Using Ebay to Form an Additional Source of Income

Everyone wants to make a little bit of extra money on the side these days, with the current financial climate, everyone is concerned about their income and ways in which they can gain more. This article seeks to provide you, the reader with a few measured and practical tips on how to make a small income from eBay by being smart, and working with the systems that eBay provides free of charge.

In order to make money on eBay, you typically think of someone in their back bedrom, selling masses of a product that they buy in bulk to gain some substantial discount on. This is not always the case. If you already have an eBay account which a reasonable level of feedback, then you have a commodity which other people who are just starting out with eBay would love to be able to use.

Keeping this in mind, you can do something, very local and on a very small scale, which is already being done by at least one major charity in the UK. By agreeing to sell other peoples belongings and keeping a small fee (on top of the eBay fees) of something in the region of £1,  you all of a sudden have a viable business opportunity.

The fact you have good feedback already, shows that you are a trustworthy individual, and therefore encourages people to do business with you. You can get yourself started by taking a small advert out in your local newspaper. You can arrange for the individuals to agree to a low starting price, using your knowledge and experience gained from having traded on eBay using your personal items, you can help those who are not as confident using a PC or the have an inherent distrust for the Internet and eBay whilst turning over a small profit.

When doing this, however, it is absolutely vital to have everything put down on paper. Having done this, you are then covered if the seller decides that they no longer wish to sell a particlar item, as you already have it in writing from them that they wish to sell the item.

Having individuals coming to your home can be slightly disconcerning and I would personally suggest finding a mutual meeting place if you do not feel comfortable with the idea.

This can be hard work, it will down to you to list the item, inform your client of the fee’s associated (Printing the page detailing the fee’s is always a good idea, and I would recommend keeping it attached to each item’s selling approval form) then creating an invoice to the client, for the fee’s and creating a receipt from yourself to the client with the total profit made. You will need to cover yourself against goods that you suspect to be stolen, however, you can do so very simply by ringing your local police station, who will be able to give you further advice.

Whilst this is time consuming and quite a bit of hard work, you can list between 10 and 15 items an hour if you are lucky enough to have established that level of clients. And at £15 an hour, theres not much to complain about!

On the positive side your positive feedback will grow with every sale that you make, on the negative side, you will need to keep copies of all of the paperwork for at least 3 years, and you will be responsible for handling your taxes out fo the money you earn. However this can be a very profitable business opportunity if done correctly, and one that I would not hesitate to recommend.