Why is starting an eBay business so appealing?

How do you turn your hobby selling on eBay into a successful eBay home business? That’s what I wanted to know when I interviewed Jason Carroll a successful entrepreneur and one of the world’s top work-at-home consultants.

Jason started his eBay business in late 2008 and since then he has scaled it up to a million pound operation.

In the following interview transcript I present what I think are the keys to successful eBay selling and Jason gives me his opinions, after all he is the expert!

My Question: How important is researching your products and potential market on eBay before listing products for sale?

Jason’s Answer: Researching eBay before listing a product or launching a store will answer the following 5 questions that are vital to your success as an eBay Seller:

• Is there a market for this product?
• How much is this item worth?
• Is the profit margin there?
• How much competition is there?
• Can I compete with the competition?

You need to know the answer to at least the first three of these questions before you bother to list something on eBay.

If you do not put in this market research then your eBay business could be doomed to fail before you even list your first item.

My Question: How important is it to the success of your eBay business that the products you are selling are both easy to package and not too expensive to ship?

Jason’s Answer: This is critically important! This was one of the first processes in my eBay business that I made as automated as possible.

I see far too many eBay sellers go out of business because they are either spending far too much time packaging or posting their items that they are not concentrating on selling or their items cost so much to send out that customers are not willing to purchase their item.

Take this foolish example:

Suppose you want to sell British seaside pebbles and rocks on eBay. It cost £25 to ship each rock to a European address and even more to send one anywhere else in the world. However, no one seems to want to pay more than £5.00 for a rock. You can see what would happen to your business. Obviously, it would be bust before you even started!

You need to know all the details about shipping an item before you list anything on eBay. Again just like your first question it is essential that you research everything before listing an item on eBay. Only then will you stand the best chance of creating a successful eBay business.

My Question: What would you include in the description of your products to improve chances they will sell?

Jason’s Answer: When you’re selling on eBay, the description of your products is your “Unique Selling Proposition”. It’s one of your big chances to get the viewer to want your product. (The other is the picture of the item.) So if you don’t invest time in developing a mouth-watering description of your product, you’re throwing away half your chance to sell it.

So you need to include details (such as colour, size, weight etc.) as well as features that set your product apart from other such products and make it desirable. For instance, you don’t just sell “teddy bears” on eBay. You sell “handcrafted, one-of-a-kind teddy bears”. The trick is to think like a purchaser. What would you want to know about the item? What would make you buy it?

Also, I would recommend looking at your competitor’s listings to see who is selling the most and take inspiration from them.

My Question: Some people are eager to make “LOT’S OF MONEY” with an eBay business. How realistic is this? What should your focus really be at first so that you can eventually make a decent return?

Jason’s Answer: Making a “LOT’S OF MONEY”  when you first start out is not a realistic expectation – but if you have the right products, do things right and are prepared to put in a little work and effort into your business, then making a good living is a realistic aim.

Because of the way that eBay works, your focus at first should be establishing yourself as a proven, trusted seller and building up the positive feedback you need to do this. If you want to run a successful eBay business, you have to take the time to do this.

Once you have succeeded in doing this then literally anything is possible! eBay is constantly churning out new self-made millionaires – here are some stories to inspire you.

My Question: eBay sellers can sometimes come across as unreliable, or at the very least obscure. What can you do to make buyers feel you are a serious business?

Jason’s Answer: Run your eBay business as a proper business from the get go. That means going through the steps of setting up a real business, charging appropriate taxes, following standard business practices and investing in things such as professional looking packaging.

My Question: Any books, Web sites or other reliable sources you can recommend for those who want to start a successful eBay business?

Jason’s Answer: eBay itself is a wonderful resource for anyone wanting to become an eBay seller or increase their eBay sales success. Besides the resources on eBay I now offer an eBay course that teaches people EXACTLY how to set-up an eBay business.

It’s a simple 5-Part Course and it also contains a lot of general business and marketing advice.

We have a few thousand members now and already have some success stories of our own which including a work-at-home mum Katie Matthews who now makes 6-figures a year from her eBay business.

To find out more about Jason Carroll’s eBay Course and how you can start a successful eBay business – read this detailed review here.

