Online Business Entrepreneurs, eBay sellers, how did you do it?

[NewSc2]

okay, right now i'm a college student and i'm not liking it at all. in fact, it's an insult to my intelligence sometimes.

basically, over the summer i'm looking to try and start something small as a part-time thing, and hopefully something big can come out of it.

these days, i've been looking into selling on ebay or just plain old online retailing, but i'm not sure how to go about with it. i mean ebay sounds pretty neat, just set up an auction and watch the price creep up to incredibly low levels (how do they sell it that low?), with a huge customer base, but how do people make money off eBay? i've seen people write that they make $2-4K and upwards sometimes just off selling off eBay. are there even profit margins for new items on ebay?

i've looked into all the wholesale lists that go around, but it seems that most are pretty much duds... does anybody have experience in this field? anybody have thoughts they wanna chime in? any help in locating manufacturers or suppliers with good support for start-up businesses? (i.e. drop-ship)

what items are good to sell (on eBay or otherwise?) I was thinking selling high-end audio, and although audio is my hobby i'm not into all the impedance, ohms, electrical stuff, so i doubt i'd be able to provide good service. computers i have a good background in.. but i don't like the idea that anything i hold onto decreases value by the minute, and the sheer number of online retailers for computer parts out there (www.pricewatch.com retailers) just seems really daunting. any help in this area?

sorry about the long post too... if it seems too immense i guess i'll cut it down if nobody seems to respond =\.

 

[NewSc2]

dang this is a popular forum, bump for myself, and to shorten the question:

anybody out there currently running an eBay selling business or some online retail business? advice on getting manufacturer/distributor contacts or price lists?

 

[Rookie]

a bump from someone else who wouldn't mind that type of info.

 

[911paramedic]

I met a couple that run a site (and do a lot of selling on ebay) out by our pool a couple weeks ago. They were laughing at how easy it was and the "incredible" product that they sold.

Their website <--the page with the discout book
EDIT FOR THE RIGHT DISCOUT BOOK The $8.95 discount book

What they do is get the little discout books from the strip (you can get them for free all day down there) and they sell them on their site and on ebay. They charge like $10 +$5 shipping for them on ebay, looks like they are much more on their site. :Q

 

[DDCSpeed]

I am not much of a ebay seller...but I have helped many small business owners set up their ebay accounts to sell online. The small business owners (total of 7) that I have encountered originally wants to create a website for an online retail store. However, none of them are willing to put up the money to actually run one so I advice them to selling through ebay. Most of them are successful with selling through ebay and profitable but you have to realize a couple of things first...

1. This is not 100% true but many ebay sellers are small business owners who have a brick and mortar store. Thus Ebay creates more channels of distribution because they find more customers than they already have by selling to people across the nation rather than a specific location. They sell more prodcuts and builds up a reputation fast because they have alot of inventory to sell. Most individuals do not build a reputation that fast because we do not have as much inventory to sell.

2. The small business owners are not risking anything than they are already... Since small business owners keep stocks on hand already they already run the risk of depreciation and selling through ebay lowers their risk by having more customers. With ebay, they just created another channel of selling the products to end consumers. If you want to use Ebay to sell like a retail store, you will most likely to run the risks of buying the merchandise first and hope it sells... before it starts to depreciate.

3. Since they are small business owners, they buy inventory in bulk at least more than most individuals would...so they get a cheaper price than most people would. They also have the right/cheaper channels of getting the inventory than most people would.

These are just some of my experiences...that I have seen. Hope this helps to let you understand more.
Good luck!

 

[NewSc2]

DDCSpeed, i know this might not be in your line of work... but how easy is it for most small businesses to get a hold of name-brand wholesalers? (i.e. philips, jvc, tdk, etc. etc.)

i have a few connections to taiwanese companies, but most of those sell small trinkets and a lot of "Made in China" stuff.

 

[BD2003]

Keep in mind, if someone has a million dollar idea, theyre not going to give it to you. More competition = less money for them.

Its not rocket science.

 

[NewSc2]

911paramedic... that's a really good idea the couple u met had. i'm not gonna copy them or anything.. but it looks like they have an incredibly easy source of income on the side there.

how much do they make selling these? how many do they sell per month?

 

[randomlinh]

see, the real key is to buy something that increases in value over time.. heh.... of course, that's the most difficult part

you could always buy some cheap land in florida.. and sell it off on ebay by the sq in... heheh.... some of you should know where that came from.

 

[NewSc2]

*bump* there's gotta be a few more people with some eBay experience... any powersellers out there?

