Re: How do you make money on ebay?
Making money is not easy on ebay unless you have access to desirables items at giveaway prices.<br />I haven't figured out on how to make a living selling "new' products but others have. Some sellers have access to closeout and damaged goods that they can get for cheap. I don't have that type of resource so I sell used items.<br /><br />I know that alot of people scour yard sales for product.<br />You can get good buys at mini storage auctions.<br />Stay away from Estate Sales that are put on by companies other than the owners because they buy the stuff cheap and put it on Ebay before it hits the sale.<br /><br />I sold used car parts on Ebay for a couple years and I was making some good money for awhile.<br />I was paying $5-$20 for alot of the stuff and making $50-$200 on each item.<br />The weren't alot of parts to get but I would scour the yards 1 or 2 days a week and make $1000-$1500 a month. One month I made $3000 on maybe $500 in cost for the parts.<br />Out here in California we have alot of self serve auto dismantlers that the parts are discounted heavily compared to traditional wrecking yards.<br />I rarely sell anymore because I got burnt out on it and word has spread that there is money to be made pulling parts and alot of guys are doing it.<br />Since there isn't much rust in California I was primarily pulling chrome mirrors, antennas, emblems, door handles and dash pads out of cars. <br />In order to find out parts that were worth money I would go to the parts section in "Ebay Motors" and enter a certain make of car and scroll through the parts that were selling for the most $. I would also click "highest priced first" so I wouldn't have to search through the low priced junk.<br />I was selling most of the parts for late 60's and early 70's cars because alot of the parts were interchangeable from non collector cars to collector cars.<br />I didn't mind pulling the parts it was the cleaning , listing and packaging that I hated.<br /><br />The "power sellers" put in alot more work than appears. It seems like there wouldn't be much involved but with all the listing, packaging, and getting the product the work adds up.<br /><br />Start stuff out cheap (around $1) and let the bidding begin. Starting something out expensive costs more and usually ends up selling for less than what you would have gotten if you started it out for more $. You have to make sure when you start something for a dollar that that particular item generally sells for a decent price and that there are other listings for that item.<br />You wouldn't start something for a dollar if its an unusual item and only a couple people will bid on it.<br /><br />I wouldn't worry about your age. Ebay doesn't care about anything but making $. There is no way they will check. When I was selling I had other user names that I would use to bump up the price on items. I would end up buying my own item occasionally because another buyer wouldn't outbid the proxy bid I had on the item.<br />When you get good at it alot of times you can tell when someone has a "proxy bid" in and bump it up in $1-$5 increments until you think you reached there max bid.<br />Several times in the last few minutes of the auction I would be bidding against another buyer for my product. A guy would put a bid in and I would put another and then he would put one in and so on.<br />Ebay never found out about these dirty tactics so I doubt they would ever find out about your age.<br />There is alot of theft on Ebay that ebay does nothing about. Its about making the all mighty dollar to them.<br />I'm sure I'm not the only one that is doing it and thats why I don't bid on an item I want to purchase until the last second. Get a stop watch and sychronize it with Ebays time if your buying other peoples stuff.<br />I might get slammed for some of the dirty tactics I disclosed but I don't care. Now that your aware of them bid with caution and use your brain.<br /><br />Also, make sure whatever you sell isn't to big to ship. Boxing the stuff up can be a pain if its to big. Shipping companies like USPS, UPS and Fedex will ship items of a certain size by weight but when the box is to big they will charge you by weight and add a "ballon" charge which is expensive.<br />When you sell make sure you know what to add for shipping so you don't lose money.<br />Ship with Fedex if the item weighs more than a couple pounds otherwise use the post office and ship it priority mail. The post office has a form that they will give you so you can order "priority mail" boxes, tape and labels for FREE.
<br /><br />I've sold a handfull of stuff before, but its been all stuff that I've just didn't need and thought may be worth a few bucks.<br /><br />Maybe one of you powersellers can tell me how you do it. Where do you get your product? How do you know what will sell and what won't? <br /><br />I remember Ralph was saying that he sold a bunch of softballs, I would have never thought to sell softballs! Where do you find stuff like that?<br /><br />One last question,<br />Would I be wasting my time trying to do it, or is it really worth it?
