Thinking about opening an Ebay store.

Anyone has some positive/negative experience with using an ebay store?

Been selling my old stuff on ebay sporadically for a few years. But in 2014 I really got a lot more into it.
The past 3 months have been my most active ever with an average of 850$ in sales a month. Mostly because I started selling refurbished consoles for a little profit.

I never thought an ebay store would be something for me until I checked the numbers.
Turns out the category of item I sell ( Refurbished consoles ) has a massive final value fee discount on it for store owners ( 4% instead of 10%).
This is actually the most discounted category on ebay, ( Reverse Murphy's law ftw )
I have sold 750$ of console in the last month ( Including shipping) so I entered those numbers in the Ebay number cruncher and here is what I get.
http://i.imgur.com/U3k3bkD.png

30$ saving a month, with a 1 year suscription. Not bad. I only need to sell 300$ of console a month shipping included and the store would pay itself.
Anything over 300$ and the benefits pile up pretty quickly. On top you have the added perks a store gives you.
Really tempted to subscribe to it. In fact I am trying to find reasons not to :p
The main reason would be that I stop selling on ebay. Considering I have a full time job on top of it and that selling stuff on ebay does eat at my spare time, that is a reasonable possibility but I kinda like doing it so I can see myself continuing for at least the next year.

So you asked for reasons not to:

I wouldn't if I were you. The $$ benefit could at some point be overcome by the loss of freedom to stop or take a break whenever you want, specially if you already have a full time job. I would keep selling refurbished consoles without a store, that would give you, in short, more freedom. And freedom always has a cost, in this case it's less benefit from each sale.

As it is not and (guessing here) won't be you main income ressource, I would go take the 'liberty' path.
My 2 cent

Yes, this is my main concern too, the loss of freedom, that it is not my main income is a good point. On the other hand I have way to much consoles right now and I need to sell.
I think I could start with paying the store monthly and see how I like it. It costs 20$ instead of 15$ if you pay monthly but I would still save if I sell 400$ or more.
With monthly subscription I still have the option to stop quickly and it would let me experiment what an ebay store is like.

I would be carfull not to get carried away with sales. Paypal will report your earnings to the IRS if you grossed 20,000 in sales and conducted 200 transactions in one year. That includes shipping that a buyer paid you. Just keep track of your gross profits.

I think ebay really rakes it in from people paying the yearly subscription during the "honeymoon phase" of selling. What I mean is that at first, when you're selling a lot, you have a lot of motivation and you convince yourself that you'll be able to keep it up so you lock yourself into a 1 year subscription. After 6 months you start to burn out because it gets repetitive and the profit isn't really that great, and suddenly you aren't making enough to justify the subscription. That's not true for everybody, of course, but I think it happens a lot. So I'd suggest going with the monthly subscription until you've proven to yourself that you're in it for the long haul.

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Originally Posted by Lan Di

I would be carfull not to get carried away with sales. Paypal will report your earnings to the IRS if you grossed 20,000 in sales and conducted 200 transactions in one year. That includes shipping that a buyer paid you. Just keep track of your gross profits.

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Did you notice his location is in Canada? Still the same applies. I'd make sure you stay out of the getting taxed out the ass territory arena per year. In this case the monthly would be a better route.

Good luck on your journey, you seem a decent fellow!

I would be careful of becoming a 'pro' reseller just digging up deals from forum members to flip 'em on eBay for max profit... Those people have no souls. lol

My first thought is "hell no," but those prices really aren't bad. However, don't forget to calculate Paypal fees as well. I'm pretty much done with ebay except for ridiculously expensive gaming items since they make more money off of any given item than I do.

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Originally Posted by gamescapeonline

Good luck on your journey, you seem a decent fellow!

I would be careful of becoming a 'pro' reseller just digging up deals from forum members to flip 'em on eBay for max profit... Those people have no souls. lol

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The stuff I buy from forums is for my own enjoyment :p
The only things I have been buying with the objective of reselling comes from flea markets or AS-IS lots on ebay.
I just bought a lot of 2 untested NES with controllers and AV cables but missing AC adapter for very cheap. Those are the things I look for.

In canada you must declare any profit you make during the exercise of a commercial activity, so yes, I am keeping track of the profit I make and this will be added to my income declaration at the end of the year.
I decided I would not be taking a yearly subscription to the store. I might try it for a month though. I will read a bit more about the process.
Anyone here ever had an ebay store?

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Originally Posted by PHANTOM2040

Did you notice his location is in Canada? Still the same applies. I'd make sure you stay out of the getting taxed out the ass territory arena per year. In this case the monthly would be a better route.

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No I did not. Thanks for correcting my error there. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lan Di

I would be carfull not to get carried away with sales. Paypal will report your earnings to the IRS if you grossed 20,000 in sales and conducted 200 transactions in one year. That includes shipping that a buyer paid you. Just keep track of your gross profits.

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Does Paypal notify you when you reach this threshold? I sell stuff on ebay as well periodically, but I don't want to wind up owing business taxes just because I've finally gotten serious about cleaning stuff out.

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Originally Posted by xelement5x

Does Paypal notify you when you reach this threshold? I sell stuff on ebay as well periodically, but I don't want to wind up owing business taxes just because I've finally gotten serious about cleaning stuff out.

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Good question, I do not think they notify you at all.

The line is different here in Canada. eBay used to keep the identity of the sellers private but back in 2008 the canadian governement won in supreme court against ebay and now ebay is forced to give the identity and sale numbers of any seller who have sold more than 1000$ a month for 3 months or more in a year. I do not think they do witch hunts for the little guys but they definitely will nail you if you sell over 20k in a year. There was this story of a local Stamp collector, dude was near retirement and decided to thin out his collection and sold for 36 grand of stamps in a year.

He then received a massive bill from the tax collectors.

Edit: I just read a bit and is seems you also need 20k a year to be automatically reported in Canada. I do not remember where I read about the 3 month x 1000$ rules but there was something about it too. Maybe you are not automatically reported but your info becomes available to the tax collectors or something like that. In other words, they can verify you if they want.

Laws in Mexico have become a bit more draconian too regarding electronic transactions, fortunately PayPal is kinda exempt for now but I can't trust it'll be that way for long.
I'm actually considering starting to sell things there as the market here for modded consoles is very slow unfortunately :/

I did it, just opened an ebay store. Monthly subscription so I can always cancel within a month if I do not like it.
I need to move about 380$ a month in consoles for it to pay itself.
I am confident I can sustain that for a few months considering the stock of console I have built up over the years.
I am mostly aiming canadian market, shipping kills most of the console sales to the US. I am already liking some of the store added perks, like the ability to create sale discounts.
I just put my N64 bundle 5% off :p