Selling on eBay
Ways to Make Money Selling on eBay
Any modern discussion of ways to make money without taking on a second (or third) job really must include selling on eBay. The hardest part of selling on eBay for some people seems to be kicking themselves in the tail and actually getting started. Selling on eBay really isn’t that tough to do. I started after my financial circumstances finally pushed me into an uncomfortable enough position that I started getting creative. I had toyed with the idea for quite some time, but never got started. My wife and I both work full time, but it was shortly after Christmas and things were a bit tight. Once I overcame my inertia, it actually only took me about 20 minutes to have my very first auction up and running. That included taking photos, setting up a selling account and writing a nice simple auction. My first auction sold for enough of a profit that I was hooked. Long time sellers often complain about the changes that eBay has made over the years, and I can’t say that I disagree, but there is still an opportunity there to make some money.
So What to Sell on eBay?
For someone just starting out, I definitely do NOT recommend buying a truck load of overstock merchandise. You probably shouldn’t buy anything for resale when you are just starting out. You don’t really know the lay of the land yet and you are likely to get stuck eating a nasty loss on someone else’s junk. Look around your house and see what you already have that you don’t really want anyway. It doesn’t have to be a family heirloom that you will regret selling later. In fact, that would probably be a terrible idea for a first time seller because you don’t know much yet about the best listing times, using good keywords, etc. Here is a short list of a few things, commonly sitting found around the house, that I’ve sold for decent profits:
- Old books. Not something common, but older books related to specialized areas sometimes do well. I once listed an old book on how to make decoys that had pages that were coming loose. I mentioned that in the auction of course (you MUST describe things accurately). I think the book cost me about 50 cents at a church flea market and I didn’t realize that the pages were loose when I bought it. It ended up selling for about $16. Not enough to retire on, but a nice little profit that isn’t that difficult to repeat once you know what to look for when your building inventory.
- Old scouting items. Not Boy Scout mugs! I found out the hard way that the mugs are given away at just about every scouting event so they are not in demand at all. I purchased 85 of them dating back to the 1960′s and thought I’d hit the jackpot. I ended up just breaking even after selling them through Craigslist as a local pickup
deal. No one would touch them on eBay because they cost a ton to ship. There are a lot of scouting items that are desirable though. Take a look at the scouting category to get an idea of what sells.
- Old “Vintage” T shirts. WHAT??? Yes, you read correctly. I’ve seen old Iron Maiden concert shirts from back in the 80′s go for over $300! Seriously. I never found one of these myself though. If you never took that bag of old shirts to Goodwill, you could have a nice little windfall sitting in a Hefty bag downstairs.
I’ll focus a lot more later on specific items that do well and how to sell them. For now, just poke around eBay a bit take a look at what you have sitting around your house that is no longer useful to you (I just can’t take this spouse shot…too easy!).
How to Check Out eBay Prices
When you look at the prices that items sell for on eBay, you will want to BE SURE that you are looking at the completed items. Completed items are simply the auctions that have finished their run and either sold or didn’t. Looking at live auctions is not a good way to guage how something will sell. Most eBay buyers are wise enough to know that bidding early will only drive their final purchase price up. It is very common for the ending prices of auctions to jump dramatically in the last one or two minutes. That is the data you want to see.
In order to see the completed items, you must be registered (that’s free, remember) and signed in to your account. You can . Once you’ve done that, you simply type whatever you want to see in the search box and run the search. What you will see are the current live listings. You will need to use the drop down menu at the top of the screen or the little check box in the left column to select “completed items”. Once you’ve done that, click the search button again. THESE will be the prices that people either paid or didn’t for the item you looked up. You also can use the little drop down at the top of the screen to do things like sort by highest first. I use that one a lot because I try to see what the seller did to get such good results. That is information you can use in your own listing (but don’t copy the actual auction).
I think I’ll end here for now. You might want to take a look at the Tools and Help for Selling on eBay page to read a little bit more about getting started. For now, just see what kinds of interesting completed items you can find and start comparing the things you already have sitting around your house collecting dust.
Good luck. Now go check out what is selling on eBay.
Category: eBay Selling Help
[...] started this whole money making venture by selling on eBay. To be honest, although I really enjoy making relatively easy money selling other people’s [...]
[...] groan. It really isn’t difficult at all. I’ve written an entire article about selling on eBay that you can use as a guide. You might be surprised at how much of your old “stuff” [...]