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Advice for Bigger EBay Players
 

I have been reading the eBay forums and most ppl are running a bunch of small accounts

For people doing big numbers what do you lock accounts at? For example I lock accounts at $200 sales a day per account.

I have to pay eBay store for every account & I have to respond to emails daily on multiple accounts and return requests.

For people trying to spread big numbers Is everyone struggling with this? It is extremely time consuming and a big part of my day. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Re: Advice for Bigger EBay Players
 

I get a lot more than $200 per day on all 3 of my big accounts. Best one does up to $2k per day just in regular retail sales. When wholesale customers come in it really skews that number upwards.

We might get 1 or 2 return requests per week but we probably respond to 50 messages daily across all accounts. Work on finding products that people won't want to return and that makes things easier.

Re: Advice for Bigger EBay Players
 

I have struggled with this, but I have taken several of steps to reduce the time spent.
I had been compiling a list of steps I take to run my account seamlessly, but I haven't completed it yet. I plan on posting it as a tutorial when I am done with it.

Re: Advice for Bigger EBay Players
 

You need help. You need not just yourself doing it You can literally pay someone $3 per hour or $300 a month to maintain some of your smaller accounts. The bigger ones do yourself. Now, you have time to open more accounts and make more money. You do need to stay extremely organized and make sure that your team knows what they are doing.

Re: Advice for Bigger EBay Players
 

^^Very true.

My wife does all our shipping and I run accounts. We've been doing it that way such a long time I forgot to mention it.

Re: Advice for Bigger EBay Players
 

Same here, then we added people for just packing and we both ended up computers. Its great cause I went down with shoulder surgery injury and it was good to have someone I completely trust, my partner, to help pickup the slack.

Now that we use Amazon FBA so much, those extra packers are limited.

Re: Advice for Bigger EBay Players
 

I am curious where to find people for $3 per hour, $300 a month seems reasonable but I'm not sure how helpful they'd be with a flat fee..

Re: Advice for Bigger EBay Players
 

Good point. I wouldn't trust someone to wash my car if they're willing to work for $3/hr lol.

Salary or pay-per-package is the way to go if you're considering hiring help, IMO. Paying an hourly rate to an employee isn't really feasible because the amount of hours we work varies from day to day. I'd have to offer someone $25/hr for them to make enough to want to work for me, given the limited hours I would need them to work.

:typing:

Re: Advice for Bigger EBay Players
 

Virtual assistants are all over. $3 an hour is low, but good help on listing, answering messages, printing/compiling labels, photo editing, etc can be had in the $5/hour range.

The hardest part is training. There will usually be a language/culture/timezone barrier. The benefit is once you train one, they can usually easily and quickly train someone else in their native language.

Re: Advice for Bigger EBay Players
 

Where do you recommend?

Re: Advice for Bigger EBay Players
 

PM me. Don't want to break any rules.

Re: Advice for Bigger EBay Players
 

If I hire help, what’s to stop them from learning my business model, supplier, products, etc then later becoming my competitor when they become confident enough

Am I paranoid or is that a legit threat to you guys also

Re: Advice for Bigger EBay Players
 

Its imperative that you no longer operate the parts of your business that can be automated. Rather than wasting your time performing menial tasks others can do for you.
The importance of automation is that it frees up your time so that you can focus your time on finding more products and expanding your business to get to higher goals, and to stretch as far as possible, perhaps hitting a million dollars or more in sales? Or freeing up your time to go on vacations?

The mere fact that you are "locking" your accounts at 200 per day is ridiculous. I used to do the same thing, "I would go on vacations and put my stores in vacation mode not allowing customers to place orders (that is stupid because the rich make money will they are on vacation) "

Recommendation:
Hire out to close family members/close friends, and train them(hire from within). Create guidelines for your day to day operations and show them. And pay them, be generous.
You will see that once you hire you will have so much free time that there is no reason you can not hit your yearly goals.
I hope this helps.
TheRealist

Re: Advice for Bigger EBay Players
 

Paranoia is a terrible thing.

I still order(and produce some) my own products. I have a few people that help in managing my accounts and I have someone who comes in the afternoon and gets a stack of labels and packing slip to pack and haul packages to the airport. Any of these people could start selling online, but after having the same model and several employees for over 3 years, none of them have.

Re: Advice for Bigger EBay Players
 

It is a legit threat if they have access to your entire business model.

Re: Advice for Bigger EBay Players
 

You could consider hiring your significant other for help like I did. I don't much worry about my wife running off with my business secrets.

For real though even if you hire a random person off the streets, you could limit there job responsibilities so they never learn all they would need to know. Have the person fill orders all day while you do everything else. Don't ever tell them important stuff like who your supplier is, how you pay them, the prices you pay for inventory, etc..