Business Overview:

If you like antiques and collectibles and you’re looking for an online venture, consider learning how to start an eBay business selling these profitable items. To start your own eBay business in this genre, you will want to garner some unique products to begin your inventory. You may already have a collection that you’d like to sell or you may be scouting local thrift stores, garage sales, and estate sales to add to your collectibles. If this is the case, you will have to do a bit of research to determine the best price to list your products at when selling antiques on eBay. Looking online to see what similar items have sold for is a good place to begin. However, if you are looking to start an eBay home based business with no investment and no real knowledge of antiques, consider the business idea of selling antiques and collectibles via consignment. In other words, the way this online business idea works is people give you their items to sell and name the price they would like to get for them, and you do the selling online. When an item sells, you take a percentage of the sale. This is a great way to start this business idea quickly and simply—you’ll just have to seek out clients looking to sell their antiques and collectibles and make them an offer they can’t refuse.

A Day in the Life of an eBay Antiques and Collectibles Business Owner:

If you will be maintaining your own inventory for sale, you will want to begin each day with a review of your stock to determine what you have to sell and what you would like to add to your collection—jotting a list of “wants” will help you during your next scouting mission. If you’ll be selling on consignment, you will have to advertise your business service to keep your business going and garner items to sell for your clients. Next, you will want to log on and see if any of your products have sold and get those items shipped in a timely fashion. Finally, maintaining your seller’s site on eBay, and keeping up with your inventory and your finances will be daily tasks that will keep your business thriving.

About Your Customers:

Customers who buy antiques and collectibles online might be serious collectors or just hobbyists. You might also have customers buying gifts for loved ones or even first-time buyers looking to start a collection.

What You Need to Start:

• A collection of antiques and collectibles, either your own or those you’ll sell on consignment
• Advertising if you need consignment clients
• A selling site on eBay
• A digital camera to take photos of your inventory
• Financial-tracking software
• Shipping materials

The Good:

• If you like these types of products, you can really enjoy owning this business.
• You can discover some highly profitable items.
• Once you learn where to find your inventory, this can be a lucrative business.
• While you run this business from the comfort of your home, you still have the opportunity to engage with like-minded individuals.

The Bad:

• Initially, collecting your inventory and learning the business can take some time.
• There is quite a bit of competition in this business, so you need to know proper pricing for buying and selling your antiques and collectibles.

Resources:

• Antique Dealers’ Association of America
• National Antique and Art Dealers Association
• Wikipedia on Antiques
• Wikipedia on Collectibles

Technorati Tags: eBay home based business, how to start an ebay business, selling antiques on eBay, start your own eBay business

Business Overview:

If you’re interested in all things charmingly old, there is a profitable niche business that you should consider: the vintage business focusing on prints. In particular, the vintage prints resale business draws big bucks for a fairly simple concept. You seek out old prints from books and sell the prints for revenue. If you sell your vintage prints online, the market can be even stronger for this business idea. From quaint Americana to European advertisements, vintage prints—and even vintage posters—can prove to be big sellers on sites like eBay or at fairs or other vendor events. To be successful with this online business idea, it would help to have some idea of which vintage items bring in the most money. For this you can do some research on eBay to see what items have recently sold and for how much. You can also look into local collectors’ groups to see what people are interested in, how to spot a hot item, and how much your merchandise is worth. However you don’t have to get too caught up in selling only the big-ticket items; a quirky little print or poster can be just as profitable if it’s what a customer wants. The key is having unique inventory at good prices. As in any business, you will want to ensure your customer service is first-rate and your merchandise is of high-quality.

A Day in the Life of a Vintage Business Owner:

In this business you will be the judge of how much inventory you wish to keep and how often you wish to update your supply of vintage items. If you will be operating this as a full-time business venture, you will want scout for new (read: old) merchandise on a daily basis to see if you can add any unique items to your saleable collection. You will also want to keep a careful eye on your inventory to ensure your vintage items remain in good condition so you can charge more for them. If you’re running your business online, you will want to process and ship any merchandise that sold the previous business day. Finally, you will want to track your expenses and your profits to keep your business going and growing.

About Your Customers:

You might find many of your customers are collectors of vintage items and are quite knowledgeable about posters and prints. For these customers, you will want to make sure you have some idea of what you’re selling and why it’s considered important vintage. You will also find customers who have stumbled upon something and just like it enough to buy it.