Short Bio:

Based in the U.S. Jason Carroll a former analysis and process consultant for Fortune 500 companies – He now runs a multi-million dollar eBay and Drop-shipping business. He also runs a eBay Success Course and a Success Consulting company.

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Read the rest of this post for help and advice on how to find your way through the online jobs market.

Legitimate, Tried and Tested Job Websites:

When job hunting online, it’s a good idea to start with the bigger and most widely recognised recruitment sites. Jobcentre Plus and established recruitment agencies like Reed and Adecco have a large number of vacancies, so do the bigger online specialists like Monster and Total Jobs.

You can visit these sites by clicking on the links below:

Jobcentre Plus

Reed

Adecco

Monster

Total Jobs

You can also receive the latest and up-to-date careers advice from government resources at:

http://careersadvice.direct.gov.uk/

Why are CVs requested?

When employers have a vacancy they need to fill they will put together a person specification; a list of the skills and experience they want the ideal candidate to possess. From this list, the job advert is created, which is where they will ask you to send them your CV.

How closely your CV matches the person specification is the key factor in determining whether they see you as a suitable person to join their company. Unlike an application form, a CV allows you to decide which information is most relevant to each role you apply for.

It needs to be:

• Concise
• Accurate
• Engaging
• Thorough

The key word here is concise. It’s not a place to list all your achievements and experiences as this would make it long, unwieldy and, in a busy recruitment office, a turn off.

Treat your CV like a personal advertising campaign:

Like any advert, you should use your CV as an opportunity to sell. You want to sell your skills, your qualifications, you experience and your ability to do the job. Advertising is all about attracting attention and appealing to the needs of the buyer so highlight your strengths and achievements to interest of the recruiter.

The skill is in honing your CV to the opening and demonstrating how any experience your have gained can be useful to the company you are applying to. Every time you complete a training course, volunteer or gain new responsibilities you should update your CV.

If you’re a recent graduate and can’t demonstrate a long career history, you can still list gap year experience, part time work, charity work, internships and association memberships explaining how the experiences you’ve gained during these will help you in your future career.

Putting it all together:

There is no perfect layout format and different people in different situations will need to lay their document out in a different way. Take a look at Monters.co.uk free CV templates for ideas and help creating your CV.

A CV with clearly headed sections will be appreciated by employers and it will allow them to find the details they’re after easily. This means clarity, good spacing and short, sensible blocks of information.

Every CV should include the following sections:

• Personal details
• Education
• Experience

There are additional sections that you could also decide to include:

• Personal statement
• Skills
• Hobbies and interests
• References

All information should be listed in reverse chronological order (ie. With the most recent at the top), allowing your reader to see what you’ve done recently, then to continue reading if they think it’s relevant to their needs.

It can be a daunting prospect putting together your CV, but it’s a lot easier if you remember three key things; Employers want to know how your experiences match their requirements, it’s better to go for quality over quantity, and finally, your CV is designed to get you the interview, not the job.

And the truth is entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes.

There are some who are full of big ideas and are willing to plough thousands of dollars into risky projects. Then there are other more subtle entrepreneurs who prefer to work in the background and take smaller risks to experience bigger results. There are also, the people who work on their home business in their spare time and are happy to make a small amount of money to supplement their income.

Now you might be thinking that these classifications are so broad that anyone can become an entrepreneur and it is true that with the right training you can. But there are a few things that all successful entrepreneurs have in common:

• The desire to become their own boss
• The drive and enthusiasm to implement their own ideas
• The thirst to take control of their own destiny
• The determination to persevere even when things get tough
• The willingness to learn and seek advice from others

Now if you are genuinely interested in starting your own home business, then you seriously need to take into consideration the following characteristics. You may feel like an entrepreneur, but have you got what it really takes to make it work?

Problem Solving

No business is smooth sailing. You will always be confronted by problems that will need you to spend some time troubleshooting, pinpointing the problem and resolving them. It is a sad fact, but that is the reality of being an entrepreneur.

In truth it would be a rare story to come across an entrepreneur whose business is puzzle free. If it was that simple then we would all be entrepreneurs.

Creative and Persuasive

It is often said that to be an entrepreneur you need to be a visionary; that you have to have the creativity, the selling skills and the persistence to be able to persuade others: to lend you money, work longer hours, invest in new products and sell your products on favourable terms.

