How are sellers on eBay making a profit selling well below retail and supposedly wholesale prices?

Many wholesalers on here claim to be selling their fragrances at "wholesale prices" but when I check their prices they are just selling them at the retail prices. Let's take this fragrance for example Armani Acqua di Gio 3.4oz suggested retail price is normally around $70 to$60, on sale $ 50 to $40. The wholesalers are offering them at $40 to $60. On Ebay they are going for $35 and they are the authentic. So can someone please explain to me how these people on ebay are making a profit selling well below retail and supposedly wholesale price?? I would appreciate it if someone recommended a site or possibly a method.

[quote]Many wholesalers on here claim to be selling their fragrances at "wholesale prices" but when I check their prices they are just selling them at the retail prices. Let's take this fragrance for example Armani Acqua di Gio 3.4oz suggested retail price is normally around $70 to$60, on sale $ 50 to $40. The wholesalers are offering them at $40 to $60. On Ebay they are going for $35 and they are the authentic. So can someone please explain to me how these people on ebay are making a profit selling well below retail and supposedly wholesale price?? I would appreciate it if someone recommended a site or possibly a method.[/quote]

My first thought is there are two reasons for this. One, licensed dealers are offloading product based on a slowing of sales. Perfumes can be a finicky market and can change on a whim. SO many times though a product is still the rage, sales may be slipping as anyone thats going to buy it, has, or is about to so to get rid of product it gets offloaded on eBay.

And of course, the other is that fake perfume is being sold on eBay which is pretty common.

Yeah, Planes has covered that pretty well.

Liquidated products are always flooding the eBay market, and of course they will always be cheaper than wholesale. As Planes also pointed out, eBay is flooded with fakes, and this genre is a well known hot spot.

Other factors to consider is the volume that sellers are buying in from wholesalers. What size order were those wholesale prices you gave based on? Then of course you have wholesalers themselves using eBay as a market place, so they will always have the advantage over a retailer.

@Valdivia2137,

I echo what has been said already regarding this issue. When I worked at eBay, I managed the accounts of 218 of the top 1% of eBay sellers, those who were generating at least $25,000 a month or more in sales on eBay.

Every single one of those 218 sellers purchased their products in large wholesale lots (usually $100,000 worth of products or more at a time), and that enabled them to sell the products at extremely low prices on eBay. The only way to compete against those prices is to buy your products in volume like they do, unfortunately. The more products you buy up front, the cheaper the price per item in most cases.

The good news, however, is that although there are many, many products on eBay in which this is the case, there are just as many if not more products in which this is NOT the case, and in which there is a lot of room for competition. I suggest staying away from the more high-profile categories like designer fragrances (along with electronics, computers, video game systems, cameras, cell phones, designer handbags, etc.) and focusing on less-popular products and categories. Less popular doesn't mean unpopular, after all. Categories with fewer buyers almost always have fewer sellers, too, making it easier for you to compete.

Thanks for all the valuable information, all of you been very helpful.

Very welcome, glad it was beneficial for you :)