Ebay/Amazon as a Business

[Nanny0gg]

Obviously I'm not expecting anyone to actually say what it is they sell, but does anyone actually make a reasonable living out of selling on Ebay or Amazon these days?

At the moment I'm just using Ebay to clear out Stuff, but could really do with a second source of reasonable income and as there seems to be so much new merchandise on there nowadays I am wondering if it's a viable option.

I bought clothing in the January sales and resold BNWT on ebay in the Spring. The items that sold did make a good profit, but I still have some items I haven't sold that are still sitting in a box waiting to be relisted. So I still haven't made a profit on the overall purchase, but when I get around to it I'll do some more. I was surprised that some buyers obviously didn't shop around as much as I did and paid over the odds. I had intended to do this as a business but realised that the level of competition and pricing probably wouldn't work on a larger scale. I had a particular target customer in mind when I started.

If you do buy to sell you need to register as a business with eBay and HMRC.

Yes, I appreciate the rules regarding business selling.

I just wondered if there was any sort of money in it anymore.

My brother and SIL do eBay selling full time and make a fortune - selling beauty products mainly.
They live in Thailand though so can buy the products very cheaply.

I am a business seller and we do quite well. We have endless spreadsheets with the complex calculations for ebay and paypal so we can calculate the profit margins and are on first name terms with the post office. It works well for us but has good months and bad. We buy wholesale and sell individually.