Advise: Want to be an ebay trading assistant

[taerese]

Hi Guys!

My mind is actually tilting towards becoming a Trading Assistants. Not necessarily have to identify myself as trading assistant to ebay as I may not get approval (if its required). But in principle, my business will operate from home or on the high street (to gain more customers) as a trading assistant.

FYI: If you don't know, trading assistant are people who help others to sell their stuff on ebay.

My questions are:
Can I make more money as a trading assistant instead of investing my own money in stock

Anyone ever done this successfully. Please share your thought?

[mao]

These used to be all over glasgow at one point. things you need to take into consideration is (imo):

1. PHAKES - say someone comes in with jewellery, branded items etc etc, how you going to detrmine these are 100% genuine, how strong is your ebay account to just start listing branded items etc.

2. Chargebacks/refunds SCAMMERS - The biggest one out them all, im sure weve all had the odd idiot who sends us a tracked envelope back that has nothing in it just to keep the item and get a refund, how you going to deal with that if it ever happened, whos out of pocket then the trusting customer (the person you are selling item for) or you?

3. Cost effective - It has to be cost effective, especially if you are goign to run a shop on the high st, thats a lot of over heads. You will need to hope a whole load of people will want you to sell their item for them, and in my honest opinion - and i dont want to sound brutal - but why would they when they can join ebay themselves for free.

[chicagoIL]

Are you already selling on ebay? If you are, how long have you been selling?

[taerese]

Hi. Thanks for the update. In response to your comment.

1. I wont sell jewelries and I wont sell things I dont understand. I will only deal with items I am comfortable of selling, if you bring branded items then I want to see the receipt of purchase from a reputable store before I collect it from you.

2. Chargebacks is part of every business risk and it is factored into the profit already. Every business has its own risk, I sell on ebay on a daily basis and its not like I get chargebacks in 2/100 items. Yeah, we will bear the risk in chargebacks and not pass it to our customers. We only release payment to customers after the cooling off period so in the case of returned item, its just as good as not sold.

3. Cost effective - There are loads of salon and barbers shop around me for years. I am sure they would have closed shops if they dont make money. As far as I am concern, I can make more money than they do.

My setup will be a front shop and back office like a money shop. You will only see a customer service person at the window. I will run my other internet business as well as ebay at the back office.

My strategies of operation is that, even if I dont get people bring their stuff to me to sell I will still be profitable with my own stock.

and i dont want to sound brutal - but why would they when they can join ebay themselves for free

I share the same sentiment, but if it does not work, ebay would not have launched trading assistant in the first place. There are loads of them all over the place.

and like you said
These used to be all over glasgow at one point.

[taerese]

Originally Posted by chicagoIL

Are you already selling on ebay? If you are, how long have you been selling?

I have been selling on ebay for like 3yrs or more BUT I use stealth so its not like I have a 3yrs old account.

[realdeals]

Too much risk and hassle involved and not enough reward.

Why go from working for yourself to effectively working for someone else?

You wouldn't be able to charge more than 10-15% max or a min charge.

What about all the packing and posting? Would you do that yourself or leave it to the actual seller?

All seems a heck of a lot of grief for not very much reward. It would take up a lot of time, and I do not see how this could ever be cost effective enough to consider renting a shop.

AVOID.

[dan_ebay]

terrible idea

[Bunneh]

Cost effective - There are loads of salon and barbers shop around me for years

there is a clue for you.. it takes a LONG time to build up reputation.
Also you cannot compare your type of business to that of a hairdresser,
they get a LOT of word of mouth.

Think about it, if there was money to be made in what you are doing, then there would be a lot more second hand shops around, apart from people just going to a charity shop.

[mao]

Originally Posted by taerese

and like you said
These used to be all over glasgow at one point.

Why did they close? key words there were AT ONE POINT, meaning theres none now - that I know of anyway (that's how popular it is). Closed because people can do it themselves, use gumtree etc etc. Im not saying im against your idea, fair play to you if you can get it up and running, im just trying to show you what it may be like.

Originally Posted by taerese

3. Cost effective - There are loads of salon and barbers shop around me for years. I am sure they would have closed shops if they dont make money. As far as I am concern, I can make more money than they do.

Barber shops/hairdressers....people need a hair cut at least once a month (gents anyway) people don't always need to sell an item. Let us know if you launch this, im intrigued and hope you do well.

[wolfer21]

would work for over 75s who dont know how to use a smartphone, pc laptop or tablet.
Back in the day when pcs or laptops cost a fortune people used these trading centres but now with a smartphone and apps anyone and everyone able to load up images and have internet. The flexibility aand phone at your fingetips is what screwed the marlet and saturated small sellers and medium businesses as they can ebay from wherever they are now.