Without this strong desire to promote your company, product/service or new ideas, you cannot inspire others to be committed towards this visionary path and get excited.

Motivation

Your average entrepreneur is impatient, full of energy and is constantly thinking about how to improve their business – and this all stems from their desire to translate all their skills, experiences and knowledge straight into their business.

It is an undeniable fact that without motivation you cannot hope to succeed in getting your business off the floor. You need to have this impatience, this desire to run your ideas otherwise your business will fail.

Intangible Assets

The best entrepreneurs are successful because of the business skills, know-how and contacts they push into their business. They are aware of their talents, who are their best networks and which of their experiences are more valuable, and they have put taken action.

As an entrepreneur you need to make the same assessments – what can be transferred into your business idea? Will they work? If they won’t, what else can you do? Without questioning yourself and what is possible, your business will never pass its first stages.

Preparation

A successful business cannot be launched overnight. You need to be prepared to put in the time, the effort and the research to make sure your knowledge of the industry is fully transferred into your business plan.

Only once you are confident that you have done everything in your power to succeed can you comfortably take the next step.

Do you really have what it takes to be an entrepreneur?

Ask an entrepreneur and they will tell you that setting up your own home business is not for the faint of heart.

Over 80% of all new businesses fail within the first 5 years – a daunting figure for any prospective business – yet these failures have occurred not through lack of experience. For many it has simply been down to making the transitional step from employer to entrepreneur.

You see, not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur, so you need to ask yourself honestly: have you got the passion, the motivation and the creativity to see it through? If you have, then there will be nothing stopping you.

Most people think of at-home work as doing some type of online business, or perhaps beginning their own business in their home.  However, there are many businesses these days who are allowing their employees to do work from home.  What with available computers, broadband internet, faxes and advances in communication software, corporations are coming up with more work-from-home policies.  Oftentimes this type of set-up is more economical for all concerned.

Whether you remain with your same place of employment and work from home, or whether you are starting your own in-home business, will it work for you in your particular situation?   If we take a realistic look, what are the valid benefits of working from home?  And are there any disadvantages?  If so how can they be understood and alleviated?

Saving Money

Working from home is definitely a money saver.  The very first thought is the cost of getting back and forth to and from work.  Whether you use public transportation or gas up your own vehicle, those expenses will be a thing of the past.  Wear and tear on your vehicle will also be greatly lessened.   What about parking?  If you pay for parking five days a week, you can cross that expense off your list.  Your day-to-day wardrobe will be much different.  You can wear sweats or a T-shirt and short, or pajamas – whatever you please.  No more dressing to impress those around you.

The tax advantages also will create a savings as there are definite tax breaks for having an office in the home.  Be sure to consult an accountant regarding what can and cannot be used as deductions.

Time

For those who work at home, that time of sitting in stalled rush-hour traffic will be over and forgotten.  Think of the hours that can now be put to productive use.  Likewise, many of the distractions that are found in an office/work setting are eliminated.  Those who work at home are in a better position to spend more time with their family and to have family times together.  Likewise, you choose your hours.  Are you a night owl? Then work at night.  Are your freshest in the morning hours?  Then you have the option of getting up early and getting the work completed.

For most people who office at home, they find their work time is more productive.  They are free from the continual office noises, distractions, and interruptions.  No more stress of feeling that someone is looking over your shoulder.  You will feel freer and better able to concentrate on the task at hand.

The flip side of this picture is that family members can become a distraction especially when small children are involved.  If you are home, the kids won’t understand that you can’t come out and play catch in the back yard.  When you are at home all day, acquaintances will call and want to endlessly chat about nothing.  It’s difficult for them to comprehend that you are actually at work.  It will take tact, discipline and wisdom to avoid these problems.

Also regarding time is that fact that you are always at work when you work from home.  It is always with you.  If you are a real “workaholic,” you may have a problem stopping work. At that rate, you could easily burn out.  It will be important to learn to pace yourself and factor in some healthy down time.

Location

If you can work from home, chances are you can work from a vacation spot as well – a cabin in the mountains, a cottage at the lake, in your hotel room overlooking the beachfront.  This will be especially true if you have your own online business and are not still answering to a corporation.  If your business involves products – those of your own creation such as woodworking or culinary items or quilting – this aspect will not apply as readily.  However, no matter what business you have set up, you will still be in control of your time, so when you want to take a few days off and head to the lake, you have the flexibility to do so.

