Is stealth eBay your full time job?

[Play]

Originally Posted by livelifewild

HEY EVERYONE! I love this post.
Yes I have worked from home using ebay and amazon for 7 years this month actually!

I did have a question, I am looking to expand FINALLY, and I do need help packing. My goal is to get up to 400 to 600 sales per week. My problem is finding someone I trust.
Main things are, Keep their mouths shut. I dont want them telling everyone and anyone what I do what I sell and that I have thousands worth of inventory in my apt.

Thats the other thing, keeping a healthy stock of inventory in my home, having someone come to the house to pack it...I would get nervous. It would be about $6k or more in my house at any given time and I really need to know I can trust and rely on anyone I hired.

MY QUESTION IS: For the sellers who have hired and have help, what are your tips and suggestions for finding someone that I can trust??

Will you not be in whilst their packing? or are you scared?

[yankee]

Originally Posted by livelifewild

HEY EVERYONE! I love this post.
Yes I have worked from home using ebay and amazon for 7 years this month actually!

I did have a question, I am looking to expand FINALLY, and I do need help packing. My goal is to get up to 400 to 600 sales per week. My problem is finding someone I trust.
Main things are, Keep their mouths shut. I dont want them telling everyone and anyone what I do what I sell and that I have thousands worth of inventory in my apt.

Thats the other thing, keeping a healthy stock of inventory in my home, having someone come to the house to pack it...I would get nervous. It would be about $6k or more in my house at any given time and I really need to know I can trust and rely on anyone I hired.

MY QUESTION IS: For the sellers who have hired and have help, what are your tips and suggestions for finding someone that I can trust??

You may want to consider reading the book "Home office from Hell" for some assistance in this.

[dan_ebay]

Originally Posted by livelifewild

HEY EVERYONE! I love this post.
Yes I have worked from home using ebay and amazon for 7 years this month actually!

I did have a question, I am looking to expand FINALLY, and I do need help packing. My goal is to get up to 400 to 600 sales per week. My problem is finding someone I trust.
Main things are, Keep their mouths shut. I dont want them telling everyone and anyone what I do what I sell and that I have thousands worth of inventory in my apt.

Thats the other thing, keeping a healthy stock of inventory in my home, having someone come to the house to pack it...I would get nervous. It would be about $6k or more in my house at any given time and I really need to know I can trust and rely on anyone I hired.

MY QUESTION IS: For the sellers who have hired and have help, what are your tips and suggestions for finding someone that I can trust??

no family/friends you can get to do it?

I've not had any issues with people I have packing anyway.
I pay them more, standard wage is like £7-7.50 a hour for it, I give them £9 and let them work pretty much whenever they like.
Doesn't make much difference to me, they pack 50 items a hour so its 18p per item rather than 15p, I make £3.70 a item on average so it doesn't change the profit much.
Give them a incentive to not be a prik and they won't be a prik

[Play]

Originally Posted by dan_ebay

no family/friends you can get to do it?

I've not had any issues with people I have packing anyway.
I pay them more, standard wage is like £7-7.50 a hour for it, I give them £9 and let them work pretty much whenever they like.
Doesn't make much difference to me, they pack 50 items a hour so its 18p per item rather than 15p, I make £3.70 a item on average so it doesn't change the profit much.
Give them a incentive to not be a prik and they won't be a prik

Yes thats very important. Dont think all of a sudden your boss, their slaves. They'll eat you alive before you know it. Treat them like humans, and make it comfortable for them such that they dont begin job hunting again the same day they start working for you.

[glacier922]

Originally Posted by GreenBean

They do not trust themsleves to do something different.

Ergo, they stick to 9 to 5 because it is safe.

Lol, safe till they get fired. Where I used to work, in about 6 months, 80% of the people u knew 6 months ago aren't there anymore. Either fired or couldn't take it anymore.

[phaz0rz]

@zen - For me it's all about growth. My ecommerce business will eventually grow to the point that it's almost entirely managed by my staff, and not myself. That way I have time to pursue other business ventures. The way I see it I was incredibly lucky to stumble into the business(es) I currently own, but I know there are much more profitable industries to get into. I hope to eventually be involved with real estate. I, like many others here, am using Ebay to slowly become rich so I can slowly become a real estate tycoon of sorts, haha.

[phaz0rz]

Originally Posted by glacier922

Lol, safe till they get fired. Where I used to work, in about 6 months, 80% of the people u knew 6 months ago aren't there anymore. Either fired or couldn't take it anymore.

Sounds like an Amazon fulfillment center, lol. Their turnover is the worst!

[phaz0rz]

Oh and to some extent I do agree that you should never employ friends or family. It can make things very complicated very quickly, especially if you employ your spouse like I do. But in my case it works, mostly because my wife has very little fiscal responsibility. I hate to say that but it's true. She see's that I'm raking in cash and my savings are quickly growing, we both want to live in a larger house, and she knows she could never save that amount of money on her own (I'll never get a mortgage...). So she's more than happy to work from home helping me.

[Play]

Originally Posted by phaz0rz

Oh and to some extent I do agree that you should never employ friends or family. It can make things very complicated very quickly, especially if you employ your spouse like I do. But in my case it works, mostly because my wife has very little fiscal responsibility. I hate to say that but it's true. She see's that I'm raking in cash and my savings are quickly growing, we both want to live in a larger house, and she knows she could never save that amount of money on her own (I'll never get a mortgage...). So she's more than happy to work from home helping me.

