Online auctions, online businesses, they all seem too good to be true is it not? We have heard stories of people striking it big through eBay and we think to ourselves, can we be like these people? The fact of the matter is it is not all bright and sunny always in these online auctions and businesses. There are cost factors that come into play especially at the start of your business. It takes time to build up a business and those without the tenacity to last, would eventually crumble and loss more than they would earn.

There are 2 types of sellers on eBay and we shall look into more of that with regard to the cost of selling on eBay.

The pure sellers

These people are focused and only want to sell items just for a quick buck. Most of these people have no interest in expanding that ?business? into something bigger and they just sell items at a profit and that's the end of it.

The relationship builders

People in this category look to the future and build relationships with the people they sell to; taking a step back to see the bigger picture. They may not sell at a profit at all, but they build a relationship with the buyer and lock them into their business. As such, the buyer would constantly return for more and you thus forge a seller-buyer relationship that lasts. With repeated purchases, you thus then will be able to have a lifetime value with this customer and reap lots of profits in the future.

The costs issues regarding both sellers are approximately the same but may differ slightly. For the pure sellers, their primary cost concern would be to reap back what they have spent on purchasing the item in the first place. If they are not able to sell off whatever they have bought, they would then lose money and thus are unable to pay off their losses.

For the relationship builders, they do not really lose out in anything as people are more likely to buy from them since what they sell is at cost price and possibly the lowest price you can find in the market out there. As such, the issue on recovering their losses from cost price is unfounded and what they would have to worry more is the cost of long term-relationships. Yes, we may say that you have forged a strong seller-buyer relationship however there is no guarantee that your loyal buyer would stay with you. In this case, the loss that relationship builders suffer from is the loss of time. They pay the price to build relationships only to have it not work out in the future and they would never be able to get back the time spent on their ?potential? loyal customers.

Cost issues on eBay businesses are not really a huge problem especially if you are selling an item that is rather hot in demand as there are bound to be people who want to purchase it if your pricing is reasonable. Worst comes to worst, you just have to sell your product at cost price and earn 0 profit, but at least you do not lose any money as well.