Working to a Different Calendar

One of the things you need to get used to if you are going to be a serious eBay seller is planning ahead.

Big events such as Halloween and Christmas need to be thought about well in advance if you are to make the most of the increased sales you can make at these seasonal times of the year. It’s a good idea to work three months in advance, as time has a nasty habit of catching up on you, and even with the best intentions you can come unstuck and miss the boat completely if you don’t have a calendar to work from.

It may seem strange planning for Christmas stock in the middle of the summer, but when you realise that the sellers who are organised are making Christmas sales from the beginning of October onwards, you can see that searching for suitable stock while you’re wearing your shorts and enjoying a barbeque isn’t such a bad idea.

The first step to making the most of these selling periods is to decide when you want to start selling the stock. Christmas selling can start at the beginning of October, but it might not be worth trying to sell Halloween items much more than a month in advance. You then need to work backwards again to allow for the time needed to photograph and list the stock on eBay, as well as waiting for it to be delivered in the first place.

If you are buying from your usual sources you’ll have a good idea of how long you’ll need to wait, but if you are going to try a new wholesaler, for example, it’s worth giving them a call to see how they operate before placing an order.

Working back even further, you also need to allow for research time. What products do you want to stock, and where will you find them? How much money do you have in your budget? There may be items you want to sell but you have no idea where to source them from. In this case, you should allow a couple of weeks to look around and see what you can find.

Planning in advance is vital if you are to make a big success of your eBay business, and this is especially important at these times of the year. To this end, it’s well worth keeping a diary or journal to record your experiences as you go through your first year of selling on eBay. You will then be able to note your successes, any lessons you have learned, and what you would do differently next year.

If you highlight these notes in red, you will have a ready made blueprint to work from when you hit each special sales period during the next year. And with that to follow, you will be braced for success and ready for anything.