Can You Make A Living Selling Antiques On eBay?

Well that's a great question and one for which I have an answer that works for me.

I have sold on eBay for years (almost 16 to be honest). I was part-time for about 8 years...Full Time since May 31, 2005.

There are some problems and some solutions so I figured I'd do an on-going series of posts as I ramp up my business for The Holiday Selling Season and scale it up for higher volume and higher profitbility.
THIS is #1, so you are here at the beginning of my journey.
Here are MY main concerns and those of my mentors:
Inventory -
can two people (there is myself and The Shipping Manger) acquire enough high dollar inventory and get it online consistently enough to make money?

So we'll call that The Sourcing Problem.

It is not really a problem for me... I live in an area where there are between 2 and 19 auctions a day depending on the time of year and the day of the week.
That doesn't count thrift stores, house sales and retail arbitrage.

Processing


This includes, washing/cleaning, photographing, identification and listing it on a site/venue.
How much can I do alone? How much can the shippimg manager help with that?
What is the ideal volume, at a $20 ASP or a $50 ASP or $100 ASP??
Right now with an average selling price (ASP) of $18.00, I need to list about 50 auctions a week to keep traffic coming thru the eBay store which has 2000 items it in (at least this week it does).

I have to work on the numbers for the other levels of ASP and STR (sell thru rate) so I'll get back to you on that subject. Obviously, it is just as easy to list somethng that will sell for $100 as $20. Scaling up to list $1000 items might be equally simple but we'll see as I work thru this.
Shipping

How many things can 1 vintage, used shipping manager handle per day? He says, "More than you can sell" so we'll have to see.
Marketing
Not ready to discuss this yet but I will later...
My concerns, right now are:

1. Cash flow - there needs to constantly be money to source more stock
2. Shipping help - if the shipping manager needs help, whom can I get? I'm totally unfond of the idea of strangers in my house. During the winter I can hire the son to come home and help out... maybe
3. what other "chores" can I outsource?
AND that's Chapter One! Back to work for me.
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