Making a Living from Your eBay Business [Paperback]

Michael Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 8, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0789733668 | ISBN-13: 978-0789733665

What might have started as an innocent hobby after cleaning out your closets one spring is now turning into a full-fledged day (or night) job. eBay can be a great place to sell your stuff and can be a profitable business, if you know what you're doing. Making a Living From Your eBay Business is a how-to guide that will show you how you can make money from your eBay sales. You'll learn how to set up and run different types of eBay business, including official retailer, second hand seller and trading assistant, while maximizing sales and profits. Find out everything that goes into creating a business plan, setting up a recordkeeping system, filing official business forms and more important business tasks. With Making a Living From Your eBay Business, you will become an experienced business-person in every aspect, from auction management to packing and shipping to customer relations. Turn your hobby into a profitable business today!

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Making a Living from Your eBay BusinessAbout the Author

Michael Miller is a top eBay seller and a successful and prolific author. He has a reputation for practical, real-world advice and an unerring empathy for the needs of his readers.

Mr. Miller has written more than 60 non-fiction books in the past 15 years for Que and other major publishers. His books for Que include Absolute Beginner's Guide to eBay, Tricks of the eBay Masters, Absolute Beginner's Guide to Computer Basics, and Bargain Hunter's Secrets of Online Shopping. He is known for his casual, easy-to-read writing style and his ability to explain a wide variety of complex topics to an everyday audience.

Mr. Miller is also president of The Molehill Group, a strategic consulting and authoring firm based in Carmel, Indiana. You can email Mr. Miller directly at [e-mail]. His website is located at http://www.molehillgroup.com.

© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

Many of us dream of running our own businesses. Until recently, being able to achieve that dream meant obtaining some type of outside financing, finding a retail location or office space, and physically opening the doors to new clients or customers. Today, however, there's an easier way to go into business for yourself—from the comfort of your own home.

This new type of dream business is possible thanks to the advent of eBay, the world's largest online trading community. An eBay business makes money by selling items via eBay auctions. You do all the selling from your own personal computer, collect the payments sent to you electronically and through the mail, and then ship the items you sell via the post office. It's simple, it's relatively easy, and it doesn't take a ton of investment.

It's also an increasingly viable way to make a living. According to a recent article in the New York Times, an estimated half-million people make a full- or part-time living from selling merchandise on eBay. On any given day there are close to 4 million items listed for auction at eBay. For the year 2004, that added up to more than $34 billion worth of merchandise sold online—or $950 worth of sales every second.

You could be making some of that money. Getting started on eBay is as easy as finding something to sell and creating an auction listing. Anybody can do that—as witnessed by eBay's 135+ million registered users. However, to turn that selling into a business will take a little more effort.

What do you need to know to run an eBay business? More than you think, if you want to do it successfully. You need to determine what kind of business you want to run, write an instructive business plan, establish an effective accounting system, set up a home office, arrange any necessary funding, and purchase and warehouse your starting inventory.

And that's before you sell a single item.

Once you start selling, you have the entire auction management process to deal with. You have to list items for sale, manage your inventory, correspond with winning bidders, handle customer payments, deal with deadbeat customers, and pack and ship all those items you sell. To be truly successful, you need to do all this as efficiently as possible; you'll need to automate those repetitive tasks, manage your costs, and find a way to increase the success rates of the auctions you run.

Fortunately, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You're not the first person to dream about running his or her own eBay business, so you might as well learn from others who've already done it.

Which is where this book comes in.

Making a Living from Your eBay Business presents everything you need to know to launch and run your own business, using eBay auctions to sell your merchandise. Unlike other eBay books on the market (including several that I've authored previously), this book focuses on the business aspects, not the technical details of running an auction. If you need to learn how to create a basic eBay auction listing, turn elsewhere. (To my Absolute Beginner's Guide to eBay, for example.) Once you know the basics, then this book will show you how to turn that knowledge into a workable business model.

How This Book Is Organized

This book is organized into five main parts, as follows:

• Part 1, "Choosing Your eBay Business," presents some basic info on how an eBay business works, then introduces you to six common types of eBay businesses—one of which should be just right for you.

• Part 2, "Planning and Launching Your eBay Business," walks you through the "homework" you need to do before you start selling on eBay. You'll learn how to research your business model, create a business plan, evaluate your funding needs, deal with legal and tax issues, set up a recordkeeping system, and put together your eBay back office.

