How You can Still Make Money on eBay

This is not a get rich quick scheme or other scam that claims to make money while you sleep.  Instead, it's some basic information on how to explore eBay, research your category, get inventory and make a profit.  It's often a lot of work, but the benefits include making your own hours, working from home, and, depending on your temperament, maybe even have some fun.

First, about those eBooks telling you how to make it one eBay - I've looked at many of them, and most of them are useless for the ordinary ebayer.  Unless you have something that's in demand, low in costs, and easy to distribute, these books just won't do it.  In fact, these books about selling on eBay are best suited to showing you how to sell a book about selling on eBay.  If you're still not convinced, you can browse through the books listed here and gather tips.  Many bookstores will carry these books, and you can skim the essentials in a short time.

The 4 main areas you'll need to get your eBay business going are:

·         Explore eBay

·         Research your category

·         Build inventory

·         Make a profit.

If you've never sold on eBay before, take some time to explore the site.   Learn the basics by browsing the 'community' sections.  There's plenty of information here on getting started.  Before you can sell, you'll need to establish a feedback record.  Most people do this quickly by buying the cheapest items they can find on eBay.  It's a hazing ritual everyone has to  pass through.

 If you already have an area of expertise or interest, start with that.  If not, you'll need to explore more.  You want to find an area that has plenty of traffic, a variety of items and prices, and no large vendors dominating the market.  For example, you won't make it dealing in 16th century astrology books, or with camera batteries.   Once you've found your category, your next step is to discover whether you'll be able to acquire enough product to meet your goal on eBay. 

I'll use comics as an example. Let eBay do your research.  Enter 'comics' in the search box and you'll find

'1,896,209 results found for comics'

So, it looks like there's some interest in this category.  Refine it further by looking for specific comics like Superman, Marvel, or Walt Disney.  Then scroll down the search parameters and click 'completed' to get a list of items that have closed recently.  You want to find a category where there are many sales.  This also gives you an idea of what the comics are selling for on eBay.  You can also look for catalog and price books in your area.  For comics, the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide is published every year and is the standard base for prices.  It even comes in an electronic edition now, making searching even easier.  However, remember that those prices are probably higher than you'll actually get on eBay where everyone wants a bargain. 

Garage sales, flea markets, etc used to be good places to build inventory, but everyone knows about eBay now, and even GoodWill runs their own eBay store, so you're not going to be able to make a steady profit.  Instead, find a niche and exploit it.  In my case, I concentrated on Classics Illustrated, but even within comics, there are many other possibilities.  You want to find an area in which both individual items and large lots are sold.

Just a  few years ago, I made a steady profit by buying VHS in large quantities for about $.50 - $1 each.  After doing my research I knew of dozens of tapes that would individually sell for $10 or more on Amazon or eBay.   So I'd look for large lots with 10% or more of my choice items, then quickly repackage and sell the large lots, looking to break even on these, but make my money on the high margin items.  DVD have eliminated most of the demand for VHS, and you don't find DVD lots at low prices [or the ones you do find are mostly DVDs that no one wanted in the first place].

In Classics Illustrated there are many sorts of buyers and sellers. There are the large & small dealers, the avid collectors and those who want a particular title for some reason, like Civil War novels.  Large lots are usually sold for one of 2 reasons - dealers list large lots when they have excess inventory to move; regular sellers list large lots when comics are not their normal category.  They may have gotten them at an estate sale, or been given them to sell by a friend.  In either case, you need to study the actual items, then estimate their resale value based on scarcity, desirability and condition.  All 3 of these are additional factors you'll need to discover as you progress.  In basic terms, I look to pay $2-3 a comic in large lot quantities, looking to find a handful that will sell for $20-50, and then re-selling the rest.

If you're not interested in making money, you can skip this section.  By now you'll have an inventory of items to sell, and are continuing to buy and sell.  You need to keep track of your costs to be able to decide if continuing is worth your while.  First keep track of all your costs.  eBay fees can kill you - stay with simplicity - don't succumb to eBay's claims that underlining, subtitles, etc will lead to more sales.  You've already chosen a category where you know people are looking for your product.  Those extra just make ebay richer.  You'll need to set up a paypal account, and this will take additional small fees on each sale.  Some of your items may take several weeks to sell, so the eBay listing fees will mount up.  An alternative is to list items as monthly 'buy-it-now' items, but these get less viewings in searches.  Your other major cost will be shipping as both buyer and seller.   You can have the buyer pay the shipping, but many buyers are now expecting free shipping.

Then keep track of your sales.  Individual sales aren't worth tracking, as you're not going to be able to find large quantities of specific issues even if you do identify one hot item.  It's the average cost and the average sale price that you want to follow.   

If you're not making a profit after your trial period, perhaps 6 months, then shutting down or moving to a different category is an easy decision.  The more difficult decision occurs when you are making a profit.  At this point you'll have to include many other intangibles, such as the time involved in searching for inventory, storing it, and preparing packages for shipping.  These days, it's less likely for a small seller to be able to make a full time income from eBay alone, but the final decision is yours.  In my case, time is more important than sales so  I'm trying to wind down, I have several hundred Classics Illustrated left, but I'm not actively acquiring more.