Middle-aged Blues

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I was reading a post on a forum yesterday. A middle age marketing executive was bemoaning his lot in life. He had reached middle age and was £20000 in debt. He hated his life, hated his job and his relationship was faltering. His dream he said, was to become an entrepreneur but he’s sold out to a life of mediocrity in an advertising office. Now he was wondering how he could get out of debt. It was, he believed too late, and so he had settled for weekends sinking beer to hide his disappointment.

This was a sad post but it contained some of the problems that most of us middle-aged people will be familiar with. How many of us had to buckle down in a mundane job for years because we had the commitment of having kids to look after. We had to bury our dreams to face the responsibilities of raising our children and paying the mortgage. Before we know it half our life has passed us by.

We reach middle age with debt from raising our children and paying them through university. Some. Like the depressed poster in the forum, surrender into a life of weekend drinking sessions to hide their disappointment. They accept that they will never climb out of the hole they have fallen into and continue drifting through life on auto pilot.

It doesn’t have to be like this. We may have had to accept a situation that was not to our liking. We may have had to stay in a job that we didn’t like so we could pay the bills and provide stability for our families. When we reach middle age however we have two roads we can take. We can, like the poster on the forum, accept a life of meaningless automation and drowned our disappointment every weekend.

Alternately we can use all the advantages that middle age has. Like for example when the kids have gone we have lots of free time on our hands. Our expenses reduce (not too much I know as we continue to help our children with house purchase, weddings.) Now is a good time to take stock and see what positive action we can take. Most of us will have reached middle age with some debt. If you have had children this is unavoidable.

Now is a good time to start that business you have always dreamed of. There’s no need to take any drastic action like leaving your job. Not yet anyway. Starting a part-time business is relatively easy when you have the time and you are not tied down with children duties. Getting rid of the debt and building a pension pot will not happen through the traditional means of turning up day after day to your old job.

All that will achieve is the same old results. Take the freedom that middle age can bring and use it to follow the dreams you have. The poster in the forum had given up and decided to settle into a life of disappointment. Why should you do that? Middle age offers us many opportunities that we previously didn’t have.

Pricing your products on EBay

Correct pricing is important if you are going to succeed on Ebay. It’s crucial whatever business you are running but on Ebay you need to be aware of exactly how much it costs to sell your product. You have to pay to list your item, then you have the Final Value Fee that EBay will charge when you sell your item. If you list an item for an auction and it doesn’t sell you could end up relisting it a number of times. Each time you do it costs you and these costs can soon add up eating into any profit you may make.

This is why it’s essential to keep a close eye on every item you have for sale on Ebay. The whole point of selling on EBay is to make money. When all is said and done EBay is just a market, a large twenty-four hour seven day a week market but a market nonthe less. And your objective in taking part in the market is to make a profit.

The first thing you need to do before jumping into EBay is work out your pricing policy in a businesslike manner. Don’t treat EBay like a car-boot sale treat it like a business. You’re not there to give things away. What kjnd of pricing policy should you use? There’s many ways you can price your items but what you need to ensure is that you are aware of the costs EBay charges, if you lose sight of these costs they can easily erode your profit.

My method of pricing is simple but ensures I achieve my desired profit. I take the cost of the item I am selling then add to that the profit I desire. So for example, if I’m looking for a 35% mark-up. I add 35% to the cost. I then add 10% for the Ebay final value fee. I then add the EBay listing fee to this figure. Finally I add the cost of paypal to the figure and I am left with my sale price. This is how I price the products I sell on Ebay.

You may argue that this method puts the price excessively high. So what? I’m not on EBay to give things away and if the buyers think the price is too high they won’t buy it. My experience is that my products are still competitively priced and still sell. Running a business requires a large investment of your time. You have to source the products you sell, lay out money for them, taking a chance that you will be able to sell them. You then have to list them, write the copy, deal with questions and when the item sells package and post it.

I don’t know about you but I want paying for doing all that. After all the buyer at the other end of the computer wouldn’t work for free and neither should you. I’d prefer not to sell a product than sell it too cheaply. If the customer wants the item you are selling he will buy it. If he doesn’t he won’t. Leave the choice to him. What you need to ensure is if he does buy something you make a profit that covers all your costs including you time costs.