A venture to Ebay.

A Venture to Ebay. Week 2.1

Many people ask about ebay and the venture into it. How was the experience ?

Business Model

Ebay is mainly for slow moving goods.

You don’t sell bread, newspaper in ebay.

You mainly sell collectibles in ebay.

Buyer requirement

It is the last shopping option for anything. If you cannot find it in supermarket etc then this is the last place to find it. I believe most of the collectable items can be found in here.

Are you a collector? Do you have the money to buy it? Is the price reasonable after including all the postage cost?

If all these conditions are fulfilled, then it is the time for you to buy it from ebay.

Seller requirement

Do you have something unique to sell? Well, what is your intention? If your intention is just to have some fun and experience then you can always find something to sell. All you need to do is “JUAL MURAH2” “Sell cheap”. I ‘m sure you have some old stamps, coin, notes clock, phone card etc to sell.

The Process

Probably you may want to have a full cycle of buying or selling experience on Ebay listed below.

a)      Buy/Sell from/to someone in Malaysia. Cash on Delivery

b)      Buy/Sell from/to someone in Malaysia via postal delivery (registered mail or postlaju or EMS) and electronic bank transfer.

c)      Buy/Sell from/to someone oversea using registered mail or EMS and receive the payment via paypal or pay via credit card or paypal

d)      Use various selling options such as buy-it-on and auction.

e)      Receive money from paypal transfer back to your credit-card.

f)        Return item to the seller.

g)      Reimburse buyer the money

h)      Have some buyer complaint experience

i)        Hopefully not, have some seller complaint to you.

These are some of the experience you will get. Depending on your interest, time and commitment you may not be able to experience all the above items. Nevertheless after, you have gaining some experience you can call yourself an ebayer. Certified E-Commerce Citizen. Believe me some people teach/talk e-commerce, don’t even have an online banking facility and never brought anything for the network before. Come-on lah, you have little to lose to explore in the greatest shopping of the world. That is ebay. Worst come to worst, you maybe lost RM20/= for some coins etc. Note: I didn’t ask you to buy a gold coin ok.

The Experience

The overall experience will enable you to assess what option ebay offers to you.

a)      A venue for shopping for collectable items. Rare item.

b)      A venue for you to dispose off unwanted item to recover some cost.

c)      A venue for you to do some part time business

d)      An exploratory venue to determine the viability of your product before putting more resources into it

e)      A venue for a serious part time or full time business

f)        A meant for you to establish yourself and your reputation in the network as a unique seller i.e. “Prominent stamp collector /trader”. Nobody cares about buyer.

From auction, you can see how customers behave in respond to the pricing of the product. From your experience, you can decide how to auction away your items to achieve the maximum revenue.