Starting a small business whilst working full-time.

[v3xtr0n]

I'm looking at starting a small business selling novelty and collectable items on eBay to bring in an extra little bit of money to help pay the bills.

How do I go about registering as a sole trader for tax and NI etc. taking in to account my full-time job?

Does anyone know how tax and NI will work out taking in to account my full-time job?

Many thanks in advance for all your help.

[the buzz]

Are you hoping to sell in large volumes???

[boxby]

Dead easy; http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/selfemployed/

register as self employed. Carry on letting your tax code etc all going onto your employed income, no changes to your salary required.

You'll pay class 2 nic's if your profits are high enough.

At the end of the tax year you'll need to do a set of accounts, and use these to do a tax return - simple stuff, this doesn't need to get complicated or difficult.

You also enter you employed income, and tax and nic that have been deducted onto your tax return, this is simply entering the details from your pwhotsit at the end of the year.

You'll then pay tax and class 4 nic on any self employed profits (nic only if your profits are high enough).

[MikeBoxwell]

Before you plunge into the deep end with eBay, try selling a few items first without committing yourself to vast stocks of anything. Although eBay sounds like a great way of making money, it rarely is, simply because it's so simple that anyone can do it.

Which means you very quickly end up with a flooded market place with prices being driven down to the bare minimum. I know some people who make a living out of it, but I also know a lot who end up not keeping their heads above water.

If you find a really successful product that sells really well, that's great, but you'll need to find the next one really quickly because if you are successful at selling it, other people will copy you. The number of times that my photographs and my listing descriptions have ended up being cut and pasted onto other peoples eBay sales beggers belief.

At the end of the day, if all you want to do is make an extra £100-200 a month 'pocket money', the chances are you can do it on eBay: just make sure you keep your costs under strict control. If you have ambitions to take this further, use it as a stepping stone to take you to bigger things rather than the bedrock of the whole business.

There are a few hints and tips to help you sell your products on eBay for more money than your competitors:

• Take some really good photographs. If you haven't got one already, invest in a really good digital camera and a few accessories. Maplin do a really good portable soft-lighting studio which is really good for taking professional photographs of small items. It only costs £10.
• Write a good description that explains clearly what the customer is getting. Use all the right 'selling' words to get people excited about the product.
• Offer a seven day money back guarantee. By law you have to offer a seven day 'cooling off period' where customers can return unused products within seven days of ordering them anyway so make it into a feature.
• Make sure there is a phone number and an e-mail address clearly shown on the listing so people can contact you to ask questions.
• Make sure you ship out items as quickly as possible and always leave feedback for items as quickly as possible.
• You can get really good feedback for items by including a free gift or a money-off voucher with each sale. Money-off vouchers are great because it means your customers can only redeem them by buying something else off you in the future: two sales for the price of one.

Good luck - and when you've started posting stuff on eBay, don't forget to tell us so we can go and have a look!