The following are my observations for selling Coffee Mugs on Ebay. Based on selling an average of 100 per month, which would normally take a few weeks or months to build up to.
The costs are based on offering a good quality mug and buying in small quantities (as this is the way most people will start out).
Please note ** in my experience not every mug will sell every month. If you list 400 items you won’t sell one of each. So I have based this on my own sales (your experience may be different) of selling 1 out of 4 items listed (average).
Perhaps the more experienced sellers can offer advice to help us newer members bring down our costs and expand our businesses. I know an account with Royal Mail will bring down postage costs but the exercise is to make a profit from the mug and keep postage costs down to gain good feedback rating.
The initial costs in buying equipment – mug press £350, printer £120 and misc items plus your time in making the mugs will be on top of these and reduce the profit. Taxes will also have to be paid on any profits.
Mugs - Purchased 72 at a time £0.95
postage for above charged by current supplier £0.10
Sublimation Ink - based on 500 mugs per set of inks £0.34
Sublimation Paper £0.13
Heat Tape £0.01
Mug blanket wear and tear depreciation costs £0.15
Printer depreciation costs £0.30
Total of production costs £1.98
VAT on above costs at 20% £0.40
TOTAL COSTS FOR PRINTING A MUG = £2.38
Ebay shop (based on selling 100 items) £0.15
Listing cost per month £0.10
** If only 25% of mugs sell - extra listing costs £0.30
Ebay final selling fee £0.50
PayPal Fees (including postage fee) £0.70
TOTAL OF EBAY AND PAYPAL SELLING COSTS = £1.75
Profit on selling mug at £4.99 (less above costs) = £0.86
This does NOT allow for spoils or mispressed mugs
Postage Costs - 2nd class small package £2.60
Polystyrene Mailing Boxes £0.28
postage for above charged by current supplier £0.10
Postage labels and packing tape £0.05
TOTAL COSTS FOR SHIPPING MUGS = £3.03
So if you can sell about 25,000 MUGS a week on Ebay then you too can become a millionaire!