 

[MrBond]

A lot of the stuff you see on ebay is items people buy VERY cheap (usually thanks to the Hot Deals forum here) and resell on ebay. Want proof? Check out a few posts in the HD forum. Here's an example:

80GB firewire drive for $110 ish

Search Results for "80gb firewire" on ebay

The first auction (it ends in like 5 minutes, so check quickly) has another technique used by people to make money on ebay, inflated shipping prices. $20 to ship that drive. Just checked USPS's rates, and shipping a package weighing 6 lbs across the country with $150 of insurance costs $14 or so. UPS ground is even cheaper, at about $8.50.

It's always kind of funny to watch the HD forum and ebay like that. When the Audiovox Maestro could be had for ~$210 After rebate, ebay was FLOODED with Maestros, most with "the upc carefully removed".

 

[NewSc2]

yeah i entertained that part of eBay...

i think i'll do that when i apply for a resale license sometime soon and start up some sort of e-commerce business. (auction off cheap stuff for a small mark-up)

i mean, that's probably one of the easier things to do (selling stuff you find at hot deals forum or finding cheap stuff at swapmeets) but it doesn't seem very reliable... i'm looking for something that i could gradually build up to possibly a career.

 

[neovan]

Yeah...I have bought stuff from the Hot Deals forum and then resold the item on Ebay. I sold a HP CDRW/DVD drive for $135 after paying literally $8 bucks for it. Good luck.

 

[alm99]

Bump because this would be some great info if anyone would give it up

 

[NewSc2]

i'll keep you guys posted, i've e-mailed a few small hi-fi audio store owners asking them how they started up and i've been reading up on countless books at barnes and noble on how to start up a small online e-commerce business.

i've also looked around a few websites and gotten a few *good* links to those "make money at home and earn up to $XXXXXX per month" and they seem to provide good information (i had to sort through a few scores to find a couple legit ones)

basically, i think i'm going to get a resale license to either sell something... i'm not quite too sure yet. i'll probably buy a couple wholesale lists off of eBay just to see how it goes... i'll keep all of you posted~

P.S. also any more information or any more experienced powersellers commenting in further on this forum would be helpful as well

 

[xaigi]

<sigh>

I was once an ebay powerseller. When I was in school, I got a business license and started selling computer hardware on ebay so that I could make some extra money. When I started out (with only about $300), I would go through the listings at FS/FT and look for things that were selling for at least 50% more on ebay (hint, use completed item listings). I would also go to garage sales looking for things that would go for more on ebay (that was very short-lived; everything sucked). Once I got a little more money, I started buying large lots of ISA and PCI cards from ebay, testing/identifying the cards and selling them off one by one. Back then, just about any ISA card was worth $7-$10 if you could tell someone exactly what it was and guarantee that it worked. I also found laptops and (especially!) laptop batteries to be profitable, though I always sold laptop batteries as-is because I rarely had the laptops to test them in.

I made small forays into other things too; when razor scooters were (undeservedly) popular, I found a deal on them and started posting them to ebay as well. The profit margins were excellent, but the scooters were too much of a pain to ship. I also purchased several hundred (VHS) movies at a (in-person) auction. I got them before DVD really started to take hold, but couldn't get out before the value of VHS movies fell through the floor. I hockedd the things on half.com and ebay, but never got all my money back for that one.

Anyway, for $29.95 I'll continue my story and explain to you how YOU can MAKE THOUSANDS ON EBAY JUST LIKE ME!!!

 

[xaigi]

...just kidding (about the $30), but that brings me to the next part.

Somewhere along the line, an offer went out to get a palm PDA that was normally ~$200 for around $100. At the same time, people who sheperd users to the link and get them to buy the palm were rewarded handsomely. Putting the link on my website did no good and there was no way that I was going to spam the link out, so I decided to sell it. $5 to find out how to get a palm for $99. It was about this time that I realized that Yahoo auctions did not charge any listing fees. At first, I did not want to charge people for the link, but I found that nobody used the link if I sent it to them when they won the auction and told them they could "pay later." As soon as I started to require payment in the same way as I would for physical items, people started using the link.

What else?.... some tips

1) Know what you are selling.
If you are selling computer equipment, you should be able to answer questions about it. Dont make things up; dont say things that you only think you know. If you don't know much about a piece of hardware, say so, sell it as-is, and don't expect to get much for it.

2) Don't accept personal checks.

3) Don't sell big-ticket items.
$1500 laptops leave you in a position to get ripped off by credit card thieves and item switchers. You may say that you require "verified" paypal, but what happens when someone who has already won the auction offers (or just sends, if you dont have your account set up right) unverified paypal, you have bills to pay and you know that putting the auction up a second time will cost you 7-10 days + depreciation on the item. Large lots (say 30 laptops with a total value of $1500) are OK, as they are far less tempting for thieves, but you still have to be careful.

