Growing Your Ebay Business Through Knowledge

Getting started buying and selling on eBay is simple and
straightforward. Just about anyone can easily sign up, and put a few
loose items up for sale. However, taking the next step to move from
"cyber-garage sale" into a genuine business on eBay can be a little
daunting and even a little scary at first. Successful eBay sellers
know their business inside and out. They know what items they have in
stock, what vendors they have bought from with the costs associated,
and they keep in good contact with their customers to establish repeat
business. In the next few minutes, I hope to give you a little insight
as to what you need to build your business, without breaking your
budget.

Most importantly, eBay is a business of numbers. Buying items at the
right price, and selling them with the proper markup are absolutely
essential to consistent profits. I have noticed that many new sellers
resell items they have bought on eBay themselves, and I would
encourage you to do so, especially in bulk. A very common mistake, and
one that kills many eBay businesses, is a lack of inventory
management. You need to keep track of each individual item you have,
how much you paid for it, and who purchased it. This is something
every brick-and-mortar store does, and your business should be no
different. If you don't know your inventory and liabilities, you won't
be able to gauge your businesses growth.

You can keep a simple inventory with pencil and paper, or in a
spreadsheet. However, as your business grows, this becomes more and
more of a pain. If you can start with a software or service while you
are still small and agile, your business can grow to be flexible and
structured. Nothing is more painful than trying to clean up and
reconcile old inventory that wasn't organized well.

Repeat business is key. The best powersellers online know which
products sell well, but also who bought them. If they have related
items to get rid of, they can call or write their customers and offer
it to them. I highly recommend you keep a computer file of your orders
and customers contact information for easy reference. This will also
help you stay organized with your payment and shipping processes. You
can simply mark orders as pending, paid, shipped, canceled, etc...

There are a number of Point-of-Sale (POS) software available for
managing inventory, orders, customers, promotions etc... Many great
products exist. You should be forewarned that many of these products
costs hundreds or thousands of dollars. They also tend to be overkill
for a simple small business. Since they are forced to sell new
versions of their product year after year to stay in business, they
are constantly adding new features. In my opinion, this is a bad
thing. It creates bloated and confusing software. Software full of
features you'll never need or use.

Personally, I use a product called Barracuda Suite. It's a free service that runs in your web browser and manages the basics of your business beautifully, without complicating your business with unnecessary features. You can read more about Barracuda Suite, and sign up for your account at http://www.barracudasuite.com/Home/

I hope this article has given you some ideas for organizing and increasing your eBay sales. Running an eBay business is no different than running a retail business: Knowledge is power, the more you know about your business, the smarter you can be in building it.

Josh Walsh is a usability consultant and application developer for Designing Interactive in Cleveland, OH

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Josh_Walsh

By Josh Walsh