I started a business using
eBay Stealth accounts. Based off 7 years of eBay experience and 4 years of
eBay Stealth here is how I operate. I have only really started large scale business 8 weeks ago.
I have a 1200 sq foot warehouse
I ship 30-60 items a day
My average item price is $50
I have 25 eBay accounts but only use 10 main ones.
Main ones are as follows:
2500 feedback account with 600/50000 limit (cost me $2000)
300/50000
200/25000
180/18000
90/9000
60/5000
and a few other smaller ones.
Note: I access all these accounts from 2 computers. I do not switch IP's like everyone says you should. I use different google chrome accounts, I transfer money between these account's paypals. I have yet to get an account banned even though I am not cautious at all.
Total sales in 2 months are over $35000, total listed inventory currently is $80000. I sell various electronic items, some are not testable which posses an issue. I will not give my exact items away to protect my niche. But for every 1000$ I pay I list $13000 in inventory.
Anyways the two largest problems I have with eBay are selling limit and defect rate. I always can't list all my inventory.
The defect rate became a huge issue on my large account after a month of sales. Essentially if you are over a 5% defect rate for 3 month your account gets banned. I was at an 8% defect rate, so I immediately took action. I bought 1000 rolls of shipping tape and started selling at 99 cents a piece. I did roughly 500 99 cent transactions at a cost of 2$ per transaction, it got my defect rate to 4.3% so it was a success but at a $1000-2000 cost.
The defect rate was from shipping bad parts. I just refunded a buyer when they were not happy and I kept a 100% feedback rate. However, when a buyer opens a return item case it counts as a defect, even when the customer ends up satisfied. Pretty stupid rule, results in a $2000 expense for me.
While my business has shown a lot of income startup expenses are huge and eats up a lot of profit the first 2 months.
Major expenses:
Rent $800/month
Inventory $5000-8000/month
Shelving 500$
Bubble wrap machine $1000
shipping supplies 500$/month
Part time employees $600/month
Trash Removal $800/month
eBay accounts $2500
Ebay fees
Paypal fees
Sales Tax
Corporate tax
shipping
refunds
internet
As you can see even with a 10-12x profit margin a lot of my cash gets eaten up on these expenses.
Anyways I am now showing a profit and I hope to show a lot more profit the next month I will keep you guys updated.
Any tips would be appreciated. I believe I have done around 2000 transactions in 2 months.