DSF

Hi all,

Thought I would make a little post to see who is still active on these forums....?

I did a little messing about back in 2018 with mug printing, and all the trials and tribulations that come with it... had a nice little side hustle making a nice little profit on the side of my full time job at the time.

A couple of months back I stumbled across an old hard drive which had all my mug printing designs on etc... and I thought I would have a little mess about and see if I still enojoyed doing it. Alot has changed for me in the last 8 years.. I now run a fairly succesfull Amazon and eBay.

Within our business eco-system we have an onsite cafe for which I am printing our own branded mugs... So I thought why not have a look at the option of opening another eBay store selling the mugs like I used to years ago and see if I can create a business doing this... mabye use it as a little distraction from our current online business, give the mind something different to concentrate on, so having a look around at the current price of blanks,inks,paper etc... I then started to cost things up and see the average selling price on eBay, and I was a little supprised at the prices some people are selling them for (or should I say giving them away)

I have seen prices around £5-£6 delivered? Now I might be completely wrong in my workings out here - mabye someone can correct me if I am wrong

Cost of printing mug £2 (Mug,Ink,Paper, Electric)
P&P - £3
eBay Fees £1

Basic eBay shop is £21 PCM

So how does these sellers make a profit or am I missing something?

Like to hear other peoples thoughts on this.

Thanks for taking time to read this.

Anthony

In essence they aren't making a profit, as you have already worked out.

I'm still active
Yep, the race to the bottom is as active as ever.

I am just not sure how it adds up... Are my numbers wrong or about right?

As mentioned in my above post, I am already in the e-commerce game, and have a very good postal rate, as I send out 1000s of items a week, but even my postage rate of £2.40.

eBay Fee: £1.00
Total FVF: £0.71
FVF rate: 10.9%
Transaction fee: £0.10
Regulatory Operating fee: £0.02
20% VAT: £0.17

Total Profit: £1.10
Profit margin: 16.92% of sold price

The cheapest you can post using eBay shipping is £2.69 (Yodel Drop off) which gives a rough profit of 81p...

Which suggest you would have to print / sell 200 mugs per day to make it worth while.

Although I do not sell on ebay etc I do think some of your costings are a bit off.

To print a mug is around £1.11 (approx) for a bulf printer like myself.

But your post states a profit of 81p per mug (based on your figures), I use ovens and I can produce in the region of 48-72 mugs an hour. Presuming 48 mugs per hour, that would be £38.88 per hour profit (or labour). If I designed the mug myself then that would definately increase to 72 minimum.

I could pay someone the living wage and earn about £14-40 an hour from them without really lifting a finger.

For some of the sellers its a numbers game. The same for all the selling platforms tbh and that is how they are operating.


The above numbers are very very rough as there is VAT and Corp Tax etc. But I am sure you get the gist.

socialgiraffe;155132 wrote:Although I do not sell on ebay etc I do think some of your costings are a bit off.

To print a mug is around £1.11 (approx) for a bulf printer like myself.

But your post states a profit of 81p per mug (based on your figures), I use ovens and I can produce in the region of 48-72 mugs an hour. Presuming 48 mugs per hour, that would be £38.88 per hour profit (or labour). If I designed the mug myself then that would definately increase to 72 minimum.

I could pay someone the living wage and earn about £14-40 an hour from them without really lifting a finger.

For some of the sellers its a numbers game. The same for all the selling platforms tbh and that is how they are operating.


The above numbers are very very rough as there is VAT and Corp Tax etc. But I am sure you get the gist.

Hit the nail on the head.