Making eBay REALLY Profitable

locknload · #81 12/05/11, 08:13 AM

I have sold things on eBay for quite some time, and I'm always learning new things. Thank you for starting this thread.

My selling items have changed over time. I no longer sell anything breakable because it seems that no matter how you wrap it, some things end up in little pieces by the time it gets there. So, only non-breakable things. Even then, I package everything carefully AND I use Priority shipping through USPS because most things are small enough to fit into the boxes. That makes the boxes free... because I do not have access to boxes where I'm at... and all the shipping supplies are ordered online and sent directly to me.

Also, you can get things like the padded flat rate envelopes that hold quite a bit of things and has "built-in" bubblewrap... and there are regional boxes that many times offer very good rates. My local PO don't have these, so again, I order them directly from USPS and have them shipped to me.

Like many others, most of the things I've made a lot of money from has been those that were found in obscure places and that my husband would swear would never sell. lol... poor man... he finally quit questioning me about my listings when I sold our house in three days in 2006 in a location where NOTHING else was selling.

happychick · #82 12/21/11, 09:51 PM

Well, I am finally a Top Rated Seller again!

Anyone else got any new ideas?

Farmer Dave · #83 12/23/11, 11:19 PM

I've been a Bronze Power Seller and Top Rated Seller for the past 5 months. I received an email from ebay last week telling me my Power Seller rating was in jeopardy because I haven't sold enough. I can't "make" people buy my stuff so I assume next month I will lose my rating. I've been selling full time on ebay since 2010 and haven't had much luck selling stuff or finding things to sell.

Whatever I buy at the Goodwill that I think will sell, clothing, books, mugs, toys. etc., no one bids on it and I end up donating it back to them. How do you all know what will sell and what won't????

My average income from ebay is only about $10 - $20 a week.

Ken Scharabok · #84 12/24/11, 10:29 AM

If an item on eBay doesn't sell it is one of two reasons: no one wants it or the starting price is too high. I have let items sit on eBay for a couple of years since the fee is only $.05 a month. Others I list high then drop the price about every month or so until it finds a buyer.

If you aren't doing so, open your listings to interational sales. This week I have sent out two packages to Australia and one to Norway. Have another with France pending.

eBay started out as a neighborhood garage sale, then went to a US-wide garage sale, then worldwide. Not all small sellers have to compete with big box outlets who use eBay as another sales avenue.

I really haven't seen any advantage to being a Power Seller. eBay and PayPal costs keep ticking up about one percent a year on gross sales.

texican · #85 12/24/11, 01:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Farmer Dave

I've been a Bronze Power Seller and Top Rated Seller for the past 5 months. I received an email from ebay last week telling me my Power Seller rating was in jeopardy because I haven't sold enough. I can't "make" people buy my stuff so I assume next month I will lose my rating. I've been selling full time on ebay since 2010 and haven't had much luck selling stuff or finding things to sell.

Whatever I buy at the Goodwill that I think will sell, clothing, books, mugs, toys. etc., no one bids on it and I end up donating it back to them. How do you all know what will sell and what won't????

My average income from ebay is only about $10 - $20 a week.

I think you can make them buy what you have to sell... it's called 'marketing'

. Really, who needs some of the stuff that folks buy? You have to market it up, to make them think they can't live without it. The GF sells on ebay... we get our stock for free, and those 6 to 10$ a sales add up at the end of the month.

Her 'stock' that doesn't sell, she puts away, and brings it back the next year, especially on 'free listings' days.

happychick · #86 12/24/11, 02:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Farmer Dave

Whatever I buy at the Goodwill that I think will sell, clothing, books, mugs, toys. etc., no one bids on it and I end up donating it back to them. How do you all know what will sell and what won't????

My average income from ebay is only about $10 - $20 a week.

I think there's 3 reasons why things don't sell on eBay. 1, item's not valuable & no one wants to buy it, 2, your asking way to much and it gets passed, and 3, people aren't FINDING your item.
For example: My 16 year old brother makes several hundred or more a week buying HO trains on eBay that people have listed with misspellings in the title or didn't use the correct brand name. The want $50 for it and no one's bidding, he offers them a buy-it-now for $100, then fixes it up with better pictures (MARKETING) and re-lists well described and advertised, sells it for $300+. Now, he really knows what he's looking at and it takes a lot of searching, but it does pay off.

You need to focus on brand names, collectors, etc. Go to other places besides Goodwill, go to antique malls, garage sales, etc.

We also sell on consignment for others (friends & family), taking 20% of total sales, only listing items worth $15+. Made $600 since September just off that 20%. Having more items to sell besides just what we can find to buy & re-sell has helped keep our store busy enough to stay Top Rated.

