| lizard | 11-06-2008 10:16 AM |
Make money fast ;-)
Of course it's possible to make money selling in the adult area on eBay! If you can source your product cheap enough to sell with a mark up that covers your expenses, you can make money selling anything anywhere. :-)
In fact, with the troubles PreyPal has been having lately, there may be some advantage to selling in a venue where you, (and your competitors), couldn't accept them if you wanted to.
The difficulties with making money in the adult area of ebay are the same as any other adult market. To build your customer base you have to establish your brand. You've got to be floating on the surface of a river of flesh when the customer comes looking. Because the odds are he'll find *anything* he could want without digging too deep. Unfortunately, if you do too good a job of this you become too visible and make an easy target for malicious prosecution, (or worse, ask Mr. Flynt).
Establishing your brand is more difficult in the adult area of ebay due to content restrictions on both the advertising and the product itself. With their vague standards and arbitrary enforcement you better have a good supply of alternate accounts. It's a pretty safe bet that if you start generating a serious level of business you'll be shut down without warning or chance to appeal.
I'm no expert, but the most viable business model at the present time, regardless of product, seems to be creating your own web store and using ebay listings to drive traffic. For this the adult area of ebay would have some advantage over the more conventional product listings. If the customers have to go "outside" ebay to pay for the original purchase, they're more likely to be comfortable going outside ebay for additional product.
Later
Lizard | 
