advice wanted: ebay buying business idea

[Barnetto]

Hi

This site is great

I'm thinking of starting a business that buys things from Ebay for you. Customers would be charged a minimum amount of say £3.50 or 5% whatever's higher. Customers would visit the shop and pay in cash and in full their maximum bid and then get any change when the sale is complete.
They can even get the item delivered to the shop.

It seems like a pretty solid idea to me but I'd be grateful of ny feedback or potential problems I haven't thought about.

Thanks in advance

Barnetto

[mo112]

Hi Barnetto,

Have you heard of 'ebay drop shop' well if you have not it's the reverse to your idea and seems to be more appealing. Basically customers drop of goods to you and you stick it on ebay and take a percentage of the profit. If this also appeals to you maybe you could do both, buy and sell for your customers for a percentage. Which brings another stream of income for you....

As a regular ebayer theres many problems mostly regarding time wasters and Paypal. But that shouldnt be a problem...

Good luck

Mo

[bill mccallum]

It does sound like a viable idea, if you have enough customers in your area, but with the increase in the number of people who have computers at home, it does seem risky.

[Barnetto]

thanks for your feedback

my main market would be people who don't have bank accounts or credit cards and are unable to register for PayPal etc
I have heard of the 'we sell your stuff on ebay' thing, but unfortunately I have never sold anything on Ebay, just bought!
I'm going to research the selling side anyway, but the property I have available is very small - like, spare bedroom small!!

[watchdog]

Hi Barnetto,

In principle I can see your idea working a treat, I work in a business which takes thousands of orders online and one big problem we have is people not being in to receive parcels.

I could imagine a service simply offering to take delivery of parcels working brilliantly, at christmas you could offer add on like gift wrapping.

We use DHL, parcelforce and more and no matter who you use you aways end up with problems because people work and couriers generally charge quite a few quid for a saturday delivery or specific time delivery.

I think if there was somewhere the delivery would be signed for and taken in then that could be very handy.

We do also get cases of people without credit cards / paypal who are being left behind in the world of online shopping so perhaps that could also work. But they are fairly few and far between, we used to take cheques but then stopped as people just didnt ask for the service any more.

I also see a few problems:

1 - It would cost a lot to get this service promoted in your local area, if some chain of shops suddenly done this tomorrow i could see it working really well by teaming up with some big online businesses. Eg the way people can buy at tesco.com and collect from a local tesco - i hear this is very successful.

But to do it in one location with one shop could be tricky.

2 - If you're buying things on people's behalf you could be getting into tricky territory if they want to return it or if it becomes faulty etc because theyve not bought it, you have and you've then sold it to them.


eBay drop shops are all well and good, but the biggest chain in the USA went bust. They were all over the UK franchise mags about 18-24 months ago but again many of the indepedent ones have gone bust. I knew a very savy guy with one, he has several good businesses but it just didnt work. I think theyve had their day, the guy behind cash converters is in on one chain and I suspect if anyones will work there's will, probably end up in some kind of merger with them and they'll be laughing!

Hope that's of some help!