Work-At- Home Personality

While working at home may sound wonderful, not everyone can do it.  There are those who thrive on personal interaction and brainstorming.  They thrive on structure and need someone to tell them to come in at eight and leave at five.  If left to their own devices they would begin their work after their favourite TV show is over, after they walked the dog, and after they took the kids to the zoo.  If this describes you, you may not do well working from home.

The key is the motivation.  How badly do you want to be in control of your life?  How badly do you want to exit the rat race of the corporate world?  How badly do you want to be your own boss?  If your “want to” is strong enough, then any disadvantages of working from home can be overcome.  The good news is that self-discipline, goal setting, and time management are all attainable skills.   Anyone can be trained in these areas.

Summary

Look closely at all the pros and cons before quitting your day job.  If you’re still not sure, you can work at home and get a part-time job in order to make the transition a little easier.

For those who love working from home, they would not even classify what is listed here as disadvantages.  To them, it’s just part of the package.  And they’re too happy being their own boss to care what they are called.

Many people have hobbies that they love.  It might be woodworking, or creating baby blankets, sewing beautiful quilts, cooking a certain culinary specialty that is distinct and unique.  The list is endless.

What is your niche? Do you continually hear from friends and family that people would pay good money for the service or product that you create?  Have you ever dreamed of turning that hobby into a lucrative business?  If so, how can you make that leap and still take every precaution to avoid a big crash?  What steps needs to be instigated that will build toward growing a successful business venture?

Begin Small and Work Up

The first key to launching your own business is to begin small.  If you are quilting or making products by hand, start by advertising locally and taking only a few orders at a time.  By working as many hours, or by taking as many orders as you can comfortably handle will ensure that you are working at your own pace and can still produce quality products.

One entrepreneur baked a wonderful key lime pie which everyone raved about. When he chose to begin his business, he borrowed a friend’s delicatessen kitchen when it was not in use.  That way, he made no large equipment purchases until he had proven his market.  This is another method of beginning small with no massive investment.

Market Study

Do many people want what you have to offer – or just your friends?  Is your market local or national?  Is the need widespread?  Is there any profit margin?  One home-schooling mom loved spending time online exchanging used home-school text books and workbooks with other moms.  Soon she was buying and selling them on eBay, and then she began a home schooling magazine which gained national exposure.  She found the need and ascertained the profit margin on a small scale first before expanding nationally.

Can It Scale?

For this home schooling mom, her endeavor lent itself to scaling upward, but is it so with your hobby?  Just because you can make one personally designed baby blanket, could you turn them out on a large volume?  You must decide in advance if you are willing to go for exponential growth, or if your hobby can even maintain such growth.  If not, what if you sold your design patterns through a special online newsletter?  When you get creative, you will find there are many ways to scale upward.

One-Time or Repeat Purchases?

For the entrepreneur who bakes pies, this is a consumable product which people who love the pies will purchase over and over again.  Does your hobby allow repeat purchases?  Or is it more nearly a one-time purchase?  If you fashion custom-made playground equipment, that is probably not a customer who will be making a repeat purchase anytime soon.  But there can be many referrals through that one sale.  All of these points can be considered as you sit down to create your business plan – which will be necessary before launching your new business.

Don’t Poison Your Passion

Beware that by turning your passion into a business that you don’t poison your passion in the process.  When working on your hobby, you worked when you felt like it.  In a business, you answer customer’s demands.  Your hobby allowed you to work with no pressure, but a real business holds certain demands and pressures.  Will the passion be strong enough to survive through the work and the responsibility?  Are you disciplined enough to maintain the kind of output that will be required?

Keep in mind that when your hobby becomes a business, you will be involved in matters that have nothing to do with the hobby — matters such as sales, advertising, accounting, promotions.  How will your personality adapt to these chores? This is why it’s important to begin small.  While it remains small, you can still stop and cut back before it’s too late.

