Making a Profit on Ebay

TruthSeeker

TruthSeeker

Fancy Virtual Reality Monkey
Valued Senior Member
Does anyone sell on Ebay and is making a profit?
I'm wondering about their fees too. They seem to charge little bits for several things as opposed to a more defined price...

I'm wondering what I could sell there. Maybe a product that is fairly elastic in nature? So that the price could easily rise above my inventory costs? :confused:

Huuuuuummm.....
 
Rubber bands? You know what you can try, get giant sized rubber bands, then sell those, nobody has them :D

Also you should sell giant stuffed animals, I would buy one from you if it were a Panda.
 
Is this all that I get? An idiot replying to the thread? :bugeye:



I'm just teasing ya... :D
:poke:
 
It's very difficult to make decent money at it. Think of a product and you can virtually guarantee that someone is already selling it on there cheaper than you can. It's definitely a buyers market these days, the prices just seem to be going down and down. Also the fees, at around 10% of the sale value (5% eBay, 5% PayPal), whilst they might not seem much, can make all the difference between making a profit and making a loss. I've dabbled, selling off old junk, and I've come to the conclusion that I'll never get the chance to become the self-loathing millionaire I've always wanted to be.

Maybe if you dedicate yourself to it 100% and make a full-time job out of it, or find a magic product that you can buy low and sell high, and which few others are selling, you can make money. Otherwise, it's hard to make it worthwhile.
 
And where would I get Ame...

Oh right. Him, you mean.

Yeah, do that. A little piece of America for people the world over to wipe their feet on.
 
It is getting harder and harder to make a living from Ebay. it is a buyer's market and Ebay keep rising their fees.

If you find a product to sell like hotcake, n a month there will be people copying you and cutting down your prices....
 
redarmy11 said:
It's very difficult to make decent money at it. Think of a product and you can virtually guarantee that someone is already selling it on there cheaper than you can. It's definitely a buyers market these days, the prices just seem to be going down and down. Also the fees, at around 10% of the sale value (5% eBay, 5% PayPal), whilst they might not seem much, can make all the difference between making a profit and making a loss. I've dabbled, selling off old junk, and I've come to the conclusion that I'll never get the chance to become the self-loathing millionaire I've always wanted to be.

Maybe if you dedicate yourself to it 100% and make a full-time job out of it, or find a magic product that you can buy low and sell high, and which few others are selling, you can make money. Otherwise, it's hard to make it worthwhile.
Click to expand...

I only sold books once, but its too much bother. I'd rather give them away to a used book store or library or leave them in coffee shops.
 
I've found a product that you can acquire cheaply and sell at 400% profit and you're still undercutting the competition.

The market isn't that big admittedly, but I've noticed a seller who has made around £600 profit in the past month. I've bought his product and mine compares favourably - you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference.

I'm looking into it myself, so I'm not sure I want to share the details. Although, since you're in America, Truthseeker, you wouldn't be stepping on my toes. The legality seems a little different over there, but it's still above board.

Anyway. Today I got a package. It contained approx 200 of these items, or 1kg.

On Ebay, 10 sell for £9 inc delivery.

0.5kg sell from between £20 inc delivery and £40 inc delivery. Quality doesn't vary drastically and as far as the buyer is concerned they're all the same.

I got 1kg for £10 from an alternate source and I dare say I could make a bulk order. Possibly getting 10kg for about £70.

The problem is that it's not an incredibly popular item and my worry is that the sellers on ebay have the market covered, although undercutting them is sure to attract some of their regular customers or people wanting the better deal.

Legally, it's all above board, but I'll say it's a slightly grey area. There's no way you could get into hot water over it, but it's a bit tongue-in-cheek.

The thing that confuses me is why nobody really undercuts anyone else. A few do, but there is one established seller and I assume it's a lack of trust. Better the devil you know (through ratings, number of sales). There've been a couple of people trying recently, with slightly lower prices, but not signifigantly. I could sell everything at half the lowest price on ebay and still make 200% profit, easy.

Gah.. Anyway. It looks good - relatively low outlay, legal, product sells regularly (although not that popular) and people should buy the product. Taking the amounts of this good and profit into consideration, it isn't something you could retire from, but it seems an alright way to make a quick-ish buck.
 
samcdkey said:
I only sold books once, but its too much bother. I'd rather give them away to a used book store or library or leave them in coffee shops.
Click to expand...
Oh yeah, that's the other thing - packaging, labelling and posting things for 31p profit (if you're lucky... and British) is a right royal pain in the bum.
 
True. Postage prices here are a fucking joke.

I got a small poster from the US recently. In the usual style poster tube. It's about 8 inches long, 2 inches in diameter.

The postage cost? $1.70 from California to the UK. We'll say that's £1, even though it's a little less.

If I was trying to send the same thing to Cali from here, it'd probably cost £5 - that's pretty much $10.

I don't know what the post office are doing wrong not to be making a profit half the time, but they're obviously making a right mess of it.
 
TruthSeeker said:
Does anyone sell on Ebay and is making a profit?
I'm wondering about their fees too. They seem to charge little bits for several things as opposed to a more defined price...

