this topic I'm looking for encouragement, and the time frame. This is for sellers who do the process legally, nothing fake, and pay their taxes.

I started on the 8th of April for my new attempt. I've made 21 sales within 15 days up to this current date. April 23rd. Which isn't that much, but its decent for someone who just started right? I put all of my time, and effort into this.

Is 21 sales reasonable for my start up of 15 days? Also, How long did it take for your business to grow? How were your first two weeks of sales after launching?

I look forward to hearing about your answers
Thank you

Hi Timothy,

Those numbers sound good to me, I'm sure most just starting out would be happy with those. Of course, success on eBay isn't measured in numbers, it's measured in profit. So your margin is a better indicator than actual sales.

Myself personally, probably a couple of years to make Power Seller the first time round, but about 12 months to be making a decent margin for effort. I didn't dropship, I sold second hand, So my success can't really be measured against a dropshipping model.

Anyway, stay with it. Whatever you're doing certainly seems to be working : )

Marc's right -- if you're hitting some sales like that right out the gate, just keep doing that. Make sure you follow up with your buyers to express gratitude and make sure they're happy with order fulfillment, and expand on what's selling.


Frank

Just to add to Frank's comment about following up with your customers. With the numbers you are getting this early, now is a fantastic time to be building for the future. You may not have an independent store outside of eBay yet, but that might be how you want to proceed in the future, so now is the time to start collecting a customer base.

Harvest emails, postal addresses of customers so you have a marketing target to get you started if you do go independent in future.

Marc and Frank,

I really appreciate both of your effort for helping me. I order wholesale. Package, and ship myself. Simply, because I love the process of it. It keeps me busy, and happy. Also, thank you for sharing personal information about the time frame since you started. I understand we are all in different categories in what we sell, so an amount of success/time frame has a lot of factors.

I love both of your suggestions on fulfillment, expanding, and collecting a customer base. I will definitely start following up.

One more question. Do you guys think it would be a good time for me to start printing out promotional flyers through eBay, and sending them in the packages? I say yes, but I may be speaking too soon.

Tim

Hi Tim, it's never too early to start marketing. Things like discount cards 5% or 10% off your next order or two cards, one to give to a friend that gives them a small bonus and such, things like that get you repeat business, so always worth considering.