ebay sales

I have been an ebay power seller and a website owner for many years. Here is some advice, though not everyone will agree.

Many people have made large somes of money on ebay, some from hard work and great products, others looking to cash in and sell fakes,junk, lies, etc.

1. Things to stay away from: Products with small value under say 40.00, unless the product is in high demand.
2. Things that have too small a profit margin, this will depend on the product selling amount. If you sell something for 40.00 and have a margin of 10.00, you will loose money, if you have to relist it.
3. things that are not in demand. I use market research to make decisions on product, I use Terapeak, but it cost money every month, sign up for one month and get your info and then get off.

4. products that have alot of other sellers selling the exact same item.
5. selling with no pictures.

Important:

Real wholesale prices are generally 33% to 66% in the real world.
If you have to list an item on ebay more than once, then you will loose money. keep in mind that relisting items, warranty returns, and paypal, ebay fees cost money. You will experience all of it.

Are there real wholesalers on the net? A: YES, will you have access to them? A: maybe, but not through drop shippers and other website that promise wholesale prices. Real wholesaler don't sell to individuals and require you to purchase large amounts of product and you must prove you are a business in long standing. Here is a list of real wholesalers, that won't sell to you if you don't meet the above criteria. Tally electronics, tescco electronics, DBK electronics, coast wholesale, epic.

I could list hundreds of these places but it won't help you.

Things you can do.

You must learn to take quality pictures of your product. I have a product I sell, and I sell it for more than anyone else on ebay. How do I sell the same product as everyone else on ebay and sell it for more? MY PICTURE is the best picture of the product, I spent two hours photographing it and choosing the best pic.

You can find a niche market to sell in, one that very little other people sell, but your profit margins must be high, becuase you are going to relist the item several times before it sells.

Createing your 'own product' sells well. DO NOT copy other peoples work, you will be waisting your time.

What markets do well? Womens clothing, electronics, radio communications, jewelry, watches, toys, cars, real estate. Keep in mind that some of these items requires knowledge to really sell well.

Good example of some people not knowing what they are doing, Playstation 3 game console. So many people went to walmart and bought these units to sell on ebay, once the product demand was gone on ebay, you could purchase one for 100.00 below retial within 30 days, I did. This means that some people were stuck with PS3 consoles that could not sell them, becuase there was too much competition. They're loss my gain. They are now agian selling.

Buying product on ebay and reselling in most cases is a waist of time, too small a margin by the time your done.

The people that have the most success, are buying product locally and selling nationally. Go to your local merchants and find products that are unique to your area and negotiate with the merchant and sell those products on ebay, this is how allot of power sellers are made. If it was easy everyone would be rich. I two individuals that do this and make they're whole income fromt this. Good example; Antiques are in abundance in the midwest, but not on the west coast. Buy local antiques and sell them on ebay. Two important issues here, small initial cost, the value is not set buy competitors, and selling the product to californians, makes alot more money.

How do I make money? well that took years of hard work and networking websites and advertising as well as ebay. But not one of these things would have worked by themselves.

You can use other auction sites to buy from and resell on ebay, but you must really watch what you are buying. Keep in mind this very important fact; just becuase you see something listed on ebay for 100.00 does not mean it will sell. That is why using Terapeak is important, you can see what sells and what they really sell for, not just what they are listed for.

Last little note; Products from China are not going to make you rich. THINK ABOUT IT, where do all the products come from that are in demand? USA, CANADA, JAPAN, NOT CHINA. CHina is not a creator, but rather a copier. The only products they originate, is generally in the clothing based industry and they do not take the lead there either. You can for example buy silk scarf for a good price, an resell it, but for how much, NOT much becuase it is not a branded product. So why bother. I saw a earlier article on this website that mentioned china and what you could purchase and make money with, I don't remember the link, but it was fairly accurate.

Become a real business develop business relationships with real business and wholesalers. Find a local shop and help them sell there product on ebay. Once you have established yourself as a real business, then real wholesalers will sell to you. One of my wholesalers that I deal with through my retail business told me that if your only business is ebay, they will never sell to you.

Wholesalers just like manufacturers are looking to develop long term customer relationships, this usually means avoidance of the internet. Although this is changing, I think you will find it necessary to develope a real business all the same.

One last thing; open an ebay store and put all your product in the store. After 30 days the store will be linked back to the search engines and you will make sales without having to run ads on ebay. I have done this for along time. You won't sell as much, but you will sell for lower costs. An ebay store costs about 15.00 per month.

Sorry about the long post, but I was sick and tired of not seeing any real ebay related help for sellers.

Steve

Very good article thanks for the info

We have been in the swimming pool business for about 20 years and we still can't compete with ebay prices. The reason is because
We are a dealer and we buy from the supplier, the supplier buys from the manufacturer, and the manufacturer won't sell to a dealer. We buy about $50,000 a year from this particular manufacturer through the supplier.
But the manufacturer or the supplier is selling on ebay for the same price that I buy for or less even though they swear they don't.
exsample- I wanted to sell an item that I can get for $9.99 and it was selling on ebay for $6.99. I called the manufacturer and they said that no matter how many you buy the lowest price per item is $8.99. If it was only one or two item selling I would say it could be a dealers kickbacks. Don't get me wrong, not all items are like this. Just a couple particular ones.

