I was sitting there the other day reminiscing when my thoughts wandered to ebay. I havent used it or thought about it for a while, but i do remember back when it came out, everyone was abuzz about making money on that site. I was wondering if any of you have tried, and succeeded.

Reply

Hi man.. I don't know what you mean with words: make money on ebay. If you want to know that if we just bought or sold on Ebay then yes..

I'm from Slovakia and I was looking for one DVD with my favourite NHL team Tampa Bay LIGHTNING but Slovakia is little country and you cant find it here. Then I just linked Ebay.com and there was this DVD for only 4 dollars what was really amazing price. It was really cheap and I just used my friend's pay pal and send money. Because it was sending by ship it takes long time when it arrives there. But in Czech Republic was this DVD at Slovakia money 1200sk and when I just bought it from america it was 200sk+200sk shiping cost Im very happy for this Ebay and I will use it more times.. You can find there everything good But just use partners who have 90%+ feedback

Reply

My dad makes a small amount with ebay, he doesnt do it specifically to earn as its not a lot of money, maybe £2O - £3O quid every now and then.

Hes into antiques and the way he does it is to look for antiques that are advertised badly, eg "Old Door knocker" for a cheap price, maybe £1O, he then cleans it up and resells it with a better description and higher price eg "Antique Christopher Dresser Style Door knocker, Great Condition" for £35 and make himself £25

Its a good idea as many people dont recognise the makers mark on the item and my dad does so he advertises it with their name and that makes it very desirable knowing it is a marked piece from a sought after designer, in this case a guy named Christopher Dresser.

And as Soviet said, dont buy from anyone with less than 9O% Positive feedback, and always check their negative feedback as sometimes people will give them negative for a days delay or even by accident which makes them look bad when theyre not.

Reply

you can make money if you have useless stuff that is of no value to you but valuable to others like old action figures, records, stuff like that. otherwise, its kind of hard to just arbitrarely make money. i bought 8 van halen tickes for $2,450 but only needed 2 of them so now i'm trying to sell the other 6. i could potentially make money but im more concerned with just getting my money back. the show is sold out so im sure they will each sell for more than face value but ebay charges a percentage of the total sale cost. so i imagine if you wanted to make money, then buy stuff for face value in which the demand is expected to rise, then sell it when the supply is diminished. its business!

Reply

I have used ebay, well not really to make money, but to buy things that I can get 50% cheaper and then have some relatives bring them to me or have them shipped and pay taxes which still ends up cheaper than buying them at the stores here. I have also used it to buy things that arent even sold here, which makes them really unique and cool items. I have also upgraded some equipment and sold the older equipment, sometimes earning money or getting back what I paid for them. Its really great, though you must really investigate the sellers and bid consciously. I dont understand why people would rather save 50 bucks than buying somethings new from the store with warranty and all.

Reply

Well, you can think of eBay as a kind of virtual store where you can sell your items. If you manage to get your items at below the price that you will sell it on eBay, then you will make money. It's pretty simple really. If you do not find yourself interested in having to put up with vendors and all of which is associated with resale, I would recommend that you sell the items that are in your home that you never find use for any longer. This always helps to bring in some kind of cash. One recommendation that I would like to make before you sell your items on eBay (should you actually decide to do so) is prior to posting your items up for auction, first search those items that you want to sell to see for how much they are selling. If similar items are selling for only ten dollars, I personally think that it would be a waste of time to sell, since after all of the eBay fees are paid for, you will only end up with six or seven bucks. In either case, it is always wise to do some research on the product(s) that you want to sell or buy before you make any final decisions. If you have any questions regarding the process of selling items on eBay, let us know and I am sure that I or anyone else here with experience will be more than willing to help you. Best of luck and talk to you soon!

 

 

 

Reply

I've never tried to sell anything on eBay myself, though I've thought about it a number of times. I just didn't really have anything that I figured people would want to buy, and the things that I do have that would sell, I don't want to give up, so yea, I haven't sold anything using that auction site myself.

I did want to put some stuff up for auction though a while back, and I wasn't able to because I didn't yet have my credit card, so unless things have changed since then, you'll probably need to have a credit card in order for you to sell things from that site.

Mind you, I have used eBay to buy things from people, and though most people are good people on there, you still have the chance to get ripped off, so it's best to be careful of what you buy and who you buy it from.

I once ordered a box set of anime, and after waiting for it to arrive, which is never did, I tried to get the money back from the person that didn't sell the item, but was told by the collections people that the seller had already emptied their account, and they would continue to try and get my money back from them. I never did get my money back.

Other things that have happened to me, is when I've ordered certain things like movies and such and received them, I could tell that they weren't legit copies of them, like they claimed they would be when I've bought them. So, like I said, most people are good people on the site, but like anything else, if there's a way to cheat people, there will be people that know it, and sadly will cheat people too.

Reply

I used to sell on eBay, but it was very time consuming for what I was selling.

I would buy pre-viewed dvd's from overstock.com (10 of each usually 5 titles) when they were still selling them for a dollar, then making bundles of 4 or 5 dvd's, and selling those bundles for $20.

after my ebay + paypal fees, and shipping supplies, I would have roughly $100 in profit

Since the DVD's were always different, i couldn't use the same listing over and over which is the main problem. each listing would take me about an hour to properly format and get listed.

---------------------

Another hot item, (that was even more time consuming) was getting the leftover stock cd's and tapes for less than $0.10 per item, and selling bundles of 50 - 100 items.

I would only get good money from that IF I took the time to list every cd and tape in detail. you can imagine how long that took. Using that method I could turn $10 of CD's and Tapes into $50 - $100 less fees and initial cost.

--------------------

Then there was the drop shipping phase. I had steady sales, but also had a very low profit margin. Mostly PC or Mac games, making $1 profit off of each title sold. Once the listing was setup, it could be used over and over until the supplier ran out. It was always risky (I never had a single problem with the company though compgallery.com), because I never saw the actual item, but it was easy. you really need an eBay store to make money off of those though.

I always made sure that I answered every email in a timley manner, and packaged the items very carefully. I handled it as if i were shipping it to a good friend. My feedback rating was near perfect except for a guy that tried to scam me, and an item that i forgot that I had purchased back in 2001 hahaha.


I stopped though because of time constraints. It was a lot of fun though. Now I just sign up for the free sites lol Freeipod.com Freebenjamins.com etc. but I will return to eBay one day.

Reply

Name:James

While overseas in S.E. Asia I knew many people who were buying inexpensive items and selling them for export. Avoiding tariffs is something you need to look into, but many people did manage to make a living via ebay - however most only made maybe a good living relative to the country they were living in - not much by the standards of North America. But it funded their travels and so it was worth it. Also, many of these same people worked teaching english and so therefore could earn two incomes - and let's face it, there are only so many classes a person can teach while staying sane.

-James

Reply

I have not tried it personally, but there is an affiliate program available with eBay.

You make money if you can get people to sign up on their site.
You also earn a commission on their sales

Here is the link
http://affiliates.ebay.com/

NOTE: You have to join Commission Junction first and then sign up as an affiliate for this program

Reply