eBay powersellers - how can they sell goods so cheap?

I have been searching for some days now. And when I find any item I maybe want to sell, I see eBay Powersellers who are selling them way cheaper. I don't know how they get the item so cheap! Please help.

Hi Petter,

That's the case because eBay Powersellers buy their items in bulk and as a result they can sell their items for very competitive prices. They order huge quantities at a time - i.e. they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a single bulk order and that considerably reduces the price per unit.

By the way what are you interested in selling? We'd love to help you out.

A product with a high profit margin usually means finding a niche market.
One of the best ways of doing this is just by selling some stuff from around the house that you no longer need any more. In the process, you will often stumble across items that sell really well that you would never have otherwise picked!

Hope this helps - Good luck :)

Additionally, many are major retail distributors selling under cloak.

Okei. But is eBay a good place to sell my stuff I have home?

And can you say some items that sells good. I have researched for MANY hours now but can't find any.
Well, I have found iPods, etc. but these electronics and its buyers want warranty, I guess.

Since eBay has allowed huge retailers like Buy.com to start selling it is tougher than ever for a single individual to compete with that kind of pricing power.

But how can I start selling then? If I can't sell.

If your new to eBay I would suggest maybe start off by selling some items from around the house. Shop yard sales and thrift stores for good buys to turn around and resell for a profit. You can also go to these auctions at storage facilities where people don't pay on their unit and they auction off the contents to the highest bidder. By doing this you will get a feel for what sells and what doesn't and then maybe you will want to pursue finding a wholesaler for the products that you have had success with.

But how can I start selling then? If I can't sell.

You can sell, you just can't sell stuff like Ipods and other electronics.

Depends on what it is you sell.

With eBay you have to start with alot of niche items since most retail channels sell all over eBay at wholesale. I would guess they have been doing it since 1999.

Still a good option, if you know how to use that option. You must make your advertisement really stand out and do so carefully.

What I did is created my eBay feed usually took a few hours to do, then I just fed it through my store itself and at my store I made all the sales because all the traffic would go through my store, **THEN** it would go to ebay listings (or craigslist, too)

When that was going full steam it worked instantly. Usually thousands upon thousands of people went through there. Occasionally I still do so but more or less, I do the majority of merchandise through Amazon as well as iOffer and other direct sales channels.

But that is a choice, as again I didn't see much coming from auctions anymore and auctions seem to be an unfriendly environment. You can't sell ANY designer products at auction, really just try it and it turns into a fiasco.

Direct sales yes, the argument could be made that you can VERY easily sell any products which are designer in direct sales. But only APPROVED products, apparently. If it has a logo on it or anything of someone's designer brand, they'll still try to come and take it all down much like ebay does.

It's just alot more ruthless and unapproachable at ebay, because there even design inspired merchandise isn't allowed. At all. Even though this is all technically fine if it doesn't use someone's copyrighted trademark, they don't give anyone that option.

On the other hand, at places like I OFFER and craigslist they fully give you that option and understand all your rights as a store. Or ultimately your rights as a buyer, because whether we like that or not alot of people buy designer inspired goods which might be based off somebody's brand. And it's a giant thriving community.

So selling into that, or just in general selling anything except for computer software(due to copyright cases) is just alot easier at other places then eBay. And probably my first choice would be Godaddy. 1) They have integrity in what they do. 2) They're lenient enough to not infringe on anything you do, so long as its not anything that actually makes legal trouble for them

So that pretty much means you can do whatever you wish & you have the opportunity to sell anything anytime.

Did I mention any payment method is accepted? These are what *ACTUAL* ecommerse is really about, the freedom of choice

Wholesale Joe works for himself, not for anyone else.


I have sold through many different venues. Auction venues like eBay, Bidville, & ubid and also other direct selling venues.

From Amazon, to Clickbank, to I Offer, and Big Ticket Depot and obviously Craigslist.