I too am against the concept of mortgage. Curious to know why you are too?

[mhhbizz]

this is such a good thread and inspiring!

thanks guys.

im hoping to do full time soon.

[Retailer77]

Originally Posted by phaz0rz

@zen - For me it's all about growth. My ecommerce business will eventually grow to the point that it's almost entirely managed by my staff, and not myself. That way I have time to pursue other business ventures. The way I see it I was incredibly lucky to stumble into the business(es) I currently own, but I know there are much more profitable industries to get into. I hope to eventually be involved with real estate. I, like many others here, am using Ebay to slowly become rich so I can slowly become a real estate tycoon of sorts, haha.

Wow..sounds very similar to my plan.
Real estate may not be as profitable as you assume though....I know people who were involved in r.e. and believe it or not the margins are not very high for fix and flip, not to mention the fact that you may be sitting on single family homes after rehabbing them for much longer than initially assumed, thus paralyzing and tying up your money in an asset you need to wait on.

R.e. is good for buy and hold though, its a product that literally pays itself off and eventually turns into passive income.

[dan_ebay]

off topic but why do people fap over property so much, was thinking about it before but in the south of the UK you'd need to spend £100k to get a flat you can rent out for £500 a month which would yield a much better % than somewhere more expensive
Then:
maintenance: £1k a year on average?
problem tennents and it being empty (you'd be attracting the scum with a really cheap place): £1k a year average?
agents fees: £500 a year?
Then stamp duty aswell (tax on purchase price)

3.5% yield or less on your 100k, obviously good if property prices keep going up but not exactly a certainty is it, they're already sky high

[JamesNorth101]

South of England has pretty awful ROI % but long term the resale value will always go up and that is where money is made a lot of the time

In the north you can get 8/9% ROI all day long on flats which is IMO the place to focus. Resale value will never increase as much as in the south but when I buy a property to rent out I am looking more at the ROI in terms of rent not resale value 4/5 years later.

[Play]

Estates will always dominate within the investment markets. Its not always about buy and sell. There are so many ways a potential buyer can look to deal with a property. Some might buy to renovate, and then sell. Some might buy to rent, and sell later. so many possible options. Though, big investment, big risk, no guarantee it will pan out in your favour.

P.S. This thread has gone so off topic, I can't remember what the OP's question was

[yankee]

You guys buy cash flow property for 9% ROI?

If so, you need to look at rural USA. 20% Is pretty low.

[JamesNorth101]

9% yearly yield % v purchase value of property in the UK is pretty good really. Most the time its around 4/5%

We have a very expensive housing market though, it would be very rare to get a house for less than £75k (around $110k). Last time I was looking at property in the US the $ stretched a whole lot further in the domestic housing market in the US than the £ does in the UK domestic market.

[phaz0rz]

@Retailer -I'm more interested in getting some rental properties set up for steady income. I know a guy who flips properties for a living and does alright, but it consumes 100% of his time.

I'm constantly browsing govdeals for property tax auctions. I bought my 1st 1/4 acre last year for $4500 and it's zoned residential with sewage and power hookups already in place. If I spent $10g on a single wide trailer and rented it out for $650 per month I'd be making a profit within 2 years. I'd like to eventually own an entire trailer park, using the profits from previous units to purchase new units until I've filled an entire piece of property with rentals.

[Retailer77]

Originally Posted by phaz0rz

@Retailer -I'm more interested in getting some rental properties set up for steady income. I know a guy who flips properties for a living and does alright, but it consumes 100% of his time.

I'm constantly browsing govdeals for property tax auctions. I bought my 1st 1/4 acre last year for $4500 and it's zoned residential with sewage and power hookups already in place. If I spent $10g on a single wide trailer and rented it out for $650 per month I'd be making a profit within 2 years. I'd like to eventually own an entire trailer park, using the profits from previous units to purchase new units until I've filled an entire piece of property with rentals.

Not a bad place to start.

[GreenBean]

Originally Posted by Play

I too am against the concept of mortgage. Curious to know why you are too?

For us, the banks were nothing more than pirates.

Our personal circumstances did not fit their criteria.

We live in different continents so that really was hard for them to perceive.

When we did manage to get a mortage, we decided to repay more dollars than needed to reduce its term. We had not even taken the funds when the interest rate went up. That little extra we hoped to pay was reduced.

Luckily, we access line of credit now which is rarely needed.

To really make you grasp, residential loans in OZ at one point were 18% interest.
As I said, pirates!

[JamesNorth101]

18%!!! That is mad

[GreenBean]

James'

This was about 20 to 25 years ago. Yeah, it was mad.

At the time, we were squirrelling money away as investments with the banks were high too.
We took the chance for the longest terms to get invest. By the time the terms were up, the rates were lowered. But we were paid out at the high %.

[yaBeh8ater]

Originally Posted by glacier922

Lol, safe till they get fired. Where I used to work, in about 6 months, 80% of the people u knew 6 months ago aren't there anymore. Either fired or couldn't take it anymore.

did they work at amy's baking co.?