I'm wondering what I could sell there. Maybe a product that is fairly elastic in nature? So that the price could easily rise above my inventory costs? :confused:

Huuuuuummm.....
Click to expand...

i used to sell martial arts equipment on ebay, mostly weapons, swords daggers etc.


my wife used to sell artwork on ebay also. the fee's vary depending on what type of account you hold and how elaborate your selling displays are, if you want lots of big pics of your product, or if you want your stuff to be displayed in certain areas of the site,

generally with a basic account and display you dont fork out much money to them, dont charge too much for p&p it scares buyers away, alot of people try to make extra cash on the p&p i admit i have a few times because alot of my swords were heavy so people didnt question it,



peace.
 
Syzygys said:
let me take a wild guess, are you selling absinthe? :)
Click to expand...

one_raven said:
I was thinking Salvia
Click to expand...

No, but you're both thinking along the right lines.

Ah, bugger it.

Poppy pods. Specifically, Papaver Somniferum, aka Opium poppy.

Sell them as dried flowers, suitable for flower arranging, and hey presto.

People use them to make tea. It's a nice mix of morphine, codeine and some other alkaloids. Some people also keep boiling down the mixture until they have a kind of opium tar.

I guess some people genuinely use them for flower arranging too. :rolleyes:

Anyway, it's legit and you can buy them in bulk cheaply. You US'ers need to be more wary, as your laws are slightly different and the gov are starting to pressure suppliers to stop selling them apparently. Possession is totally legal, assuming there's a little bit of stem and you're not making tea/extracting the 'good stuff'.

Ebay prices are outrageous though. I guess it's ignorance (not knowing that flower shops and other places sell them cheap) or laziness (be arsed going around town asking for these - I'll pay a bit more and click a button).

I don't give a shit about the morality or legal greyness (even though it isn't grey, but you see what I mean). It's a legal business venture and there's money to be made. As long as you don't sell them as drugs, I'm sure you're fine.

Title - poppy pods/heads (papaver somniferum).
Specify an amount in pods or kg's.
Show an example pic and tell people what great poppies they are for flower arranging.

It's a piece of piss.

I'm lazy though.. so if anyone wants to try it out, feel free.
 
There's a small hobby craft knife set that I regularly see on ebay for maybe £3-5 with a £1 or £2 postage.

I've seen the same knife set in lots of shops, but the first place I saw it was in a £1 shop. I thought it looked alright for a quid, so got one. Then I noticed it on ebay. I've recently seen the same thing in Homebase (US people think Lowes, but more gardeny, I guess) for £4.99.

CraftCarvingKnifeSet.jpg


That market's well and truly sewn up now though. The profit is a good one % wise, but you'd need to shift a lot to see a decent amount of green in your hand. Like I said, I'm lazy.
 
EmptyForceOfChi said:
hey phonetic im going to try that, also the same goes for magic mushrooms? there not illegal untill you dry them out right?.


peace.
Click to expand...

Something like that yeah. Not sure if ebay have a policy on mushies or not. Camden was full of people selling them last time I was there. If you need any ideas, that's the place to go. :p

Let me know how the poppies go. I'll send you a PM with the supplier I used if you want. £10.30 for 1kg all in. Postage was the killer and they add VAT to the final bill. If you've got a VAT number or you're skilled at lying, you could knock a fair bit off there and then. ;)
 
phonetic said:
I've found a product that you can acquire cheaply and sell at 400% profit and you're still undercutting the competition.

The market isn't that big admittedly, but I've noticed a seller who has made around £600 profit in the past month. I've bought his product and mine compares favourably - you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference.

I'm looking into it myself, so I'm not sure I want to share the details. Although, since you're in America, Truthseeker, you wouldn't be stepping on my toes. The legality seems a little different over there, but it's still above board.

Anyway. Today I got a package. It contained approx 200 of these items, or 1kg.

On Ebay, 10 sell for £9 inc delivery.

0.5kg sell from between £20 inc delivery and £40 inc delivery. Quality doesn't vary drastically and as far as the buyer is concerned they're all the same.

I got 1kg for £10 from an alternate source and I dare say I could make a bulk order. Possibly getting 10kg for about £70.

The problem is that it's not an incredibly popular item and my worry is that the sellers on ebay have the market covered, although undercutting them is sure to attract some of their regular customers or people wanting the better deal.

Legally, it's all above board, but I'll say it's a slightly grey area. There's no way you could get into hot water over it, but it's a bit tongue-in-cheek.

The thing that confuses me is why nobody really undercuts anyone else. A few do, but there is one established seller and I assume it's a lack of trust. Better the devil you know (through ratings, number of sales). There've been a couple of people trying recently, with slightly lower prices, but not signifigantly. I could sell everything at half the lowest price on ebay and still make 200% profit, easy.

Gah.. Anyway. It looks good - relatively low outlay, legal, product sells regularly (although not that popular) and people should buy the product. Taking the amounts of this good and profit into consideration, it isn't something you could retire from, but it seems an alright way to make a quick-ish buck.
Click to expand...
First of all, I'm in Canada...

Second...

You're gonna sell pot on ebay, eh?:D
 
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