4) International bidders are a pain, but don't exclude them.
I have found that international bidders (esp. Canadians) increase the value of my auctions regardless of whether they win.

5) Watch out for cheats, scams, etc.
I could write a book on this. When selling items over $100, write down (or scan) the item serial number so that you don't end up with a return of somebody else's broken item. Don't accept unverified paypal from Russia. Don't accept anything that seems too good to be true. Don't buy your hardware lots from people who have no feedback.

 

[xaigi]

Ah, hell. I could keep writing for days. If you can find my current email address, ask me questions and I'll answer.

 

[NewSc2]

*bump* interesting, why did you quit/how was the money?

 

[NewSc2]

Sent you an e-mail too xaiga

*i hope your e-mail on your profile is right*

 

[b0mbrman]

Originally posted by: NewSc2
*bump* interesting, why did you quit/how was the money?

Here's how I see it

Hmmm...my tips:

1) Take risks. There's always a guy selling bulk crap from Thailand or Hong Kong or something...win one of his smaller auctions, and suck up his ugly shipping costs. If you get something good,

2) If you see a seller on Ebay you want to be like, email him as a potential buyer and ask him where he gets his stuff.

3) Easy enough...be good to your bidders and they'll be happy. At the same time, don't take any crap from anyone. You've got rights and Ebay will always side with the seller if they've got the moral highground

4) Ask yourself how much you value your living space...A couple years ago, I lived in half an apartment and moved some bigger, cheaper Ebay stuff. It's not fun having half your place filled with boxes

On that note, sell stuff that's small (cheap to ship is also good) and that you get a decent margin for.

5) Ask yourself how much you value your time...

For example, say you only sell one item a week. And you buy it for $5 then turn around and sell it for $20. Great fun, yes...but if you spent 5 hours buying it, taking the picture, uploading it, writing a cute, little description, watchinig the bidding, responding to emails, packing and shipping, etc....then good god! That' 3 bucks an hour! You might as well get a job at McDonald's or something if you're satisfied with that...

A summer ago, I picked up a huge lot of some small stuff that was selling at double and triple my cost on Ebay. The problem was that there was just so much of it that it would have taken me loads of time to prepare them all for auction...bad for me because I had summer school and it would take too much time away from that to get it all done. I decided that the little bit of time I could use for Ebay was best spent speculating and "watching the markets" and not doing all the "grunt work" involved in auctions

Anyhow, look into "hiring" someone who's competent enough to not screw up but doesn't value their time as much as you do...what I did was get my 12-year-old brother to do it for me...he was out of school and had absolutely nothing to do. Anyhow, I ended up paying him almost $15 an hour to take pictures, catalog everything, and prewrite a description for them...

Yep...that's about all I have...

6) Diversify...sell at least two different types of things...if one market goes cold, you've still got one cash cow to milk while looking for a replacement...

7) Probably most important, *always* be on the lookout for "The next big thing," think carefully when you think you've found it...but once you've decided, don't hesitate!

Ebay buyers are fickle and an item can be hot as hell one month and then be near worthless the next month.

[Edit] Oops...and to answer your original question, $1000 per month is pretty easy...even going half-ass (Which you might be forced into doing...I do it this way because of school...)

You won't become a millionaire on Ebay though it's nice to have a little extra money...

 

[Johnnie]

Time is a big issue....pics...listing auctions...
I fine it easier to "modify" a successful completed auction...using FrontPage.
Like b0mbrmansaid... be good to your customers...try not to charge too much on shipping.
I find that the better Feedback Rating you have...the more potential for a large ending bid....so keep you feedback all positive

 

[DDCSpeed]

NewSc2-

The following is my speculation and what my college professors told me: Use your judgement!

Companys such as Sony, Philips, and etc... do not sell to individuals simply because they dont sell them directly to consumers. The reason behind it is that it would interfere with their distribution channels. Think how companies such as Bestbuys would react to Sony products if Sony sold a lot cheaper to consumers than Bestbuys do.

However, if you do start a company then you may get a hold of their sales representative and work some things out but you probably will not get much of a deal simply because you cannot afford to buy enough inventory up front for them to sell it to you. The more you buy, the cheaper it is for a single unit of product. Also, you do not distribute widely as Bestbuy, Circuit City and etc. so they are unlikely to give you the inventory before hand to sell. Some companies actually just get a percentage of a sale of a product.

Good luck with everything.