|
By Stephanie McIntyre
There are many sellers who are working full time at selling on
eBay. In fact, it is their primary source of income and yet
they have no idea how much they are making, I mean really
clearing from the whole endeavor.
It's easy to get carried away when you first start listing on
eBay by the sheer volume of work. I remember working well past
midnight running on pure adrenalin and excited by the fact
that
there was money coming into my Paypal account daily from the
items I was selling.
But like the great basketball coach John Wooden says, "Never
confuse activity with actual achievement". Just because you
are
moving like a whirling dervish doesn't mean that you are
necessarily meeting your financial objectives.
So how do you know how much you are really making on eBay? It
is possible to figure it out but you have to start with real
numbers. The traditional profit calculation:
Revenue - Expenses = Profit
can be somewhat helpful but only if you plug in the accurate
numbers. The guy who bought something for $1.00 sold it on
eBay
for $5.00 and thinks he make a $4.00 profit is way wrong. He
has
actually lost money on the sale.
But to understand how he lost money we need to look at the
right way to calculate your eBay earnings. If you have set
$30,000 a year as your financial objective then you need to
actually clear about $82 per day on eBay.
If you are looking to sell an item that costs you $10.00 and
generally closes at auction for about $20.00 with a 70%
sell-through rate, then you need to list 12 of these actions a
day, everyday, in order to clear your $82.00 per day.
This translates to 70 auctions a week for your item and it
better continue to produce for you. If your weekly auctions go
much over this 70 auctions per week you will surely have to
hire help thereby adding to your expenses and wreaking havoc
on
your financials as outlined above.
This scenario is not meant to scare you but to make you aware
of the real dollars and cents of selling on eBay. So what is
the solution to this? To find and sell item that you can sell
over and over again, thereby reducing the amount of labor
involved and being sure that you buy low and sell high.
You have to continually evaluate what your time is worth and
factor that into the items you sell and the time that it takes
to list them. All auctions are not created equally. Some items
are decidedly more difficult and/or labor intensive to list
than others; with clothing being one of the most
time-consuming.
Photographing your items for auction is one of the most
labor-intensive tasks you will have to do for your auction. So
having an item that you can just sell over and over again
makes
the process of listing and relisting a lot easier. If you are
selling unique, one of a kind items then it becomes important
to factor in additional time for photographing items, in your
calculations of the hourly rate you pay yourself.
Just like in any business, keeping track of the numbers will
let you know if you are on the right financial track with your
eBay business.
About The Author: Stephanie McIntyre became a Platinum eBay
Powerseller (making $10,000 a month or more) after er first 6
months. She now works with business owners offering training
in
eBay As An added Revenue Stream, and Advanced eBay Strategies.
www.ebay-selling-basics.com
|