Finding Financing

For many fledgling businesses, there are small business loans and possibly even grants to get you off and going.  You may need help with your business plan in the beginning.  A business plan will be necessary to apply for such financing.  There are government agencies that provide assistance in these areas.  Check them out.  Creating a business plan will be a good first step toward learning to format and maintain good clear records.  Fortunately, nowadays there are accounting software packages that are easy to use and will help you keep all records clear – especially for tax purposes.

Showing a Profit

Any new business, whether based on a hobby or not, demands time before a profit shows up on the bottom line.  But what better way to wait for that profit than to be doing what you love?

If you understand that it will require planning, thinking ahead, discipline and hard work, then turning your hobby into a lucrative business is not an impossible dream.  It could happen for you.

However, it’s easy to see the attraction people have with wanting to make money from home. Not only does working from home offer you the freedom to choose your own working hours, but it also saves you the cost of petrol and environmental damage of commuting each day. Also, you get a great amount of satisfaction as you build up your own home business and start to make money from home. You have something which belongs to you and something you can be proud of.

The main problem you will face is how to go about choosing the best home based business. Perhaps you already have a product idea that you can sell, or perhaps you would rather sell products an affiliate for a company.

Choosing the best home based business is not easy and you must be willing to put in a lot of time into research before diving in head first to the first opportunity that presents itself.

You should also avoid websites that make claims of ‘quick cash’ and ‘huge earnings’ more often than not these sites are complete scams and you will learn very little from joining them.

If you are completely new to the internet then a good recommendation would be to look for companies that supply you with personal coaching, training courses and offer telephone assistance.

Legitimate companies offer this because they know that it is almost impossible to start a home business with a single PDF guide. There is so much to get your head around including:

• Setting up a website or blog
• Working with affiliate programs
• Purchasing stock
• Taking payments
• Shipping orders
• Customer support
• Advertising solutions
• Search engine marketing
• And the list goes on!

So although the trappings of being your own boss and starting a successful home business all seem very tempting it’s important to remember that this cannot happen overnight. So avoid get-rich-quick scams and programs that offer unrealistic earnings. Be prepared to put time into research and investment into starting your home business, before you can start making money from home!

Most importantly seek advice from professional companies!

Below are four of what I believe is the best tips for building quality links to your site:

1. The Target Is To Get Natural Backlinks From High Authority Sites.

There are many different ways to build links to your website and there are big differences with the type of links that you can build. Ideal links would be from a high PR site, which is highly related to your internet business website.

To get the best results, you have to use several types of link building methods and by that I don’t just mean blog comments or article marketing. You must use every form of link building available to drive visitors to your site and improve your rankings including social bookmarking, forum posts, directories, link swaps and press releases. The only form of link building I would advise you to avoid is buying links as that could result in you being penalised by the Search Engines.

Also, remember you have to use several anchor texts too, with both short and long-tail keywords that are relevant to your site.

2. Search Engines Such As Google See The Links From Other Websites And Blogs As Votes.

Search engines such as Google take pride in the fact that they can quickly return relevant information to peoples search queries. However, this task is not easy and it has taken them years to develop a complicated algorithm. One of the important factors in that algorithm is the number of links going to your site from other relevant websites.

The search engines see these back-links as “votes” from other websites and people. If your website has a lot of “votes” then the search engines will see that as a sign that people think your website is useful and you are a lot more likely to be displayed in the search results.

3. Use Multiple Anchor Texts and Include Longtail Keywords.

When building links to your site it’s important that you use more than one anchor text. If you are not sure what I mean by anchor text then see the explanation below:

The anchor text, link label or link title is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. The words contained in the anchor text can determine the ranking that the page will receive by search engines.

For example:

Makes Money

When you use both multiple keywords and long tail keywords as your anchor text when building links, they look very natural and targeted. This is because in reality it would look very unnatural if all the links to your site had the same anchor text.

You are also more likely to attain top rankings for more keywords, because every anchor text actually includes several keywords.

*Tip* some article directories accept even three anchor texts in the bio box, which offers a great opportunity to raise the rankings.

4. The Best Of All Are Links, Which Your Real People and Visitors To Your Site Build.

The real and most important key to a successful website and internet business is building a website that people find genuinely useful.

Your website should be full of lots of great and relevant content. It should also be easily accessible and simple to navigate.

