Life As An EBay Seller

I do not know if you are like me or not, but there are times in life when I sit back and reflect on what has been and what is coming. No I do not do this from a negative point of view, but I find it keeps me focused on the goals I set myself and make sure that I keep on track. While at church today someone asked me if I enjoyed my life as an eBay seller, without pausing for breath I said yes, it is the best job in the world, if you can call it a job.

Life as an eBay seller gives you freedom to do what you enjoy doing while at the same time providing an income to pay your bills.. For me living a life as an eBay seller allows me to work at business, while at the same time being able to spend time helping out at my local church. For others it may be to allow them to spend more time with their children or a loved one, or to travel the world.

An eBay business can allow you to be as flexible as you like, as long as you have a system in place. You need to set up systems to take photo’s, product source, list and ship items out, and once you have these all set up, you can run your business anywhere in the world where there is an Internet connection, and now with Amazon FBA you can send all your items into Amazon and they will take care of the shipping process for – more on that in later postings.

But also life as an eBay seller can be a very lonely place, at time if you work and live alone you do not see anyone unless you are out at the post office or product sourcing so you need to factor in some time to go out and meet people and have some fun.

I have been selling on eBay for over 12 years and still love the excitement and thrill when an item sells and there is nothing like that buzz you get when you list an item at auction and it goes for loads more than you thought it would. There is the thrill of going out there and finding that next product or products that will pay your bills for the next week or so.

Can anyone sell on eBay and have the same fun and freedom, yes of course. You just need that desire and passion to break free from the guaranteed wage packet and just go for it. Of course you would build your business first in your part-time and only when you have proven to yourself you can produce the income you need over a period of 6 months or more before handing in your notice. While others will still want to carry on working and just use the eBay profits to pay for all those extras and clear the debts.

You see life as an eBay seller can offer you so many areas and slants, you just need to make that decision, and then make a plan and then take action. If you do not take the action then you will never be able to experience what life as an eBay seller is like.

Life On EBay

As an eBay Consultant I am one of those people who walk the talk. Everyday I am working on my own business, or helping one of my clients with issues they may be having with their businesses. Selling on eBay is a fantastic way of life and to be part of one of the largest selling platforms is a real honour, but as with anything there are issues that happen, and it is how we deal with those issues that separates the leaders from the rest.

When you sit down with a client and go through the whole process of selling on eBay in the early days we work on getting the shop set up in the correct way and then work on keywords, pictures and categories etc, and for many sellers this is where it stops and to be honest that is all it needs, yes of course keeping up to date with the changes that are happening on the site and keep up to date with product sourcing, but the other day while doing some brainstorming for my own business it hit me like a bolt of lightening.

As eBay consultants we often talk about life on eBay and how we can mix and match so we can have a business that fits with our lifestyle and  the lives of those around us. We talk about listing items, taking pictures, finding the best product sources and trying to offer the best customer service we can. It was then that I thought as sellers we should also keep up to date with life on eBay, but from a buyers point of view. Now I know we cannot buy from our own store, but we can buy items that we use in our homes and businesses from other sellers on eBay.

But why would we want to do this. Well it gives us a feel as to what our own customers are going through, the highs and the lows of using the site to buy items. How the feedback system works, the types of emails customers get when they buy something. (We can also learn about good sellers and bad sellers but that is another topic for another day.) Very often when I sit down with a client and they say you never guess what this customer did, or the email I had of that customer………………….ok it might not be our fault (but quite often it is) but sometimes it is the sales process that eBay put customers through. And once we understand that, we know how to deal with situations if they go bad.

As an eBay seller can I set you a challenge, that each month you buy something that you need off eBay – in an ideal world we should always be thinking of eBay when looking to buy items for our business or presents for a loved one. But if every month we buy at least one item then we will be kept up to date on how the buying process works, we will know when things change or if there is an issue with one of the process. And thinking long term if and when something does go wrong you will be able to talk your customer through the problem and explain the steps they need to take to complete the sales transaction.

Hope this has helped you.