Working for eBay is not something *anyone* here actually does, I can assure you. The fact of the matter is alot of whole sale joe's merchandise is junk you wouldn't get caught dead with normally.

But it sells great at flea markets. Another place I've sold alot, the classifieds. So everything has a certain place, and a certain strength to it. Everything fits a certain category but in no way does eBay or even ubid dominate that area. In fact they are all opposites of each-other normally good at only 1 thing.

Buying wholesale joe's stuff its alot easier to sell it through craigslist in the end. That's the venue for this, its just cheap but well made cheap junk. eBay doesn't do good with that, craigslist & classified ads do though and I don't know why.

Actually wholesalelist101 is a good site they actually try every site they post. They have even ordered from me. Anyways In conjuncture to what was said before. Its not really people spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for bulk orders.

Ebay has several kinds of sellers.
1. Actual company selling their own in stock products.
2. Bulk sellers that buy their items through liquidations.
3. Drop shippers that never store products.
4. Average home seller

Now out of all these kinds of sellers the most profitable sellers of course buy their items in bulk. I buy items buy the truckload so I can afford to sell items for less because I only pay a percentage of the items retail cost. Very low as much as 10% of its original retail value. I can sell that item for 50% less then retail price and still make a killing on the item.

Now you can get items that are brand new and you choose the item. But the discount varies. If your a big company that can push $120K orders sure. But in reality those people are only getting these items about 10%-15% below retail.

Is this worth it? In my opinion absolutely not. Poor profit margins

Now then you have liquidators. We buy items so far below the retail value that it blows the socks off our competition. Imagine buying a pallet for $600 and making another $600 to $1,000 on it in a week or two. Imagine getting 24 pallets and flipping them in a few months. Thats big money for anyone and your competition is slim because your selling many different things. Your not selling an ipod that has 40,000 similar auctions to compete against.

There are several forms of liquidations:

You have new product inventories.
These are a bit more expensive but they are still avaliable.
You have Store Stock Inventories
These are new items the store stocked but could not sell so they cleared them out. Much better pricing and affordable to even smaller sellers
Then you have customer return liquidations These are mostly open box, Store display and even some damaged products. They are considerably cheaper and generally 80% of the items are perfect for ebay. My personal favorite category. They do require more work then the other 2 noted above but for cost versus selling value there is no comparison. This is the most profitable thing in my mind to sell on ebay.

The choice is yours on how you want to sell online. You can check liquidators and even my site on pallets and even truckloads you may be interested in. My site also has a guide that can teach you about liquidations in more detail.
Its free and I wont charge you anything to read the guide.

Yep when you buy in bulk liquidations that's really the best venue for eBay auctions and Bonanzle auctions & it works really, very well.

Only thing with liquidations that you have to really watch out for is damaged products. When you get them in nice size pallets then you can dig in and just fire off on automatic, but if some of them are damaged you got to be responsible to that of course etc.

And in dropshipping or wholesale to retail selling, that is much more rare. And you have control of the inventory I would say. However it just doesn't work in auctions for some reason. On the other hand it works for all ecommerce sites and if you have big ticket items I just vouch for Big Ticket Depot.

In the end high value items require systematic care relative to the offer and BTD is very good about taking care of all that and letting you own your own merchant account. Affiliate sales are nice yeah but its not as good as having your own place to sell all the high dollar items & let them take care of it. Monthly fees come with most ecommerce sites so that's the trade off.

jimmy_salehoo,

I have seen your Ebay store. And do you sell all your stuff? Or is it sometimes you can't sell it?

Yes most all of my items sell. I do allot of Buy it now auctions and sometimes it takes a few weeks to sell them but they do sell. But at my price. I only run auctions on items I know will generate bids and get more people to my store.

Right now im averaging about 55 Auctions a week with about 40 sales mostly at my prices. There will be items you cant sell, It is the nature of supply and demand and who has the right price. But if you put it at the right price it will eventually sell. I try to get the highest value I can out of each item. If I dont think it will sell well at auction I will make it a buy it now.

