Australians play Santa on eBay

Many Australians are now able to make their living from selling on eBay, with Christmas shoppers preferring to have Santa's gifts delivered to their door.

Taarik Furmie is one such trader, who has been selling children's toys from his home in Casula in Sydney's western suburbs for four years.

Furmie declined to say how much he makes as an eBay trader, but claims it is more than his previous income as a fulltime IT worker.

He is just one of more than 17,500 Australians who used eBay as their primary or only source of income in September this year. Another 94,000 eBay sellers had considered quitting their day jobs to sell fulltime on the trading Web site.

Furmie's business revolves around selling new games and toys, sourced from local suppliers, through his business called Treasure Planet Toys. Christmas is his busiest time of year.

While Furmie competes directly with big department stores, he told AAP "you will find that [shoppers] are generally getting better prices on eBay, because I don't have the overheads that [department stores] do."

On eBay, Furmie is classed as a PowerSeller -- sellers who average a minimum of AU$2,000 in sales per month, over three consecutive months. Titanium PowerSellers -- the top level -- earn AU$300,000 a month.

Furmie also teaches people how to sell on eBay in an eight-hour course conducted at people's homes. However once again he is competing with large institutions, with The Council of Adult Education (CAE) now offering a one-day course on "Buying and Selling Goods Through eBay."

AAP contributed to this report.