My eBay Home Business

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One thing that has kept me in business is the fact that the clients I sell for have me list items for them over and over again.
I usually have 100 items on eBay a week and many come from clients I have had for a year or more. The reason? I treat them right and am honest with them.

Working out of your house has it's limitations. Because my location is residential I simply cannot list/advertise that as a place of work. I cannot have people stopping by everyday with items for me to sell. I have a smaller client base then the eBay brick and mortar stores, but here is how I keep them coming back and referring me to friends.

I am upfront and honest with them.
I charge a flat 30% (or less) depending on the final sale price. I do not charge additional fees for eBay, Paypal or other Credit card transactions. I do not charge them if their item does not sell. My local competitors do. Most of them charge fees to the customer to get their items back if they do not sell. This is awful.

If I think an item is not going to sell, I tell the client up front. Why waste my time and theirs to list something that won't sell, just so I can charge them a fee.
I also spend more time investigating the items I sell.
As an experiment, I picked out an item on eBay from each of my local competitors that I thought was advertised poorly. Once I won the auction, I relisted it myself. Each time I made a profit. One of the auctions was a huge lot of toys. I broke this down into several auctions and sold it for three times it's value. They didn't do a very good job of listing that for their client.

If I do a lot of business with a particular client I usually lower my rate, or give them a bigger discount on high end items. I also give them a kick back on referrals. This can bring you some more business.

It is important to pay your clients in a timely manner. I try to always pay them within a month of listing their item. I always give them a link for their items, so they know I am not cheating them.

The hardest part is listing everything in a timely manner. Sometimes you can be slow, but many times I have 100's of items to list at a time. I am a one person business. I do it all. Research, photograph, list, package, ship and all my own bookkeeping. It is important to always be organized.

If you are running an eBay trading assistant business out of your home, I think it is important to diversify.
You cannot always count on quality clients and merchandise to sell. Sometimes you need to search these items out yourself. Go to garage sales, discount stores, Good Will, local estate sales and auctions. Many good eBay items can be found here.

Find other quality items to sell by buying wholesale or using a dropshipper.
I carry such a large line of toys on my eBay store, that I have built a complete website around the products.(eraToys.com) Most of these items are sold via dropshipping, a method of buying a product for a lesser price and have it shipped directly to your customer. This is an ideal situation. You do not have to buy the merchandise up front, nor do you have to warehouse it. I generally make 25-35% on all the items I dropship.

Selling digital items is another great source of income and is 100% profit. You can either write your own eBook, about any topic really, and sell it, or you can buy a pre-written eBook with resale rights and sell it over and over again. eBay has a way to automate these items through their "Sell it" form and once set-up, involves no work by you.

As you can see, the opportunites are endless.