What You Need to Start:

• An inventory of vintage items such as posters and prints
• A place to safely store your inventory
• A pricing plan for your merchandise
• A seller’s page on a site like eBay
• Shipping materials

The Good:

• This is a business you can run solely from the comfort of your home.
• If you’re interested in vintage items, this venture can be very enjoyable.
• You can make a good living if you know what vintage goods sell best.
• You can build your business as quickly as you desire, even adding employees to scout new treasures for you.

The Bad:

• There are many vintage goods being sold in places like eBay. It’s up to you to make your vintage prints business unique.
• You will need to educate yourself on the value of each vintage print in order to maximize profits.

Resources:

• International Vintage Poster Dealer Association
• eBay
• Wikipedia on Posters

Technorati Tags: vintage business, vintage posters, vintage prints resale business

Business Overview:

If you’ve ever had an occasion to sell used books online you know it can be a lucrative hobby, but did you know it can also be a fantastic business opportunity? Do a search around the big book-selling sites like Amazon or Half and you will easily see the potential for operating your own used book business online. You may want to begin by creating a used book store business plan. To get started, you might try selling a few of your used books to get a feel for this business idea. From there you can decide how much time and energy you want to invest in the business. You can go through your own inventory of books for saleable items or you can do a bit of book scouting in your area—at library sales, thrift stores, garage sales, etc.—to find books that might be worth selling online. Once you’ve made a few sales and provided fast shipping and good customer service, your seller’s rating will go up and you can easily make a name for yourself as a top-notch book seller. From there, it’s up to you how many books you want to post for sale—it is entirely possible to turn this online business idea into a well-oiled enterprise. When that happens, you might consider hiring employees to help you scout for books, post your items for sale, and take care of shipping. Until then it’s up to you to build your book business—happy hunting!

A day in the life of an online book seller business owner:

If you will be selling used books online as a primary business, you will want to ensure you have a solid and ever-growing inventory to keep building your customer base. You or your employees will want to scout at every turn for books that might bring a good profit—sometimes gems can be found in the most unlikely places. You will also want to continually make your selling site easy to use and dynamic so that customers get a good feel for your merchandise (enabling them to “peek” inside a book online is a real customer pleaser). Of course, a daily task in this business will be shipping books to your customers. You will have to do this in the most timely fashion in order to compete with other sellers’ customer service. Finally, you will have to keep up with your business expenses and profits to see to the success of your enterprise.

About Your Customers:

Your customers will run the gamut from book lovers in search of treasured or unique books to students needing specific books for school assignments to book collectors to one-time buyers. You will have to make sure your site is up to date and your customer service is stellar so that you have the opportunity to gain repeat customers.

What You Need to Start:

• An inventory of books
• A selling page on a site like Amazon
• Shipping materials in a variety of sizes
• Financial-tracking software

The Good:

• You can start a solid business from home doing something you enjoy.
• The used book business holds up in strained economies.
• Initial investment can be very reasonable—sometimes nothing at all if you’ve already got books to sell.
• You can build your business reputation as the go-to used book seller.
• You can easily hire employees to assist you in your business.

The Bad:

• It may take some time to understand what books bring in money and which are not worth selling.
• The competition can be stiff; selling online is an international industry.

Resources:

• Independent Online Booksellers Association
• American Booksellers Association
• Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America
• Wikipedia on Used Books

Technorati Tags: sell used books online, selling used books online, used book business, used book store business plan

Business Overview:

Diamonds might be a girl’s best friend, but baubles can bring in the big bucks so consider learning how to start an online vintage costume jewelry business. You can execute this online business idea so easily with the Internet that you may need to spend just a few hours a day on the computer to earn a sound profit. If you’re wondering how to start an online jewelry business, you’re in the right place. The first thing you will want to do is purchase some vintage costume jewelry or sort through the collection you may already own and determine what is marketable and what needs tweaking to make it saleable. If you need to purchase jewelry, you can find some great deals from local pawn shops, thrift stores, and garage sales. You might even decide to run an advertisement in a local paper that lets people know you’re in the market to buy costume jewelry. If you don’t quite know what to look for in buying costume jewelry, consider the following: Do you like the piece enough to wear it? If you do, chances are others will too. Is it in good condition? You don’t want to invest in pieces that will cost you more to repair than you will earn from selling them. Does the piece look like what’s being sought after? Don’t forget, jewelry is fashion and trends come and go. Keep your ear to the ground and your eye on stores and magazines to see what the celebrities are wearing. These tips can help you build a solid costume jewelry collection and start this business idea off on the right foot. Then you will have to decide whether you sell your wares on an existing site (think eBay or Etsy) or if you want to get your own website up and running. At the beginning especially, it might be easier to stick with these well-known selling sites to ensure your shipping and payments go smoothly. That said, if you sell great vintage costume jewelry and you provide solid service to your customers, you will quickly be able turn a profit and your business will be on its way.

