Lawyer, 34, reveals how she quit her 9-to-5 job to make £100,000 a year buying and selling old furniture from eBay
- Jade Oliver, from Bristol left corporate law job to start upcycling business
- Used money to help pay off £10,000 professional course loan
- Heavenly Homes & Gardens now sells faux flowers and home accessories alongside refurbished furniture
A lawyer who became an eBay entrepreneur has revealed how using the website to her advantage her earned her thousands of pounds.
Jade Oliver, 34, from Bristol, quit her corporate law job to set up a company buying and selling old furniture from the internet marketplace.
Starting in 2012, her company Heavenly Homes & Gardens now makes over £100,000 in revenue.
Jade Oliver used Ebay to buy old furniture items and ‘upcycle’ them for resale through her own website that uses interior design trends to market the products
She has used the funds to pay off a £10,000 loan on a professional law course.
At first she would bid on cheaper Ebay items with potential that were in need of a mend or a polish .
Her company Heavenly Homes & Gardens now makes over £100,000 in revenue
Then using her own online platform she would market them to appeal to current interior design trends, using inspiration from bloggers and celebrities.
The plan worked and made Jade a small fortune, and so she eventually quite her corporate law role in 2016.
Speaking to the Mirror, Jade revealed her top five tips for success in the ‘upcycling’ business:
Searching for items
To have the best chance of finding a bargain or that special item, your search needs to start ‘as broadly as possible’ and use keywords, Jade suggests.
‘Try undertaking several searches for the different ways an item could be described.
‘For example, if you are searching for a “lamp”, you could search for both ‘light’ and “lamp”.’
This can mean involve looking through a lot more results, but the chances of finding the right item will be greater.
By searching for items with misspelt titles like a ‘chest of draws’ is a good way to find a bargain because everyone who spells it correctly is less likely to see it.
Using a search alert
Creating a search alerts basically informs you every time an item you are looking becomes available, which is especially helpful if there are not many of the item.
You can set parameters on the searches such as price and location to avoid being sent unhelpful listings.
Consider your timing
It is believed that most people bid for items on the weekend or after work, and so items that finish at these times can be higher than those ending in the middle of the day or overnight.
If an item ends at night, consider using an auction snipe app to bid for you whilst you sleep.
Making a best offer
Even if when you find your ideal item it is outside your budget don’t be put off straight away.
Try contacting the seller to see whether they would be open to an offer (it is a buy it now item or auction with no bids).
Ebay has introduced a feature whereby sellers can respond to messages from buyers with offer prices.
When you should bid
Jade recommended that you ‘hold your nerve’ and only bid right at the last minute otherwise you could push the price up too early.
Setting an alarm or downloading an app that bids for you automatically can also be very helpful. Jade personally bids in the last 10 seconds.
Because of the short amount of time you probably won’t have a second chance to bid, input the maximum bid you would be prepared to pay.
Ebay will set your bid at just above the next highest bid rather than at your maximum amount.