New Sellers on Ebay forget to factor in all the costs of selling on Ebay. This guide will give you a few tips to help you make a profit!
First, know your product and what it sells for. Research the category(s) you plan on selling in and look closely at the auctions that are similar to your product. Pay attention to their descriptions, pictures and the cost - including the shipping cost. If you can sell your product cheaper (with shipping) and can provide better pictures and descriptions you should do well.
Garage sales, flea markets and wholesalers are a great source to find products to sell. Items picked up at garage sales and flea markets can be cleaned up and put on Ebay for a nice profit. If you can find a good wholesaler (search goggle or even Ebay Lots) you can sell your items individually and make a nice profit. (I should mention that Drop Shipping from a wholesaler is a BAD idea) The more you buy at once, the cheaper they get! A wide variety of items is even better. If you can sell a little bit of everything, your going to sell more!
Don’t add features onto your auction that you don’t really need! Subtitles are not searchable and should only be used when offering a special such as FREE SHIPPING. Or when Ebay has a sale on them such as 1 cent subtitles) If you need more then one photo of your item host your own pictures on imagecave.com or photobucket.com - both are free picture hosting sites. Make sure your items have searchable keywords in the title.
Example of bad title: Timex Womans Watch - Nice - Cheap
Example of good title: Timex Womans Gold Tone Braclet Wrist Watch
The first example only has three words that are going to be searched. The second example has seven words that may be searched. Anyone searching the word gold or braclet will have your item show up in their results.
Open a Store on Ebay. Store listings cost pennies to list with a gallery and subtitle! (Just remember to list enough in the store to offset the $10 a month charge)
Here’s an example of the cost of selling in an auction format:
Item Cost: $8.00 at the flea market
Ebay fee :$0.70 ($9.99 start plus gallery)
Shipping Supplies: Free (got the box at the supermarket and kept my newspaper from Sunday)
Ok, so the item sold for $19.51 plus you had charged $6.00 for shipping and handling.
Ebay final value fee: $1.02
So the buyer paid a total of $25.51 for the item.
You paid out $14.67 ($8 for the item, $1.72 to Ebay, $4.95 in actual shipping costs)
$25.51 - $14.67 = $10.84 profit. If they paid with paypal there is another fee that was included in this example. So you made about $10 off this item. Was it worth your time? Only you know that, but if you can sell fifty items like this a week then you have made a profit of $500 that week.
The key is to find items that you know you can sell for a profit so RESEARCH and RESEARCH some more!
If you are a new Ebayer you may find some of my other guides helpful:
Mistakes To Avoid
New Users Guide
Good Luck and Happy Ebaying!
