Made my first eBay sell and finally feel like a real entrepreneur

Hey all,

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I'm writing this just to share my experience and hopefully encourage others out there. I want to apologize in advance, I'll be writing very quickly because my shift for work starts soon.

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I finally made my first sell after about a week posting things on ebay. Seems like a fast time but I spent years wanting to be an entrepreneur, coming up with business ideas and failing/quitting. Actually, since the first sell I made about 4 others. my profit is only somewhere around $50 or so and I spent a lot of time researching, taking pictures, figuring out shipping and everything that goes along with it but i'm still really proud of myself. I feel hopeful. I've been watching a bunch of Gary V videos and wanted to see if his preaching was legit. I even started filming my journey like he often recommends. Don't worry I wont link anything here(I don't even have the vlogs edited/released yet). There's already enough spam in this sub.

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For anyone interested in selling on eBay I have a couple pieces of advice for you. 1. watch out for scams and 2. figure out shipping details BEFORE you post. The scams are easy to watch out for, but before my first real sell I accepted an offer for a pair of shoes that was 2x the amount I asked for. I was so pumped I stopped thinking. Soon I get a message about how we should do the deal through text and off of eBay or something so I noped out of there quick and reported the account. I wasn't able to re-list the shoes while the situation was being handled so the guy wasted some of my valuable time.

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When it comes to shipping the easiest I've found are usps flat rate shipping/materials. They're free and the prices are very easy to find. I print the labels directly from eBay. I have a laptop being sold that's too large for flat rate boxes so I picked up a laptop box from fedex for $15. It's perfect. I charged the buyer $30 already for shipping and i'm actually going to lose a few bucks on that which will come out of the profit. Its okay I found the laptop in an e-waste bin. I'll use the fedex box and still ship through usps otherwise I'll be spending way too much.

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That's just a small part of my entrepreneur journey, I'm really happy to say i'm having a lot of fun and learning so much. I'm 23, a dad, full time employee and I want to let anyone who has interest in entrepreneurship know its possible if you're willing to work. I've been working 20+ hour days lately to juggle everything but i'm truly investing in my future. It'll all pay off. You guys will see a lot more posts from me on here as time continues. I appreciate this community. Future posts will be formatted a lot better and actually have specific topics to cover.

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BTW, other than eBay I started entertaining the idea of an eCommerce store since eBay limits my new account to 10 posts at a time. That's not enough for me, so i'm working on planning out selling my thrift/restored finds under my own brand. I know web development a bit so i'm not scared of setting a site up. I'm also trying to vlog the entire journey, like I mentioned earlier. Lastly, yesterday I met someone on here who needed help getting clients so we worked out a plan for me to do all the sales/marketing and for him to do the technical work. But I came to the conclusion that Id much rather have my own brand/marketing efforts, directly represented by me, get the customers and pay him to do the technical work. There's a slight difference. Instead of me bringing clients to him, they'll be MY clients. This works out great because he doesn't want to deal with that side of the business.

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So, that's eBay, ecommerce brand, other brand and a vlog documenting the journey. eBay is just a way to get my foot in the door and practice shipping/selling online. Alright, I have to get to work. Thanks for reading. You guys are great.

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