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* Consider taking a trade stall at flea markets and trade fairs where you can hand your business card to visitors and traders at the event.  That business card should include details of your status as eBay Trading Assistant willing to sell those other people’s products on eBay for a share of the profits – at least 20 per cent – as long as product owners also pay your listing fees!  What better way to cut your eBay fees – to zero – as well as having thousands of visitors and dealers contacting you with hundreds of different products to sell on eBay?

* Recognise the ugly face of greed and make sure you never wear it.  By which I mean, if something worth fifty pounds plus on eBay is selling for pennies at flea market or auction, do not book a Caribbean cruise until your profit from those items is safely in your bank account.  That’s because, as I discovered last week at auction, just because the catalogue says ‘Jigsaw Puzzle printed Tuck on the box’ that doesn’t mean the puzzle inside the box is also by Tuck, nor does it mean the puzzle is intact.  Last week I bid £50 on a ‘Jigsaw Puzzle, boxed, by Tuck’, only to find the box was the only part produced by Tuck.  The puzzle had no known publisher, so it would not sell for hundreds of pounds as might a vintage puzzle by Raphael Tuck and Sons.  The puzzle also had ten pieces missing!  The moral is: don’t be greedy, check everything, and never assume.