These points are so important because if people find your website useful then it is very likely that your visitors will keep on coming back to your site and more importantly they will recommend your sites to others.

This will result in your site getting lots of real and natural links which the search engines love and before long your site will be ranking well and getting lots of happy visitors.

So the best tip of all is to build a great site and the links and search engine rankings will come naturally.

Before you decide to start-ups your own business you need to make sure that, you have a  marketing plan in place and that you are willing to pay out money on both websites and advertising. You should also account for other expenses such as travel, phone bills, office equipment and accounting.

Then you need to assess whether there is really a market for your idea and whether with the resources you have at your disposal you are really capable of pulling it off.

The desire to be successful is great but it does not guarantee that your business will take off!

Good management and marketing skills are essential and so it is wise to see what help is on offer to those of you who have no experience in these fields. Planning is paramount and some small businesses fail because they have just not thought ahead and planned properly for all eventualities.

So let’s consider some things that you and a potential business partner would need to discuss:

• Is there a market for the product/service? You should carry out extensive research into this.
• What kind of competition are you up against? Every business has competition and you need to be aware of who is doing what and whether they are doing it better and if you can even compete with them?
• Will the product maintain its appeal when fads and fashions change and, if so, are you and can you be ready to diversify if need be?
• How useful is your product or service? Will anyone really want to buy it if it’s quirky but of no use whatsoever?
• Is your product or service unique? How can you offer something over and above your competitors and what is going to be your unique selling point (USP)?
• Will a sale of your product or service generate repeat or further sales? Building a client base of repeat customers is a sure way to build a successful business. These loyal customers will not only buy more but could also help to grow the business through referral marketing.
• Is the product safe enough to be on the market? If it’s a manufactured product then it must comply with regulations and these must be adhered to.
• Have you got a plan B if it fails? Plan Bs often work better than As and it’s important not to put all your eggs into one basket.
• Most importantly have you sort advice from professionals in this field? There are a lot of companies available that offer professional coaching and courses. This maybe an expense but it could really benefit you in the long run. Have you explored these opportunities?

Lots of great business ideas are not actually completely original so if you can take a tried and tested product or idea that has worked well and adapt it in your own way and put a new spin on it, then this can work brilliantly.

No it’s not cheating! But remember you really do need to sit down and get some business advice before you rush headlong into anything and this can be obtained through many professional businesses, local organisations and even government funding.

Research it, plan it and then research it some more!

I hope this advice helps you it certainly the kind of advice I needed when I first started out in business.

The overwhelming number of people who have decided to work from home today is a clear indicator if anything about how people have changed their perspective about these jobs and seem to be taking it quite seriously today.

What makes them so special?

There are a number of reasons why you would want to go in for these jobs over the other kind of jobs. The biggest reason why you would want to care about work at home opportunities is the flexibility that this kind of job offers. After all, people constantly dream about being their own boss and when such an opportunity presents itself, you would want to take advantage of it. There are both pros and cons about being your own boss, but when you want to work at home, there is basically no option that you can choose from!

As you gain experience when you work from home, you can soon pick the kinds of work at home opportunities that you would want to take advantage of. There are many out there and not all of them pay the same. The other special thing about these kinds of jobs is that you can pick what you want to do and decide on the one that you are going to be sticking with. In many cases, your first option might not necessarily be the best one, but then, that is how you might learn and eventually, you shouldn’t commit as many mistakes. You will even reach a point when you can demand a higher pay than what is being offered so that you don’t have to work as hard as you used to before.

Do you need special skills to sign up for any job?

There are no requirements per se, but you definitely will need to have some kind of basic skills to do the job. After all, there is no such job in the world which does not require some kind of skill. It is no different with work at home opportunities either, and the kind of skill which you will make use of is dependent more or less on what kind of job you might be doing. Some jobs require you to develop new skills while others might not have any such requirement and can be done with your existing skills.

Be careful out there when you sift through the many work at home opportunities that are posted every single day. You wouldn’t want to pick something that is going to leave you dry or even an option that could prove to be very costly for you. In fact, take your time and find out all the details about the job. Some people claim that you can work from home but might expect you to report in every now and then. If it such a kind of job, you should be careful and perhaps look at something else.

My best advice would be to look towards more professional companies that offer real training and coaching on how to set-up a successful work at home business.