Now, I have put my at-home businesses in my signature link now, but as it's Christmas there is nothing going on there. Check back on the Toy & Hobby Supply in a month and there should always be at least 100 auctions per week, maybe it will give you even more ideas.
Hope this helps!

TheMartianChick · #87 12/24/11, 04:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by happychick

3, people aren't FINDING your item.
For example: My 16 year old brother makes several hundred or more a week buying HO trains on eBay that people have listed with misspellings in the title or didn't use the correct brand name. The want $50 for it and no one's bidding, he offers them a buy-it-now for $100, then fixes it up with better pictures (MARKETING) and re-lists well described and advertised, sells it for $300+. Now, he really knows what he's looking at and it takes a lot of searching, but it does pay off.

Excellent point! I collect opera glasses and have picked up most of mine on eBay. There are sellers who don't really know what they are and call them binoculars and then there are the folks who misspell opera as opra, orpra or even Oprah! I've gotten some really unusual ones for only $20, even when they were worth over a hundred dollars.!

Ken Scharabok · #88 12/25/11, 05:49 AM

Two or three time a week I'll do a search on eBay on "wrenchs". It should be "wrenches". Apparently some sellers intentionally misspell it so the search shows up.

blufford · #89 12/25/11, 06:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ken Scharabok

Two or three time a week I'll do a search on eBay on "wrenchs". It should be "wrenches". Apparently some sellers intentionally misspell it so the search shows up.

I got a humourous letter one time in my ebay mail from a chap who claimed to be from the spelling police. I had been auctioning an item that had interest to Mormans. Its spelled Mormons. I wonder how many years I had been spelling it that way, lols.

Nevada · #90 12/25/11, 03:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by happychick

What have you been successful with selling on eBay?

I used to make about $100/day at eBay selling open source software products. Unfortunately they have changed eBay in a lot of ways that make it difficult to do.

First, the marketing ploy I did for high volume was to set auctions to end at various times each day. That worked because the default display mode was "Ending Soonest", which put my auctions on top of the page at various times of day. To combat that, EBay decided that having more than one buy-it-now auction for the same product was spamming, so they made it illegal. To remedy that, I changed to regular auction format with a buy-it-now option.

Seeing that I was still making a living, eBay introduced the "Best Match" display mode and made it the default. Best Match is an ad engine, which puts items that eBay is likely to profit the most from on top. Buyers now have to manually change display mode to see items that are ending soonest, which most buyers didn't do. That pretty well ending my software business at eBay.

If you are wondering why eBay does these things, they have decided that the real money is in partnering with commercial online companies, not catering to the small-time sellers who built eBay. Those are well-known companies like ToysRUs & buy.com, who sell new items at retail prices at eBay. EBay even lets them list for free. They are successful because of the Best Match display mode, and eBay makes more because the products they sell go for higher prices than the distressed merchandise small independent eBay sellers offer.

You aren't competing with other independent eBay sellers anymore, you are competing with eBay and commercial vendors.

happychick · #91 12/25/11, 05:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nevada

I used to make about $100/day at eBay selling

When my store is full I average at $50-$500 a day, usually at least $500 a week. I have noticed how Buy.com dominates eBay, but it is still worth selling on eBay to me. Even if you only list on free days...
The fees are pretty high, I lost my Top Rated seller status for only 1 month, and I lost $80 because I didn't get those discounts. I can see where eBay can be hard to justify unless you're Top Rated AND listing enough to make the fees look more like a drop in the bucket. For more rare items, getting you're item out there to worldwide buyers is really worth the fees. But for more ordinary items under $15 you just have to sell an awful lot to make it count.

TheMartianChick · #92 12/25/11, 06:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nevada

I used to make about $100/day at eBay selling open source software products. Unfortunately they have changed eBay in a lot of ways that make it difficult to do.

First, the marketing ploy I did for high volume was to set auctions to end at various times each day. That worked because the default display mode was "Ending Soonest", which put my auctions on top of the page at various times of day. To combat that, EBay decided that having more than one buy-it-now auction for the same product was spamming, so they made it illegal. To remedy that, I changed to regular auction format with a buy-it-now option.

Seeing that I was still making a living, eBay introduced the "Best Match" display mode and made it the default. Best Match is an ad engine, which puts items that eBay is likely to profit the most from on top. Buyers now have to manually change display mode to see items that are ending soonest, which most buyers didn't do. That pretty well ending my software business at eBay.