A day in the life of an online vintage costume jewelry business owner:

Your day as an online jewelry business owner will begin with a check on your collection. You will want to decide what you want to buy to add to your collection and to see if any new leads for good pieces have come your way. Then you will want to monitor your sales to see if you need to fill any orders or answer any customer questions. You will want to keep a daily check on your site to make sure it is slick, easy-to-use, and has great pictures of your merchandise—after all, the key to strong sales online is providing multiple awesome pictures of what you’re selling. You’ll wrap up your workday by deciding if you need to or want to market yourself in any new ways.

About Your Customers:

The customers of an online vintage costume jewelry business will be vast and varied. Of course you’ll have your fair share of women seeking the most unique or conversation-worthy piece of jewelry, but you can also have customers seeking gifts for loved ones or shopping online for the first time.

What You Need to Start:

• A vintage jewelry collection
• A computer with an Internet connection
• A digital camera
• An account with a site such as eBay
• An account to make transactions such as PayPal

The Good:

• You can love what you sell and make a profit selling it.
• You can work from the comfort of your home.
• Initial investment costs can be very low, especially if you already own some costume jewelry.

The Bad:

• Learning how to sell online and keeping track of your online inventory can be time-consuming for a novice.
• Understanding how to price your merchandise might take some practice.

Resources:

• Fashion Jewelry Trade Association
• Wikipedia on Costume Jewelry
• YouTube on Evaluating Costume Jewelry

Technorati Tags: how to start an online jewelry business, how to start an online vintage costume jewelry business

Business Overview:

If you love treasure hunting and are looking for a unique business idea, you should consider storage unit auctions. There are over 51,000 self-storage unit facilities in the U.S. with over 2 billion square feet of storage space. Unfortunately, not everyone can pay the bills to keep their things stored. That’s where auctions come in. Storage facility operators need to recover lost rent income so they will hold a storage unit auction to clear it out in order to be able to rent it to someone else. Auctions are held each month for an estimated 100,000 storage units. That’s a lot of items! And these items can be purchased at auction for pennies on the dollar and then resold for a huge profit. You can purchase the contents of an entire storage unit or you can purchase individual items from a unit; it depends on how the auction is set up. Either way, there is a big business opportunity in storage unit auctions. You can buy items and sell them at garage sales and estate sales. Or, if you prefer to work from home, you can list your newly acquired treasures on eBay (or any online sales site) and sell to buyers across the country. This is a massive untapped market and there is plenty of room for new business owners. As your business grows, you can even hire a staff to scope out auctions across your town or across the country.

A day in the life of a storage unit content sales business owner:

A typical day for a storage unit content sales business owner will begin with a check of your calendar to see if any auctions will be taking place that day. Next, you might contact local storage facilities to see if they have any upcoming auctions. You’ll mark those on your calendar and get in touch with the facility operators for details about how the auction will work. If you have items that need to be listed online, you’ll focus on that next. If you have a garage sale coming up, you’ll spend some time pricing items and getting the proper permits. Then you might move on to check your online sales to see if you need to ship any items to buyers. You may spend some time each day checking your finances to make sure you have enough money to purchase items at upcoming auctions. You’ll want to be sure to record any income in your financial software. Finally, if you have staff working for you, you’ll make sure their auction schedules are correct and talk to them about particular items you want them to be on the lookout for.

About Your Customers:

Your customers will be anyone looking for your items. They can be walk-up customers at a garage sale or online customers shopping on an auction website.

What You Need to Start:

• Computer
• Finance software
• Vehicle (with trailer for larger items)
• Permits (if holding garage sales)

The Good:

• This is a large untapped market.
• Start up costs are low.
• Return on investment is extremely high.
• You can easily do this job part time and from your home.

The Bad:

• A good deal of footwork is required to stay on top of the auctions.
• Loading up and transporting larger items can be exhausting.

Resources:

• Wikipedia on Self Storage
• Self Storage Association

Technorati Tags: storage unit auction, storage unit auctions