So for all of you that started selling yesterday and are disappointed that you haven't found items for $5 and selling for $25, we can't do it after 20 some years with the same supplier. I am only speaking for my line of business.

Please do not ask what or where my store is, I can't have customers coming in wanting ebay prices on my supplies.

I have seen other members with good help for sellers also......It should be known to get the best deals you need a store front -when you have a store front wholesalers and distributors come to you usually- sometimes that is even hard - i tried to open up a sporting goods store a year ago and the main products i wanted to sell the manufatures wouldnt sell as they said there was too many delaers in the area and they didnt care how much i bought.

Yeh we have a storefront superstore in my hometown and it's still tough. Most of our profit comes from building pools and chemical sales. That's another thing, I would like to sell pool cemicals but shipping chemicals is too expensive now. If anyone has any suggestions shipping chlorine and other chemicals, please let me know.

One thing to note; the internet has really changed the retial business, it is causing prices to drop until retail stores can't compete. Some wholesalers are selling online as well. Between the two things, you are going to find it hard to make real margins on ebay. You must really do your research. One of the above posts, mentioned wholesaler comming to him, this is true, however many of them are not worth the time to deal with.

As a retailer, I have had reputable wholesalers tell me that you can't buy product for less, No Matter How many you buy, but they are not telling the truth. Wholesale representatives are not always aware that the corporation is selling to some high end vendors for less. I have seen this before. I deal with Kenwood and Motorola just to mention a couple of manufacturers, and they will do pretty much anything to sell product including selling direct to the customer.

General retail wholesalers won't do this becuase they know it will kill the market for there product and most wholesalers don't want the headache of dealing with thousands of phone calls and warranty issues.

Storefronts, ebay store, amazon store, your own website, become a partner with google, nextag, shopping.com.

This will help sell your product. In fact I sell my products for more, using generic websites and search engines, than I do on ebay.

If you are genuinely interested in making money on the net, you must put real time into it, do the research. Find the right vendor and product, with the right margins. You will eventually make money.

One problem with the net, can be trends. You spend alot of time and money finding that right product and then the prices start falling below where you can make a profit. This is a common occurance.


Again; the best options are selling local product online, and or develop your own product.

One thing I will mention here, but it is time consuming. I was buying products from liquidation.com and from Bidz.com and reselling them on ebay. I made some money. I didn't get rich, but it works.

YOU MUST TAKE YOUR TIME. You may have to wait for weeks to find the best deal. Don't just assume you can make money becuase you bought the product for a reasonable price. DO the research, Use Terapeak to find what products are really selling for and which products are sellling or not selling. Then go to liquadation or bidz.com and wait for the right buy.

If you are in a hurry or get caught up in bidding, YOU WILL LOOSE MONEY....

Steve

Thanks for the great post. All of it is informative. There is only 1 part which I disagree with you partially.

2. Things that have too small a profit margin, this will depend on the product selling amount. If you sell something for 40.00 and have a margin of 10.00, you will loose money, if you have to relist it.

This is only true if your a new seller that doesnt have a high feedback rating. Or experience in managing finances while selling low profit items.

Small value items on ebay are one of the prime money makers for many people. 2.00 to $4.00 profit on an item is decent. But of course you have to sell alot of them. At least a few hundred a month to make good money.

I for a rule sell small value items only. And I still make good money. Im not rich {far from that} But I definately dont worry about money anymore. Unless my wife steals my credit card and goes to the mall :D


But To avoid getting beat up I play it smart. I generally run over 1100 auctions a month just on ebay selling on average 590 of those items either individually or in lots.

All my items dont have gallery unless its a high value item. I only relist the Item 1 time then if it doesnt sell, I put it in a seperate box and keep the items in my ebay store. And collect 50 or more items that didnt sell after 1 relist. I then sell them in a bulk lot still making profit over what I originally paid plus listing fees and generally loose nothing.

I pay over 500 in listing fees each month but me and my wife have pretty much covered our end so we havent taken any losses.

One of the markets Im in is dvd's I pay way less then most people do because I run ad's to get them from people in my local area. Most of them I can get from 50 Cents to 2 dollars. The only time I buy from ebay is when My stock drops below 200. Which is only once every few months. But even then I still profit on them by playing it smart.

You cant knock the small profit items because 65% of the top ebay powersellers sell only items that bring in less then $10 a sale. And 7 of them a multimillionares.

Take jayandmarie. They only sell music cd's and some dvd movies. They sell 35,000 items a month on average. Plus they were the original creaters of the 1 cent auctions.

The money isnt in just high dollar items. It seems that everyone wants to believe that but the high dollar items are hard to aquire when 90 percent of new sellers are searching for them. And too many And most people wont even bother with trying to haggle a good price.

Then they get scammed, ripped off and screwed over. Then the high dollar items they were selling also brings them high dollar listing fees and paypal transaction fees. Which they never considered when they made the initial purchase of the items.