• Part 3, "Managing Your Day-to-Day Business," takes you through everything you need to know about running your business. You'll learn where to buy and how to manage your inventory, how to automate the auction listing process, how to manage customer payments, the best ways to pack and ship your merchandise, how to deal with customers (and customer problems), and how to more effectively automate your auction management.

• Part 4, "Maximizing Your eBay Sales," helps you make your auctions more successful—and your business more profitable. You'll learn some tips for improving item sell-through and increasing your selling price, for choosing the most effective listing options, for creating more powerful auction listings, for taking and displaying better product photos, and for promoting your eBay auctions.

• Part 5, "Growing Your Online Business," shows you how to take the next steps toward business success. You'll learn how to become an eBay PowerSeller, open an eBay Store, sell at other online sites, and manage your business's growth.

At the end of the book you'll find two useful appendixes. Appendix A is a brief accounting primer, for those of you who slept through accounting class in school. Appendix B lists some of the most common abbreviations you can use in your eBay listings.

Taken together, the 28 chapters and two appendixes in this book will help you launch and manage a profitable eBay business. By the time you get to the end of the final chapter, you'll know just about everything you need to know to make money on eBay. Now all you have to do is do the work!

Let Me Know What You Think

I always love to hear from readers. If you want to contact me, feel free to email me at [e-mail]. I can't promise that I'll answer every message, but I will promise that I'll read each one!

If you want to learn more about me and any new books I have cooking, check out my Molehill Group website at http://www.molehillgroup.com. Who knows—you might find some other books there that you'd like to read.

© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: Que (April 8, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789733668
• ISBN-13: 978-0789733665
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #734,949 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michael Miller is the best-selling writer of more than 100 non-fiction books. He writes about a variety of topics, including computers, online selling, business, consumer electronics, and music. From his first book (Ventura Publisher Techniques and Applications, published in 1988) to his latest title, he has established a reputation for practical advice, technical accuracy, and an unerring empathy for the needs of his readers.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

80 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The BEST out there for those Serious about Selling on eBay, April 23, 2005

By 

Martin "eBay Powerseller" (Wallingford CT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Making a Living from Your eBay Business (Paperback)

I just received my copy of this book and read it though. I read most of the new books on eBay being a Powerseller and this is the best book out there for those serious about starting a business on eBay.

Going beyong the basics of getting started on eBay, this book succeeds because it covers areas often ignored in other books.

As a CPA (tax accountant), I felt the section on researching and writing a business plan for your eBay business is an excellent resource for those starting an eBay business.

Additionally , resources provided for finding items to sell, and for setting up and managing your business are invaluable.

From reviewing your business idea to obtaining inventory, systems to track auctions, ship efficiently and how to set up proper record-keeping all covered.

Ironically, many eBayers ask questions about many of the areas covered in this book on eBays discussion forums, thus most will find this an excellent resource.

This book is geared towards those with some general knowledge of eBay who are seriously considering either starting a new business on eBay , or providing a new market for their existing business.

64 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars CaliforniaDiscountSales A PowerSeller On Ebay Gives 5 Stars!, May 25, 2005

By 

CaliforniaDiscountSales "SUZAN" (EBAY, CALIFORNIA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Making a Living from Your eBay Business (Paperback)

I've read a few ebay books before, however this is very new & up to date & gave me a lot of useful information, which I enjoyed.

I have been a PowerSeller for over 18 months, so some of the information was not relevant, like how to start an auction. But Some was great!

I absorbed where to buy wholesale with websites & how to manage inventory, track auction activity & even compares programs for you. Since I am becoming more of a medium volume seller, I am looking into programs to help save some time, and this book helped me tremendously. A+++ for newbies & experienced powersellers!

Actually I have several things I've learned from ebay myself from trial & error that I haven't read in any of these books yet. However I am still buying & reading more books. I believe if I can learn even 1 or 2 new things to make my business succeed, then it's worth it. Maybe I should write an ebay book myself. Maybe one day someone will write a review for me. :-)

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars book review, January 9, 2007

By 

alice - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Making a Living from Your eBay Business (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

This book gives you a basic foundation to use in launching an ebay business. This is not a "pie in the sky" kind of book. It is "down to earth" and introduces you to all areas of ebay selling. I like the way it is an easy read, yet a very informative and detailed guide.