For instance. I had some suitcases up a few weeks ago. I had them at a $1.00 starting bid. Note that these units were all in ranges of $250-$399 a UNIT. Mostly designers.

1 Set sold for $35.00
1 Set sold for $19.00
1 Unit sold for $5.65 Very bad on a $350 item.
Now these were test auctions to test the market for them.

I have since listed another 8 sets on ebay all of them with a minimum $59 Price
Up to a $79 Buy it now. In 2 weeks

1 unit sold for $69.99
1 Set sold for $59.99
1 unit sold for $79.99
1 unit sold for $96.00
1 set sold for $59.00
1 Set sold for $49.99

And all remaining sets have as much as 6 watchers.

After knowing how well they sold my next order will have 3 pallets of luggage because I know I can sell them well. Just imagine if I had 100 Sets up per week.

Out of that pallet there were 35 sets. This was also the cheapest pallet avaliable as I was testing to see if I wanted to sell luggage.So far I have made $474 on that pallet. I paid $280 for it.

I have 11 more sets I can list the rest were damaged beyond my ability to repair. But I will still find a way to sell them. Most likely in a bulk lot or as a damaged item sale so someone that can fix it can fix it.

So yes you can sell anything and everything. You just need to be creative and find a way.

some things ive found for people selling really cheap is that some are essentially buying sales. by this i mean that they are keeping or trying to get their powerseller status or simply increasing their feedback statistics. a good example is the 1 cent CD or baseball card with free shipping. now you know that there is absolutely no way to make money on that! same thing applies with higher end products, they just obviously have more money to do it with. another way to make your end of the money is the shipping and handling. make something worth your while to 'handle'. too keep you encouraged, finding something you WANT to sell can be TOUGH. i got in this looking for paintball equipment and still havent found any, BUT, i found 5 other things so far in a week i know will turn a profit... but other than the profit, i have zero interest in them. one more thing.... there is no such thing as the quick buck but there are a lot of fast ones running around out there. be patient, nothings gonna sell for a thousand dollar profit but a thousand of them may make you a dollar each!! im having an absolute BLAST in the chinese markets. ill let you know how it all turns out, ive got about 2 weeks before i start turning any profit and really weigh in on the whole salehoo thing. and like another guy posted, its not all about ebay... craigslist is still pretty good.

Hi Jimmy - my first post in one of your forums!

Just looking at the pallets available and am wondering about ones that have electrical goods - which country are they made for? If I ended up with say some coffee machines that were made for the US market (so US plug, and can only work on 110V etc) I'd probably lose out since selling larger items to the US from Australia is just not economical. I'd usually only sell items like this to my own country - Australia.

Just after your thoughts before I commit to anything :)

Bryan

Hi Jimmy - my first post in one of your forums!

Just looking at the pallets available and am wondering about ones that have electrical goods - which country are they made for? If I ended up with say some coffee machines that were made for the US market (so US plug, and can only work on 110V etc) I'd probably lose out since selling larger items to the US from Australia is just not economical. I'd usually only sell items like this to my own country - Australia.

Just after your thoughts before I commit to anything :)

Bryan

You're better off posting your inquiry in jimmy's feedback thread Bryan, more chance of him seeing it there.

I can answer your question regarding the electrical items on jimmy's pallets, they are US voltage and no good to sell in Oz.

Of course the point is actually mute, as jimmy doesn't actually ship these pallets to Oz.

Cheers

) wow! only another
$19.99 and we'll also show you how to make money$$$$$$$$$
yeah ,good luck..

I can assure you that I am not working for eBay! It's people like you that think people like me and Salehoo are always out to screw you over and take your money. We are here simply trying to provide a service to help people not hurt them. We don't show you how to make money! We simply provide you with the tools to do so.

'I have been searching for some days now. And when I find any item I maybe want to sell, I see ebay powersellers are selling them cheaper. I don't know how they get the item so cheap! Please help'.

