The reason ebay is the most popular place to sell is because Ebay has basically become a common household name. Everyone knows about ebay and the power that the consumer has to find great deals on ebay. Millions upon millions of people buy and sell there daily. Its basically like your local auction house except there are millions of potential buyers.
Yes you can make money, Anyone can. But its just like any other business. Even before ebay was even around the success rate on a new business was less then 20 Percent success rate. It is the same today with little change.
The reason so many businesses fail is poor education and improper dedication to financial success.
People are too lazy and expect everything handed to them. They think because so many are making money on ebay that they can just jump in and be rich within a year. That just doesnt happen The big powersellers actually work hard for thier money. I myself put in a ton of hours on my own ebay business not including my part time job and my work for salehoo. Generally I work about 70 hours a week between all 3 . Im about to launch a huge amount of products on ebay in the next few weeks and I expect that to jump to over 115 hours a week just because I will be spending countless hours listing the massive amount of products I have comming in. Plus work my part time job and work on salehoo. Yes I do expect to make alot of money and most likely will. But I will also be working my tail end off to do it.
The other reason people fail is poor education in Business. Most people only think of the sale they make but they dont consider the listing fees, final value fees, store fees, advertising fees, shipping fees and thier product cost into thier sales. When its all said and done most individualls put themselves into debt before they actually start seeing profits.
Other things that people fail at is sourcing products. The main cause is everyone is trying to sell the same thing. Everyone wants Ipods, PsP, Ps3's,xbox360's, and designer clothing that is almost impossible to aquire actuall legitimate items. Most think that oh yeah they can get the item $20 dollars cheaper then the ebay selling price then they go out and buy as much as they can at that price or the dropshippers price then they sell a ton of it only to find out ebay slapped them with a
$4.50 listing fee
$32.00 final value fee
$16.00 paypal transaction fee.
Then they find out they now have to pay an extra $52.50 per item they sold giving them a 32.50 loss on each item. This is a problem they could have solved if they just did the research.
To be honest with you I sank 3 businesses before I actually started a business that makes me profit. Ive been at it since I was 18 and im now 30 and just started raking in profits last year. Right now I profit maybe $1,700 a month but I plan to quadruple that in the next 2 months by putting more money back into products and not letting my wife spend them.
:D
Just stick with it. Find your nich and you will do very well. Never give up and one day you will succeed. By the way just to let you know. I averaged up the money I spent on money makiung schemes and lists and such and came to almost $17,000 over a 12 year period.
Most think they need to make 20-50 per item to make money. Some actually can. But did you know the top 6 powersellers on ebay only make $3-$7 dollars per sale? You dont need to find expensive electronics to make money. There is money in every field to be made.
Succeeding costs money and research and a heck of alot of time. But if you stick with it you will succeed. Ebay is a cornerstone for the individual entrepenuer. Prices and listing fees will change but you must learn to adapt to keep going. :D
