Being relatively skilled in another profession, I'm well-aware of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
So on that note: I'm dipping my toes into serious ebay selling and I have a business plan that I think seems good - but as a newbie, I'm sure I'm missing unseen pitfalls due to my ignorance.
I've sold random stuff on ebay for a while - things I have around the house, got for cheap, from friends, from deceased relatives at either no or low cost. After that stuff ran out, I made a few handmade goods and sold those for a decent profit - at very least my materials cost + time.
However, I've decided to get into retail - I already have all the legal stuff - a business entity, tax papers, and connections to some distributors, etc. I've found a few niche key items that are low volume, but decent profit - since the vast majority of others items seem to be selling for wholesale +/- a few bucks. These items also coincide with my hand-crafted goods, so I can use unsold merchandise to make hand-crafted stuff for ebay/etsy.
The distributors I've found vary quite widely in their retail discount - ranging from 40%-55%. From my math, the ones that are only offering 40%, with the exception of a few niche or very very low volume items, will be unsellable online in general. I'm not even sure where some people are getting their goods, as they're selling them new at 30-40% of retail price and free shipping. It's a bit baffling.
My own situation is pretty relaxed. I can live off of no money for quite a while - so making little or no money at first is something i basically expect to happen. I figure it will just be a 'learning' phase. So with that in mind - I'm not going to be investing in $1000 worth of some seemingly profitable product on a whim. So while I expect it to be rocky at first, I'm hoping to eventually build up to a liveable income.
But basically the plan is to buy items i know well enough to sell - generally materials - sell them. Anything that doesn't sell, I will use in my own trade - and sell the final product at materials cost to recoop my loss (which will be items which i have already successfully sold for mats+time price). Anything that sells decently, I'll buy more of and occasionally expand my inventory list, doing the same - of course after appropriate research is done on the profitability of that item.
So to me this sounds reasonable and well thought out - but Dunning-Kruger says I'm probably a moron and don't know what I'm doing.
If anyone reading this has any thought or suggestions about my approach - I'd love to hear an honest opinion from someone with more experience in this area than I. I even welcome long-winded cyber-rants - I will read it all. I feel the first step to profeciency and eventually success is to learn what you don't know, so that's my goal right now.
psynauticgames wrote:Being relatively skilled in another profession, I'm well-aware of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
Had to laugh about your reference to the Dunning-Kruger effect. Reminded me of my father who simply couldn't understand how ANYONE couldn't get straight A's in school, as all the answers were right there in the book and gone over in class/lectures, etc. How much easier could anything be than that??? Often pretty hard to really know quite where we stand on the *smartness* scale, isn't it. 
Overall, your plan sounds like a good way to start out. Selling merchandise offerings that you can actually use yourself if the stuff doesn't sell here, is mostly a non-losing scenario from that standpoint.
Will point out, however, that one of the things many newbies miss in their initial figuring is ALL the costs that have to be covered with each sale, all the fees, packaging, etc. But that's pretty easy to get past quickly.
The problem lies more in.... not just will your offerings sell here, but HOW MANY SALES will you be able to effect over a month's time here, given what you have to offer? How much of it can you sell here each month? And there's only one way to find that out. Good luck to you.