Easy don't follow the herd be different sell stuff the others don't for what ever reasons ie low margins who cares . Don't forget most powersellers have been doing it for years so they can afford to big at Liquidatios etc as they have the cash behind them.

That is one reason why liquidated items are much better to sell. You never know what you will get and you will always have something different to sell each pallet. The only research I do it to find the lowest price and beat that price. I don't even pay attention to who is selling what and for how much because I WILL beat that price. I may even price higher and let my highly detailed auctions beat that seller out of a sale.

Jimmy:
In your pallets, it is a lot of junk. So, how can you sell the whole pallet?

This is very interesting for a newcomer. I've sold a number of things on ebay from around the house. What I've noticed is that the items that sell the best are, of course, items that are no longer available in the exact same construction. Examples would be like an older schwinn bike that sold for 100 dollars. Another thing that sold well was an old fish finder I had that I still had the original box for as well as the manual. It sold for nearly what I paid for it new. Sewing machines are easy to sell if you know something about them. I buy them when I can for 10-15 dollars and clean them and sell them for 50-80 dollars on ebay. You can't find a steady supply of this stuff though.

bashmaki

Bashmaki you have got it my friend! You are going to make a lot more money doing what your doing right now rather than trying to sell today's hottest electronics. When I first got started in eBay and when I had more time on my hands I would go to some of these auctions at these storage units. They would auction the contents inside off because the renter would stop paying the bill each month. I could usually make $500 and up profit easily. I would also shop around at some of the yard sales on Saturday mornings. If you go early you can usually find some deals to turn around and resell for a nice profit. Ones mans junk is another mans treasure! Keep up the good work!

The trouble is;I don't have any time on my hands either. I would like to find some way to make some money on line but ebay sure isn't it. I'm not a large enough fish for that.
If I could just find a drop shipper that would ship for a reasonable price I'd be happy trying to sell from a web site until I can buy larger lots. Trouble is; most people with a drop ship program want to sell to you at retail prices.

Bashmaki

Yes, dropshipping just does not work well on eBay. Have you tried buying liquidated merchandise or wholesale and shipping the items yourself. I know this can be a hassle but if you just print the postage at home from your computer it's not that bad. I print the shipping labels at home, get free boxes sent to me from the US Postal Service, and find items like bubble wrap for free from some of the local retail stores. The only thing I have to pay for is tape. The US Postal Service will even come and pick up your packages so you don't have to make a trip to the post office every day.

Yes, dropshipping just does not work well on eBay. Have you tried buying liquidated merchandise or wholesale and shipping the items yourself. I know this can be a hassle but if you just print the postage at home from your computer it's not that bad. I print the shipping labels at home, get free boxes sent to me from the US Postal Service, and find items like bubble wrap for free from some of the local retail stores. The only thing I have to pay for is tape. The US Postal Service will even come and pick up your packages so you don't have to make a trip to the post office every day.

I was wondering about which retailers give out free bubble wrap? I always find that my expenses for supplies are bubble wrap and tape. Thanks

I usually get the receiver at Wal-Mart to save the bubble wrap and packing peanuts for me and I go by and pick them up. Some will do it and some want. It helps if you know someone that works there. The back door receiver gets in packages from UPS and FedEx each day at Wal-Mart and these boxes usually contain bubble wrap and foam peanuts that they just trash.

Jimmy:
In your pallets, it is a lot of junk. So, how can you sell the whole pallet?

One mans junk as you say is another's treasure. It does not matter if the item is brand new or damaged I can still sell it. If the broken item has a part on it that can be sold. Ill list that part. If the item can be sold as a damaged item to someone it can be sold. One of the biggest mistakes people can make selling liquidations is not to sell the damaged or items they consider worthless. If you only sell what in your mind is good you will never profit in this business. Thus you don't belong.