If you are wondering why eBay does these things, they have decided that the real money is in partnering with commercial online companies, not catering to the small-time sellers who built eBay. Those are well-known companies like ToysRUs & buy.com, who sell new items at retail prices at eBay. EBay even lets them list for free. They are successful because of the Best Match display mode, and eBay makes more because the products they sell go for higher prices than the distressed merchandise small independent eBay sellers offer.

You aren't competing with other independent eBay sellers anymore, you are competing with eBay and commercial vendors.

Ding-ding-ding!!! We have a winner! You have described eBay to a T, Nevada!!!

Nevada · #93 12/25/11, 07:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by happychick

When my store is full I average at $50-$500 a day, usually at least $500 a week.

That $100/day I was talking about was profit, not gross sales. The thing is that I got my software products for free, then burned them to a labeled CD and put them in cardboard mailers for about 25 cents. I also paid postage, which took two first class stamps. I sold the CDs for $6 each. The profit was very close to $5 each and I normally sold about 20 CDs per day.

happychick · #94 12/25/11, 08:16 PM

I'm also talking about profit (not gross sales). My personal profit record for 1 day was $2,000 - but that only happens about once or twice a year right now....

You did well to get your profit above 50%! With the internet to connect people, it just takes some thinking & research and you can not only find a need, but a way to provide it.

sunflower-n-ks · #95 12/26/11, 10:26 AM

I have a general question. Why does ebay allow multiple auctions of the same item by the same seller? In this case I am not talking about a couple that ends over hours or days time, but literally hundreds with sometimes five or more ending within minutes of each other.

Over the last month or so I have been looking for an item. There are different brands I was considering and to cut down on the mass of offerings, I would search by item and brand name. One brand had almost full pages of listings by the same seller. Exact same item, same picture, etc. Sometimes the price differed some. In a page of 50 listings, only about 5 or so would be other sellers listings and the 50 would be ending within a few hours of each other. A search of the completed items showed that seller was selling almost no items. So frustrating to have to weed through them to find ones that might have been an option. And why would he go to the expense of listing so many duplicate listings if he was not selling any?

Oh, I found and bought the item I was looking for at a fair price, from a different seller.

And I do change the default option to the "ending soonest". I often see NO relevance to their "best match" option. Their best match is not necessarily my best match.

Gary in ohio · #96 12/26/11, 10:37 AM

The key to ebay is finding something no-one else is selling... there is so much junk on ebays and so many people that dont put item in the correct catagories or dont list the items state (new/used/junk) correctly its hard to find anything. Ebay needs to have for each categories an "accessories" and not working category. I search for something and end up going 6 pages in just to get past the accessories before I actually get to the item of interest.

lonelyfarmgirl · #97 12/26/11, 10:53 AM

I'm in the process of opening an etsy shop, so I am getting paypal going. They say the fee is 1.5-2.9% (I think) plus .30 cents per transaction.
What must ebay fees be? I saw on one of the previous pages on this thread that a couple of you guys are paying total fees of 15-17%?
At that rate, how can ebay even be worth it? Do you make the price reflect those fees, or do you add them on after the fact, like with shipping?

happychick · #98 12/26/11, 11:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lonelyfarmgirl

I'm in the process of opening an etsy shop, At that rate, how can ebay even be worth it? Do you make the price reflect those fees, or do you add them on after the fact, like with shipping?

eBay takes 9% of your total sales, PayPal takes 4% I believe. There are listing fees, picture fees, final value fees on your item AND your shipping cost...So yes, I mark my items up to cover fees. Like I said earlier, if your item is rare, it's SO worth it. If you're trying to sell cheaper stuff, you just have to sell a LOT of it to make it worth it. Most of the time, it's worth it.

Quote:

I'm in the process of opening an etsy shop

Congratulations on your Etsy shop, I just opened one too! (see my signature link) I'm working on adding a bunch more, just haven't had time with the holidays. I'm giving Etsy a good fair try because the fees are so much less and I really like how personal the site is with targeting handmade items. If you go the 'At Home Business' forum you'll see a topic I started called 'do you sell on etsy?', because I had newbie questions, and several etsy sellers came out of the woodwork to help & share, you might find it helpful - check it out!

happychick · #99 01/11/12, 09:16 PM

Does anyone else have anything to share or add?

happychick · #**100** 01/14/12, 02:54 PM

I'm not registered as a business on eBay, but have a 'store', buy and re-sell for profit, as well as sell items for my friends & family. How important is it to file and pay income tax on this at-home profit? Do any of you pay taxes on what you make off eBay?

I know in IL I don't have to do sales tax - yet. I believe if you are making over $400 you are technically supposed to pay tax on it...How many of you really do with eBay?