A successful eBay business involves the selling of large quantities of merchandise. To sell that merchandise, you first have to obtain the merchandise ”which means finding a steady supply of items to sell. These items become your business's inventory.
Managing your inventory sounds simple on paper. You identify items you want to resell, purchase those items (at as favorable a price as you can negotiate), store those items until they're sold, and then sell and ship them to your customers. When you run low on inventory, you order more. Hopefully you don't order more merchandise than you can actually sell. And hopefully you can sell your inventory for a higher price than what you paid for it ”and enough higher that you can pay all your other expenses (and make a little profit) from the difference.
This chapter looks at the entire inventory issue ”how you find items to sell, and how you manage that inventory in the day-to-day running of your business.