I did this once. Tossed all the items I thought were junk into a pallet in the corner of my warehouse. But one day I got smart and decided to sell all the stuff in that pallet. I ended up making around $1800 on the items I thought were junk

I sold a ton of damaged items and got surprising results.

Damaged blenders $17 and up
Damaged bags $10 and up
Coats and clothes with damaged zippers $15 and up to $150 and up
Damaged sporting goods $5 up to $110
Nasty burned all clads as much a $100
Pots and pans with dings dents and chipped enamel as much as $90

Also with items lets say you have a piece that goes to a unit. They don't normally sell these pieces online. Like the top to a blender. You can pretty much name your price. I had a few broken blenders I sold the tops of those units for $25 each

Power cords as much as $12.50 each.

You dont have to list them at $1.00 . list them for your price and when someone comes along looking for that part they will buy it because they cant find that item anywhere else. They would rather buy the part then a whole new unit.

If you get big into liquidations you will hold everything you dont want to sell on the side. And your next pallet may have the same item that can complete your set.

I had a cappuccino machine that was missing the water tank and all the cups and stainless steel items. It worked but without those accessories The unit was useless. So I stored it. A month later I came across the same machine that had all those accessories but the unit would not power on. So I completed the set. And sold it for $130 on eBay. Then a few months later my cousin came into the warehouse and repaired the unit that would not power on. It was just a loose wire connected to the power switch.

We recently had a Cuisinart Microwave all stainless steel that would not power on. Same problem loose wires and the door was bent a little so the unit would not start. We fixed it within a half hour and now the unit works perfect.

It not hard and any moron can do it. You dont need a degree or a ton of technical experience. Some items can even be fixed by accident. Im no electrician and I have fixed a ton of damaged items just by looking into them.

Not every single pallet is profitable. You may get a bad pallet. But the majority are very profitable. And in the long run you can make very good money in this field.You get exactly what you put into this business. And this business pays off very nicely if you do it right.

I was wondering about which retailers give out free bubble wrap? I always find that my expenses for supplies are bubble wrap and tape. Thanks

Yes this can get very expensive. I personally goto SamsClub myself and get most of my boxes. But I still spend thousands each year on bubble wrap, tape and 19x19x23 boxes.

Hitting up the retailers is the best way. Go in at night when they are stocking and hit them up. Tell them you will take all their boxes they are using. Most will let you.

This is entirely subjective and depends on the situation, circumstances and also stock.

Jimmy knows the best and most accepted method which is to buy in bulk, normally when someone discontinues or stops something they always sell and give away their bulk stock packages. The excess inventory is perfect.

I buy all my bulk off of Ebay , you just gotta find niche's - like deadstock items or vintage items .. I have bought lots of used vintage jeans for $10 and under and flipped for $100-300 .. you got to study what you want to sell it takes time and alot of effort .. but i can spot a pair of vintage 70's Levis from a mile away as can many other ebayers -lol

I still buy bulk on ebay when the price is good. Its not easy sometimes as the deals are great for the people that know the real value of a bulk lot. But ebay still has its benefits. Never count ebay bulk lots out.

Great forum everone.My 1st comment here. eBay's "Powerseller" and Top-Rated seller" programs are a joke! And yes, their fees just keep climbing. I lost both in the Powerseller and Top Rated Seller in same month, this is my 10th year on eBay.Looking to sell someplace else.eBay's fees OMG! Sold 94 items, mostly video game / accessory "eBays fees almost $400.00 no profit! I did better selling 20 -30 items. Lost soul....

Great forum everone.My 1st comment here. eBay's "Powerseller" and Top-Rated seller" programs are a joke! And yes, their fees just keep climbing. I lost both in the Powerseller and Top Rated Seller in same month, this is my 10th year on eBay.Looking to sell someplace else.eBay's fees OMG! Sold 94 items, mostly video game / accessory "eBays fees almost $400.00 no profit! I did better selling 20 -30 items. Lost soul....

Welcome Cancer7328 :)

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Cheers

Thanks for sharing, I have learn alot here.