You HAVE to Make Mistakes

For all my Polyanna cheerfulness and positive attitude, my good friends will tell you my nasty cynical side does like to make a guest appearance once in a while.

Like today.  Funny, up until today I never even considered the possibility that my little business wouldn't go anywhere.  My family (except for my husband) thinks I'm NUTS.  They don't really take me seriously when I talk about my silly eBaying, and I think the word "Bonanzle" sends them into fits of giggles.  But I generally just brush it off.

Today is different, though.  For some reason, I have this discomforting seed of doubt in me today.  Sales have been much slower than before, although I am still selling as you can see by my updated earnings in the header up top.  And I just made that awesome arrangement to sell those incredible handbags, so things should be looking up soon.  But you know, I do have my doubts about my ability to pull all this off sometimes!

And then the little angel sitting on my shoulder reminds me of one of my OTHER life mottos (here are the others in case you missed it: Click here), which is that you HAVE to make mistakes.  Not you CAN make mistakes, but you HAVE to make mistakes.  Human nature is to learn from mistakes.  We don't really learn from successes, it's the hard knocks that teach us our most valuable lessons.  And if you're going to make mistakes, what better way to make them than with a zero-investment business you run off the side of your desk?

So so what if only two legitimate buyers showed up at my virtual event today?  So what if I haven't sold all my items this week?  So what if half the people I follow on Twitter aren't following me back?  And yes, so what if my business tanks??  I'll just start another business.  And another.  And another one, until I get it right!

Right?

My First Picture with the New Working Capital

I know, it's not a very exciting one.  And I can't believe my pedicure has lasted this long!

We ended up buying the camera at Target.  I went for the Kodak Easy Share M530 - mostly because it was cheap (let's face it folks, I'm not rich YET), but also because it allows for easy uploading of the picture from the camera to a hosting site.  We'll see.

Holy Hell, I Started a Business!

This week as I was obsessively watching over my watched pot (and you know what they say about those), it really dawned on me: holy cow, I've started a business!

Granted, it's a small business.  A tiny business, really.  But it's a business.  I have a brand (Not Your Mama's eBay), I have inventory, I have working capital (I'll have more working capital after I buy that new camera!), I have processes and I have customers.  I also have a part-time employee (your truly) who's in charge of Finance, Operations, Marketing, Logistics and Strategy.

Sometimes when I'm not compulsively checking my eBay, twitter, Facebook or blog stats, I think: why am I doing this?  This is stupid.  Why am I investing so much time, energy and emotional commitment into this pseudo-business that really only makes me peanuts (which reminds me, I have to update my sales stats!).  Then I remember the answer - the thrill I get from having created something that I own and control.  The adrenaline rush from having one of my items sell, and from connecting to people all over the world who chose ME - out of all the other, vastly superior options on eBay - to spend their money on.  It's strangely flattering, unbelievable humbling and incredibly exciting all at once.  I highly recommend it.

Now I'm off to invest in my business.  Watch this space for the first pictures with my brand new camera!

My eBay Business Plan Phase I: Selling Personal Items

I realized this morning that last night I dove into the details of my eBay exploits (or lack thereof) so quickly that I neglected to tell you about my master plan. So, I thought I would dedicate this post to describing how I plan to grow my eBay empire from a source of occasional pocket change into a good complement to my existing income.

First things first, though. Here are my stats.

Success in business is often grounded in your ability to set short and long term goals for yourself, and the same goes for eBay. However, I need to figure out how I'm currently doing so I can set a realistic short term goal for myself. Let's get started.

Income Statement

As of now, my eBay sales grand total is close to $143. I have sold 16 items since January 31st, which means my average selling price per item is just under $9.

Gross Revenue: $142.90

Average Sale Price: $8.90

From that $143, I have also paid $16 in sales fees to eBay and $10.70 to Paypal. Now, assuming I've broken even on shipping (which I haven't, but let's assume for simplicity's sake), that would make my total profit $116.20.

Operating Cost: $26.70

Operating Profit: $116.20

Operating Margin: 81%

Profit per Item: $7.26

So, in the last 45 days I have sold 16 items for an average of $9 per item and made a profit of 81% on each one of those. The other thing I need to tell you is that not every item I list sells. In addition to the 16 items I sold, I have listed 6 other items that did NOT sell, meaning that my conversion rate on listings right now is 72%.

That means that ceteris paribus (hee hee - paribus), if I list roughly sixteen items in a month, I will make $77 that month.

Goals

Given what I've learned and the stats we've just gone through, my goal before I move on to Phase II of my eBay Business Plan (eBay arbitrage) is to increase my eBay profit from $77 per month to $250 per month within the next 4 months.

How am I going to do that you ask? Stay tuned! Now that we have this hygiene out of the way, I promise my entries will get more interesting. Our next installment: Unsold items - the root causes of listing failure.