by EraPhernalia Vintage

5 Easy Steps To Start a Successful eBay Business

If you are a newbie to making money on eBay, here are some quick and easy steps to kickstart your eBay empire. You can make a real living on eBay, so let’s get going!

1. Have a business plan. Just like in any other business, you need a gameplan to fight your battle. Here are some details that you should include in your business plan.

a) What to sell on eBay
b) where to find the products to sell
c) how and where to market your products – offline or online? Who is your target audience?
d) how to deal with customers – dealing with positive and negative feedback, how to get repeat sales.
e) shipping details – postage rates to different countries if you intend to ship internationally.
f) money management – how much cashflow do you have to buy products, advertise, etc.
g) time management – how much time can you spend each day building your eBay business.

This might sound tedious, but it’s all part of building a business. If you want to succeed, you have to do it good and proper.

2. Research on your products and your competition. Find out how popular your product is, and how many people are selling the same product. If there is too much competition, you might want to consider selling something else.

3. Finding the products to sell. You need to know where to get the products to sell. If you have old junk that you do not want, you can consider selling them away. However, if you intend to make it big, you need a good resource to find cheap yet reliable suppliers.

4. Market your products. You can choose to advertise online or offline. Here are some suggestions. Google each of them to find suitable advertising grounds.

Online:

a) traffic exchanges
b) safelists
c) leads generation sites
d) article marketing
e) paid-to-click or paid-to-read programs
f) social bookmarking sites
g) social networking sites

Offline:

a) flyers
b) newspapers (I have not tried this before though)
c) word-of-mouth – tell your friends and family and ask them to help you spread the word.

5. Re-invest your earnings. If your customers are happy with you, they will come back for more. Buy in more products and try to expand your business. If you are doing really well, you should spend more time and tune up your advertising budget. Employ some people if need be.

Once you think you are doing well, you might want to sell on eBay full-time. We do know that there are many people who have successfully made it on eBay. Given the right guidance, you will be on your way to be the next Powerseller!