A BIG reason to get into Ebay Selling in the U.K.

A BIG reason to get into Ebay Selling in the U.K. is that people are now waking up to the ease and convenience of shopping online.
Check out this article from monday 13th's Manchester Evening News
Last year I was teling all my friends They HAD TO find a niche market and sell to it on Ebay.co.uk .No-one takes me seriously anymore when I tell them this although.....they all, All
have bought things over the couse of the year.Every buyer needs a seller and people are getting wealthy meeting those needs.

Later I 'll outline how to find suppliers in the U.K. It is as easy as using the phone a bit .
Bye for now going to list some new lines..
Pete

Powerseller Start up

Powerseller Start up.
Most people start selling on ebay to get rid of the items around the home they no longer want but still have value,if not to them, then to someone else.
This is not how you are best being a powerseller.You will need to be a lot more organized than that to make an actual living from selling.
First decide whether or not you will be specializing in one particular area or just being a general trader buying and selling what you come across.Being a general trader means a lot more looking for items to sell.
I my opinion that is more work than you need to be doing at first.Pick a specialty and stick to it fairly closely at first.electronics,jewelry,fabrics,model making,books,music, it does not matter what ebay has lots of categories and they all have they're devotees, so choose something you know about or are interested in getting to know about.
Don't just pick a category at random, because you may end up bored to tears and you won't put the effort needed in.
You may already have a category in mind.If so all well and good, now comes decision time , your not going to decide ebay does that for you if you follow these rules.

1. Run a search for various items in your category
2. Make sure there are plenty of sales in ther category
3. Note down what particular items are costing people to buy on ebay
4. Now run a search on google or a local search engine for suppliers ( I'll cover finding suppliers another time, as this is a bit long winded for now)
5. If your not able to buy the items that are selling for half (at most, preferably a lot less) what people are selling them for the decision has been made for you, you will not succeed as a seller in that category.
6. Move on to the next category you were thinking of.(This is not a joke - if you can't compete and make a decent mark up there is no point selling in this category)
7. Be ruthless in this assesment

Number 5 is the key to this(you thought I'd say Number 4 ,let me tell you that's the easy one!)

What matters is what you buy the items you sell for....I currently sell a certain tool line for £3.50 -£4.50 on ebay ,not much I think you'll agree I only sell maybe 3 or 4 a day.But they cost me 50p each ,(£9-£16 profit a day on this line alone x28 days is £250-450 a month), and no, I'm not going to tell you what.There are bargains out there to be had in all the wholesaler's and warehouses and suppliers.The secret is only buying items that have a good mark up already built in to the price by other ebay users, or if you're seeing a gizmo that is new to ebay, knowing that it will sell well at a given price, this takes time to get a feel for.I would advise anyone new to selling to choose items that are already selling well.

more later,

Off for me tea t.t.f.n Pete.

Ebay Powerseller Set-Up Equipment.No1

Ebay Powerseller set up equipment is very important to get right or you'll be hampered for a long time until you simply must get the right equipment, making additional expense and wasting all the time you could have used the right equipment .I am only going to go into a rough outline here and will deal with each section in more detail soon,but here goes the list for now.

You will need.

1. A desk top computer...duh I hear you say, "Obviously" but some people use a laptop and what you need is something that can be left on and be available all the time, not just after the dishes are done and the kids/dog/husband/wife etc.. have been put to sleep.Don't foget this is a BUSINESS ,not just a pastime. Try to get a fast and quiet one but anything that will connect to the internet will do.
2. A digital camera.All the ebooks people get for free say you can use a scanner.YOU CANNOT USE A SCANNER.Digital cameras use no film and cost nothing to run...this means you can take 600 shots of your sales goods and edit out the crud .600 shots on film will cost you the price of a good digital camera.I regularly take about 400 shots whenI list about 10 new lines. Ask any professional photographer and they will tell you about framing a shot and taking each sot in a variety of lighting and exposures, this can be done with editing software but it isn't as easy as just cropping the shot and adding a copyright mark into the photo.(more to come on this subject later)
3. A decent printer.read my last post.It doesn't have to be flashy just faster than my old one and try to get one that won't give you a headache every day by midmorning.If you do sell a lot of items you will be printing invoices, reciepts, packing slips, labels, records, and picking lists.
4. A Telephone. Obviously you have a phone or you wouldn't be on the net.Make sure it's an answerphone.You would not want to miss the phonecall from the guy who has seen the (for instance dvd player)you are selling and wants 400 of them for his store chain....yes it happens..this is why you MUST , ALWAYS ,list all your contact details in every listing on ebay.I mean, email,phone,fax if you have one,skype,msn messenger,aim,icq,anything that can say I want to buy some.

Right thats all the office equipment you will need.If I think of anything else I have forgotten,I'll let you know.I know what you're saying now...Yeah,Yeah , I've got all that now what do I do with'em....

Well it's 1 am where I am so I'll start chapter1 of that one tommorrow.

Cherrio, Pete

Laser Printer Con.
Just been to collect a laser printer I bought online from P.C.World.Co.Uk.I got a Brother HL2030 for £69.98
which I though was ok as its meant to do 16 pages per minute and be crisp printing.I really need it as I'm doing 80 invoices a day and otherstuff too.The inkjet I've been using has a page rate something between 3 and 5! Mentioning no names it is so slow I'm surprised they still make them in epsonland.
So anyway I checked out the toner cartridges, and they are £49.99 for 2500 sheets cartridge (at 5% coverage= 2p a sheet).This is a right royal rip off, actually I have since found the printers for sale on ebay.co.uk without either the toner or drum,so I reckon it must be cheaper to buy a new printer when you need a drum (12000 sheets)and toner together,then sell the old shell off for peanuts.

I have determined to get some aftermarket refill kits and try them out as and when the toner runs out, and I'll let you know how I get on. They start from as little as £9.50 and you get enough for 2 refills(5000 sheets =5 sheets/penny!)

This gets to the thrust of the article for me, you need a certain amount of equipment for a
proper ebay selling system ,but it doesn't have to cost the earth to set up, and I'll get to that in the next post, later tonight .
Ta Ta See Ya Soon,Pete.

Five Minutes to Start a Lifetime to Complete

Five Minutes to Start a Lifetime to Complete,
As usual I have all my best ideas at about 1 am ,and so here I am starting a blog about my experiences as an Ebay.co.uk Powerseller,and the growing pains I am having, trying to make a success of it,converting it into a "proper" business strategy that can work for me.

It occurred to me that there may be many Ebay Sellers and Powersellers in the same postion, working longer hours than before they gave up their nice safe "jobs" to go it alone in the technology jungle,where Darwinian principles "survival of the fittest", "sink or swim", "dog eat dog" "eat or be eaten"(there's a milliom of 'em) mean you work harder than you ever have done with a possible shining future "This time next year we'll be millionaires, Rodney..." still shining at you in the future ,but not yet here.

Sellers of all persuasions,from newbies selling off they're junk to ebay hardened veterans could gain from hearing about my experiences and maybe avoid some of the pitfalls I have encountered so here goes and I hope you'll enoy the articles.

The U.K. Ebay is slightly different to the U.S. version but princlples apply to both the same so I hope anyone reading will benefit from this.
If I find anything helpful or handy to the budding Ebay Entrepeneur then I will include it and see if it helps.

If nothing else It'll helps me arrange my thoughts ( chaotic though they may be!) into a workable system so I don't forget what I'm on about.