eBay Powersellers. . .Are your kids eBay orphans?I was talking with a friend recently about eBay. We talked about the amount of time we spend writing auctions and searching eBay for new items for our collections. We also talked about some eBay powersellers we know. We all know a few eBay powersellers who are constantly listing new items. I am currently selling twenty to fifty items a week. This is a full days work each week. The auctions end and I pack everything up, then list the next batch of auctions. Sometimes I skip a week or two. Consider eBay powersellers who are listing 400 or more items a week. Some of them work full time day jobs and then go home and write auctions at night. This is insanity. There is no time left for family or other activities. To me eBay is but one method of selling my items. I sell at antique shows and through negotiated deals with collectors I call on the phone. The whole purpose of eBay is to maintain my cash flow and free up my time for other pursuits. I saw an article in The Wall Street Journal about an eBay powerseller who sells used CDs. He works 10 hours a day creating new listings on eBay and sells over five hundred auctions a week. He has "built a business" for himself. Actually, what he has done is built a job for himself. What he has built is not sustainable. When I was running my eBay consignment business fulltime, I was paying eBay 1800-2500 a month in FEES for my auctions. I was spending $1200 a week on postage. I thought I was doing good. I was making money. Good money. I was an eBay powerseller, but I had no life. All my energy was consumed with keeping the business running. And, I had to keep it going. I had to cover the bills. I had to cover the costs. For me the treadmill ended drastically when eBay temporarily suspended my selling account for keyword spamming. For a month I was unable to list items on eBay. I did something that I never could have done if eBay had not suspended my account. I took a vacation. Yes, that's right I took a vacation. I went to Mexico and laid on the beach smoking Cuban cigars and reading novels. This was the first long vacation I'd taken in years. With all those auctions running, I couldn't just disappear for a few weeks. My income was reliant on my listing more items on eBay. I'm a big proponent of finding the good in a situation. While loosing a months worth of income was a hardship, in the long run the eBay suspension was one of the best things that ever happened to me. After I got back I redesigned my collectibles business. I decided I did not want to spend more than 10 hours a week on eBay chores. I started doing shows again, and cut down on the consignment sales. I experimented with hiring people to do my eBay sales for me, but was unable to find someone with the right attention to detail.
You see, eBay is a powerful marketplace, but can be a big time consumer. Especially for powersellers who list hundreds of items a week. Just churning things through eBay is like juggling. Sooner or later the balls are going to hit the floor. The big problem few people admit is there is no future in it.
There is no future in it. This is the big problem with being a eBay Powerseller. The only way to make more money is to list more items. Pretty soon your kids are eBay orphans, while your time is consumed with listing items and running to the Post Office.
There is a better way. When I got back from my vacation I started testing different ways to make more money on eBay while doing less work. I had met Jim Cockrum earlier, and started implementing his Silent Sales Machine techniques in my auctions.
Using Jim's material as a basis, I tested and tweaked until I got something that works for me and suits my needs.
When I took my vacation to Mexico, I was paying eBay two grand a month in fees to make 12,000 dollars in sales and end up with $5000 in profit. Today, I pay eBay an average of $240 a month to get the same level of profits. My quality of life is much better.
If you are on the treadmill to nowhere, you can get off by reading a free interview I did with Jim Cockrum. The interview will change the way you see eBay.
Many of the articles and free reports here on IWantCollectibles were originally sent to readers of my Antiques and eBay Newsletter. Not all articles make it onto the website, and readers also get notices of free reports and special offers.
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