• NEW! LOWEST RATES EVER -- SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE VERY BEST PREMIUM PARACAST EXPERIENCE! Welcome to The Paracast+, eight years young! For a low subscription fee, you can download the ad-free version of The Paracast and the exclusive, member-only, After The Paracast bonus podcast, featuring color commentary, exclusive interviews, the continuation of interviews that began on the main episode of The Paracast. We also offer lifetime memberships! Flash! Take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! You can sign up right here!

    Subscribe to The Paracast Newsletter!

We Need Some Business Advice!

Forums New posts

Free episodes:

Its not jut the product, you have your pips squeezed by the selling platforms aswell, it must be hard to make money on ebay or amazon competing against sellers selling direct from china.
 
Ebay is full of mugs.

Heres someone paying £21 for the link i gave you 2 posts up for Argos and Homebase.

pallets Argos Wholesale Furniture Electricals Start Ebay Business Cheap | eBay

Info for Argos wholesale pallets. You are bidding on the information where you can bid and buy pallets items range from toys to furniture to jewellery electronics technology household items and more. Most of the eBay power sellers source their stock from this site.

INFO ONLY

Thanks for looking

Happy trading

.
 
Last edited:
manxman said:
How does it work your end pigsinzen, importing from china, i mean you pay duty and or taxes at point of entry, but do you only pay duty/tax on the value of the goods, or the whole invoice, here they include shipping.
Click to expand...
As I said in my post to Gene I am new to importing so my experience is limited however I'm fairly certain that you pay taxes on the total invoice minus shipping & insurance so yes only on the value of the goods.. I'll check out the link you provided to the wholesale forums. I have a US supplier who will drop ship anywhere in the US but because they sell their own goods through Ebay & Amazon they will do so only once I've established an ecommerce website. Ultimately I'd want to import my own private labeled products.
 
Long time seller on Ebay and Etsy here. If they are buying items for resale, they would have to sell on Ebay or other but if they design, create or sell vintage purses (per Etsy's definition of vintage - 20 years or older) they could sell on Etsy.
Basic advice, if they do not know these things yet - use confirmed Paypal address only when shipping. Use priority mail - has insurance and items spend less time in transit. If you decide to take money orders, specify postal money orders only.
I would also suggest they get their own website if possible. But they will have to pay attention to SEO and do as much promotion as possible (e.g. Twitter etc). But the potential for a bigger income is there I think.
I do not want to bash Ebay because a lot of people make a good living there. I have sold things like a jadeite coffee mug for $144 (bless you Japanese collectors). But it is no longer the gravy train it once was due to the changes in policies and some scam artists on the site. I would suggest that they go to the forums there to get a feel for various things about selling that may be of interest.
If they would like to chat about online selling, have them email me as you have my email. The items you listed for sale look good and the only thing that I would add is to also show the inside of the purse and go almost overboard on the descriptions including dimensions.
 
Thanks. They have some inside photos. I do welcome your offer for advice. Send me your info in a private conversation and maybe I'll have my wife talk to you. She's better at back and forth than just writing, and she really wants to know how to boost this — on a very very small budget.
 
Go to the Inbox at the upper left (if you're using it on a desktop). Otherwise you have to click the tiny screen to bring up the extra menus. Select Start a New Conversation. Otherwise, I'll do this if this is obtuse.
 
Once upon a time, I had my own eBay store which specialized in selling antique and vintage jewelry.

I was doing well.... at first. Then the fraud started. These Chinese companies kept using my name and logo, pretending to be me or my business associate. Every time I'd go to eBay explaining what was occurring, they would shut down my store and cancel my auctions while they would investigate. No matter how often it would happen and no matter how often I'd be proven innocent of any wrongdoing, the result was always to shut me down during these investigations. They ended up costing me countless thousands of dollars until I finally shut my store and site.

I've long since started a new eBay identity for my shopping and even recently started selling a few items, including some other antique jewelry. While I've made some extra money doing this, I've still had problems with fraud. This time -- and only since I've started selling items -- my PayPal account has twice been hacked by companies in China. Though PayPal refunded my money within one business day and offered some excellent customer service, my experience tells me that the system has been corrupted. All of my old clients and sellers have been driven out of business. I fear that eBay is simply the place to go to bid on cheap Chinese goods, often compromising your own financial security to do so. Pity, as I loved selling on eBay as a profitable hobby.
 
I have to agree with Renaissance Lady that Ebay is not the place it used to be. Unfortunately hackers can appear just about anywhere. A lot of Etsy sellers - handmade and vintage - had their images pirated by a Dutch porn site last year. Mine included.
 
Gene Steinberg said:
Of course, new businesses hit rough marks. The very first order came quickly. But the package, sent via USPS Priority Mail, is in "In Transit" hell and never reached the customer. So Barbara will probably have to send a replacement, and hope the insurance claim will be paid one of these days.

