Ebay trader: Capital introduced

It may well be the case that you need little or no capital to set up as an eBay trader - low start up costs is one of the real attractions of this type of business. However, it might be that you need money to buy items like a good computer and some home-office equipment. Perhaps you have big plans for your eBay business and you need to spend quite a lot on specialist equipment.

Normally any lender, such as a bank, that you approach for funding for your new business will want to see that you have invested some money in the project yourself.

This might include:

• savings
• a lump sum that you expect to receive, for example, a redundancy payment or repayment of pension contributions on leaving employment
• the sale of a non-business asset

Enter in the cash flow the amount of money you will put into the business, in the months when you'll need it or expect to receive it.