Ebay entrepreneur turns over £2m a year

by Rebecca Burn-Callander - Friday, 14th November 2008 - (2) comments

When Jamie Murray sold his Playstation over the auction site at Christmas three years ago, he had no idea that today he’d have built an online business shipping 12,500 items a month. Here’s how.

“My girlfriends’ father bought a Jaguar over eBay,” says Murray. “That’s when I got the idea to start getting rid of some stuff. When I sold my Playstation, I sold the memory card separately, which made me more money than if I’d done a package deal. That’s what gave me the idea for my business.”

Murray now sells mobile phone and digital camera accessories through his firm BMC Digital. The company was incorporated in April 2007, and 80 per cent of sales come through eBay.

“There’s no comparison between eBay and the other auction sites,” says Murray. “We have a few listings on Amazon and we also have our own website, but eBay’s definitely the best place to sell our kind of products.”

Murray’s firm turned over £2m this year, and is growing at an annual rate of 25 per cent. Changes to the eBay listing system have boosted business: “eBay has switched its focus to seller performance,” says Murray. “The better your ratings, the higher you appear.”

With 99.6 per cent positive feedback and full marks for postage, packaging and description, Murray has seen a 50 per cent boost in purchases since September.

“I’m not worried about competition,” he adds. “It’s tough getting the deals with suppliers when you’re starting out. You’re not buying significant volumes. It’s taken us a while to build up a reputation with our ratings too. There were some new players around a few years ago, but they’ve all gone. It’s just the veterans now.”

Picture source

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2 Comments

November 15, 2008 8:11pm
coltonTK Says:

Is the commercial over? Can we work with the truth about ebay now? Paypal is owned by ebay and ebay is FORCING a "Paypal ONLY" policy on the VAST MAJORITY of it's users. The glitches and destuctive policy changes that have been thrust upon users of both, since Whitman & Donahoe began their "Disruptive Innovation" scheme has made those sites a true nightmare for shareholders, employees, users & members. Paypal, at Paypal's "sole discretion" can now withhold users funds for 21-180 days! Sellers rated as "Great" are being suspended FOR being rated as "Great". ebay no longer allows sellers to offer to accept paper payments, BUT bans sellers from telling their customers that policy is EBAY's and NOT the sellers'. See what users are REALLY experiencing by reading the threads THROUGHOUT ebay's own discussion pages at the "Seller Central" & "Paypal" boards. Search the internet for the petition to have ebay's CEO, John Donahoe removed, with an internet search of "Ebay Stockholders and Sellers Calling For Immediate Termination of John Donohoe CEO Petition" (petitiononlinedotcom). Go to glassdoordotcom to read what ebay's own employees are saying about the extremely poor management at ebay. Then, check out "Remembering Ebay Boycott Strike And Donahoe's New Changes" on youtube. PLEASE, share YOUR ebay story with RS, to be compiled with a 100 others, to be presented to ebay's Board of Directors! Let your VOICE be heard!!! SEARCH "my blog utopia Looking for more Dolphin Stories!" To learn more, search: suspendedfromebay.com/?p=129#comments firemeg.com/ firejohndonahoe.com

November 14, 2008 4:47pm
Carl Leemer Says:

nice one, goes to show that its not all big investments needed for a good business.