How to become an online reseller?

[HC5831]

I'm interested in buying some computer goods at a discount and selling them on ebay for a profit. I would like to do some research on all the things I should look into before I start this. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

I have the discounts locked up through an employee discount, so making money is not the issue. I'm more interested in details. ie insuring items, requiring a signature, using paypal, warranties, legality etc.

HC

[Gin 'n Tonic]

I am a full-time eBay trader – i.e. it’s what I do for a living – Poker income not withstanding. With the small caveat that I’m working from the UK, I’ll give you a few pointers.

1) Research your market – computer goods are one of the most over subscribed areas on eBay. Typically stuff is selling at a large discount to retail and there are a lot of unsolds, so make sure that the discount that you are getting is sufficient to overcome this. The computer / mobile phone sector seems to be crammed with people working on tiny, tiny margins. Check what’s selling and how much it’s going for. Also remember that it’s a very fast moving market, so you don’t want to be holding stock that’s devaluing rapidly.
2) Give clear, thorough, extensive, descriptions – unless you want to answer 500 emails a week, all asking the same questions.
3) PayPal is an excellent service, there are very few problems that I’ve encountered and I would recommend it. It is, however, relatively expensive.
4) Turbolister is an excellent tool for any volume selling.
5) If you know any HTML, design your own auction page – it always adds respectability if you have a nice looking page that isn’t one of eBay’s generic offerings or plain text. Make sure that any page that you design looks OK on all browsers.
6) Take quality photos – buy some lights and a background, make sure that your photos are sharp, well lit and in focus. Avoid using manufacturers’ photos.
7) Depending on the value of the goods that you are selling, roughly 5-10% of your sale price will be eaten up in listing / final value / PayPal fees.
8) If you’ve only just opened your eBay account, buy some cheap stuff to get your feedback up to 10 or so. When you start selling, give feedback prior to receiving it until you get to around 50, thereafter only post feedback after you have received it.
9) Margin your shipping – typically I will charge roughly 40% over cost. This goes to buy packing materials, pay for my time packing stuff, and pay listing / final value / PayPal fees.
10) Personally, I never bother with insurance – I’ve now shipped roughly 8000 items, and I’ve had 3 go missing. I calculated that my average rate for filling in the insurance forms would be $0.08 per hour even if I just refunded anything that didn’t arrive. I also don’t bother with signed for deliveries. Not sure if the USPS is as reliable as the UK PO, also depends on the value of the goods.
11) Warranties, Meh – if it works when it gets there, that’s good enough.
12) Be extremely careful shipping to any African country and former Soviet Union, make sure that you’ve been paid and that the credit card details match the ID of the person you’re shipping to.
13) Think of all the terms and conditions that you may want to impose on your customers – how quickly they have to pay, warranties, etc. etc. Put these on your ‘About Me’ page with a link from your auction site.

Just a final thought – if my (previous) employers found out that I was buying goods on employee discount and reselling them at a profit on eBay, they’d have fired my ass faster than you can say ‘WTF’.

If you need any more help on specific issues, feel free to PM me.

[Stu Pidasso]

In a previous life I was a retail manager. LP used to audit employee purchases quit frequently and we were required to fire people who were reselling. You may want to be careful about this.

Stu

[Nick-Zack]

[ QUOTE ]
I have the discounts locked up through an employee discount,

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you realize that this is theft and your employer can prosecute you for this? Employee discounts are not there for you to make a profit.

[jakethebake]

All the info you're looking for is on the eBay website.

[HC5831]

[ QUOTE ]
In a previous life I was a retail manager. LP used to audit employee purchases quit frequently and we were required to fire people who were reselling. You may want to be careful about this.


[/ QUOTE ]

My company which is not a computer company has an employee discount agreement with another company which is a computer company. My company bought a [censored] load of computers and recieved the dicount for its employees as a perk.

Do I still need to worry about reselling under the agreement? My analysis still shows a healthy profit without the extra discount. So this doesn't nix my plans if I can't resell the extra discount.

HC

[HC5831]

Thank you for taking the time to write me some tips. They were very helpful. I'm doing profit margin research right now on the items I think I can sell. I'm aiming for products that I can at least make a $50 profit in. I've also found some info on the net.

I may very well take your offer up on a PM in the future. Although I make $25/hr playing poker, the swings really bother me. I think this is a good opportunity for me to make some extra money without suffering constant bad beats.

Thanks again,
HC