But the real craziness occurred when we auctioned off a designer leather jacket owned by my recently-deceased brother-in-law. The winning bidder on eBay disappeared and never paid for the item, so it has to be relisted. Sigh.
Click to expand...
Gene, I would never assume the expertise to give business advice that you are seeking. But I have been selling on eBay for a few years, making around $10,000 a year (until this Christmas when the bottom seemed to fall out and I had to reduce prices). I sell collectibles, i.e., bronze statues, porcelain, rare books, that sort of thing.

Just starting out on Ebay, I would urge your wife NOT to allow buyers from abroad. It just makes shipping more difficult. If they are selling handbags, there should be a large enough customer base in the good old USA with predictable shipping costs (which you should pass on to the seller).

EBay likes it if you say returns are taken. But I would say No Returns. If something is wrong, the buyer will insist on a return, but there is no reason to give crooks the idea of substituting a cheap copy for what your wife sent them. This happened to me a couple times. EBay is about 95% supportive of the BUYER, so do not expect much sympathy from eBay if you, as a seller, get screwed over. Unless you have proof, eBay usually sides with the buyer (the customer is always right) and forces you to refund the money or accept the cheap copy. One secret I now use: I mark each item I sell with a symbol that only shows up in a black light. If someone wants to return an item, I politely let them know I have marked the item, but I do not tell them how I did it. This has nipped a few returns in the bud.

Sorry to be emphasizing the negative and the fraud element, but this is a big part of eBay, so the Seller has to beware. For example, are you sure that bag never reached the customer? Do you have tracking proof from USPS that it was lost in transit? ALWAYS USE AN EBAY PREPRINTED LABEL. You pay for the cost of shipping upfront without having to ever stand in line at a post office. The eBay label always comes with a USPS tracking number. This is automatically placed on the item for both you and the buyer to check the tracking status. Never trust what a buyer says without some sort of validation. Obviously, if anyone claims a bag is damaged, insist on photographic proof via eBay before issuing a refund.

Just a few warning tips from experience.
 
One more thing. Most of my items are sold via Auction, because eBay demands that I do so, or I will be charged for each listing. I can't afford that. Now, I would estimate at least 10% of the winning bid owners never pay. They seem to think that bidding on an auction is trivial, when it is a legal commitment to buy the item. I would urge you to have your wife use the inbuilt features of eBay. One of them is to have eBay (2 or 4 days after purchase....depending on how patient you are....I go for the jugular after 2 days) issue a NO PAY Case AGAINST the Buyer. This is an official case that counts against the buyer. If a buyer gets at least 2 such cases in a month, most sellers will NOT allow that buyer to bid on their items. So there is a penalty for not paying on an item you won in a bid. You can call eBay customer support to find out how to set up the NO PAY Case option automatically. This way your wife does not have to worry about a non-payment. EBay will issue the formal case against the buyer for you. Now, the buyer still may choose not to pay. But after 6 days, eBay will automatically relist your item for you and refund any fees that they take out normally as part of their cut of your sale.

I urge you to do this. You do not want to chase after a buyer yourself, trying to seek payment. This can result in some very harsh words being spoken on either side. The buyer could decide to pay but stab you in the heart. What does THAT mean? Well, buyers have the right to evaluate your service in the FEEDBACK option. Your rating as a Seller is extremely important on Ebay. I maintain 100%. But if you have a small number of sales, even 1 negative evaluation by a buyer can sink you. Many savvy buyers will not purchase anything from a seller who has less than perhaps 99% successful rating. So it is urgent to keep your customer happy. If the customer is a scum bag, you don't want to have to deal with this person yourself, because they can strike back like a scorpion via the Feedback. Instead, let eBay take care of it for you.
 
Note: I have no idea what one person meant by saying their images were hacked and used on a porn site? Just what kind of photos does this person have on eBay? I have NO photos of myself, and eBay requires no photos of yourself. So I have no idea what this person is talking about. You do need a photo of the item you are selling. But if handbags and porcelain plates are the type of thing that arouses people on a porn site, then maybe we are in the wrong business!?
 
OK, one other thing. Do not create an eBay store. They charge you extra for it, and you don't need it. I have sold a couple thousand items on eBay without the need of a store. There is an option in eBay where a buyer can see ALL the items you have for sale. All a store does is present your items in a more consolidated pretty manner. But there are financial costs to having a store, and I don't see the value unless you are a company like Barnes & Nobles that is selling books via eBay and can afford to create an online store to have a glitzy display of their items.
 
i am talking about face book yardsales. I sell on line and people come to my office and pick up the stuff. I have selling
furniture for a few months and have had very little trouble.
 
Back
Top