If you have already set up your eBay business, it's time to track it for profitability, cost, turnover, etc.
Keeping track of your business has many advantages.
For instance, you can view trends of your business over a long period of time.
Let's say that through your tracking, you find out you sell only $5,000 worth of goods in the first quarter, but your sales progressively go up until it peaks in the 4th quarter, you can put that information to good use.
You can, for example, collect a list of your customers, and market to them about your auctions during the 4th quarter.
The reason that most products do better in the 4th quarter is because both Black Friday and Christmas fall into this period of time.
Most people will need to shop anyway, and why not ask them to shop with you? An alternate strategy is to promote your auctions during the quarters you are not doing too well in, such as the first quarter.
This method can help pad your earnings during months that may otherwise be considered poor performers.
This is especially important if you need to retain a selling level each month for your power seller status.
Each level in the eBay power seller system requires that you sell a certain amount of goods per month.
If you happen to slack during a quarter, you may get demoted or even removed from the program.
You should also track each item you sell to see which ones are your strongest performers.
As your business grows, there will come a point in time when endless expansion isn't feasible.
At this point, you may need to focus on better performing products and weed out the ones with low profit margins.
With close tracking, you can easily find what your star products are.
You can then focus on expanding that product line, while simultaneously phasing out poorer performers.
When tracking, you should always subtract not only your cost of goods sold, but also eBay, Paypal, and other fees accrued.
This way you have a more accurate depiction of how much actually goes into your pocket.