Now if you can move away from ebay with these items you can fare very well if you research properly. And create a website do a good amount of advertizing for it.

One thing I strongly agree with you on is the pictures. There are too many crap sellers out there selling stuff with poor pictures.

I display my pictures in the highest resolution possible. I use a tripod so there is absolutely no blur in my pictures and I take several pictures of my product using the best lighting possible for a very crisp image. And I upload them to photobucket not ebay. Many sellers pay for an ebay picture account which is a joke. When photobucket accounts are free and you can host thousands of pictures for nothing.

Plus the look of your listing matters big time on how you sell your items. Never go off topic. Stick with the item in hand. The bidder is not interested in what else you have. They are interested in the auction that they are visiting.

Be extremely detailed in your descriptions so they dont have to ask questions about the item. Even create your own F.A.Q if you sell alot of the same item. Also if you sell an item that is high in demand and not very many other sellers are selling. Dont flood the listings or you will be screwing yourself out of your profits.

Example. I currently sell in a nich market on 1 item. You cant find this item online for the price I can get it. {I pay retail price for this item}I buy them by the case and theres 40 of them to a case.

I made a deal with my local retailer to buy me cases and hold them. I sell the item for $17.00 on average above retail. And close about 25 of these items a week.

I once put 9 of them on for the same day about 1 hour apart. They all sold for only 3 dollars more then I payed for them. Because I actually put more of an avaliable supply up and people didnt bid as high because they knew they had another chance at one of my other auctions.


All this leads to is if you learn to do it you can pretty much make money in either field wheather it be high margin items or low margin items. But you have to be smart and learn from your own mistakes.

I have a registered business and I do occasionally use my business to make purchases from places like dbldistributing and evertek when I find some good deals on items.

I think that every ebay seller that is serious about making money needs to be registered. That way if a big deal comes along you can jump on the bandwagon and not be missing in action because you were too lazy to spend 2 hours to fill out forms and get registered.


Just as stmiller42 said to fully maximize your profits you need a storefront. Ebay stores are good but you can make more and generally mark up your items better if you have your own website. And even your own retail shop.

Selling other peoples items can be profitable. And many make a fortune doing it. But Its something I wont personally do because I dont want to have my own shop. I do this work online primarily for my kids. And I dont want to spend much time away from them.

Thanks for the great info stmiller42.

Good response, it will be helpful for many. I believe what you are saying is correct, however, my statment was meant for those new people who will not have the expertise to sell like you can.

If you have a product that sells virtually all the time, then you can do as you said. I have items, that I do the exact same thing with, list it twice, and if it does not sell, put it into my ebay store.

I did not reread my statment, but I believe I was refering to items that may not sell well. If you end up with an ebay store full of items that don't sell, it really doesn't change the fact you have a lost investment. In the end analysis, I would agree with you, as long as the person doing the buying, knows what they are doing.

What suprises me, is that you can sell enough DVD or CD's to make money. ebay, paypal fees vs. customer demand for a particular CD since most people are looking for a particular CD or DVD, would be difficult to make money with.

One thing to keep in mind. Power Sellers have a large advantage of other sellers, you may have forgotten,, or maybe you never experienced it, but ebay sends you more business, as a power seller, and usually you have more links to your websites by then.

Most people 'starting out' won't have these advantages. I know the instant I became a power seller, I started selling more product in my ebay store.

You are also correct about high end product, but the same thing holds true for the high end product as it does for low end product,
you must know what to buy and where.

I know some sellers that have thousands of feedback from selling low end items, where the only money they really make is on the shipping. ex; buy a pencil for .01 sell it for .01 and charge 3.00 shipping, and shipping cost you .50 cents. I see hundreds of ebayers doing this, does this mean they made money? NO, why

ebay and paypal fees is one reason. But usually the reason is that you have put the price of the pencil with shipping at a higher rate than you can buy it for in the store. So it does not sell well.

Just becuase people sell really low on ebay, does not mean they make money. I want to get back to the feedback thing for a moment. There are literally thousands of ebay sellers who have thousands of feedback, you would think that this means they made money, but did they? If you sell an item for 2.00 dollars and you have sold 2000.00 of them, you have made 4000.00 dollars. this person will probably have 1000 feedbacks or more. However, the time it takes to list ads on ebay, ship product, recieve product for sale, buy product, and deal with customer issues, does this make this worth it? NOT FOR ME. this would have cost me about 5 hours a day to do, and I already work a full time job making 90,000 a year, why would I do this?

But to put this into perspective, anytime I have seen people with thousands of feedbacks, selling small cost items, you will see that they have been ebay members for 5 years or more, that means that they made they're 4000.00 over a 5 year period, this to me is a waist of time and energy. I could make this much working another job at walmart.


I will post more information for new sellers as I get good information, I don't have alot of time, but I will do what I can. Hopefully the discussions helps your client base develop a since of
purpose when looking into ebay, website sales, or other internet options.


One more note: I did not mention something that is fairly important;

Finding a product you can sell over and over agian is the best way to make easy money. Why' becuase you don't have to reproduce new ads, which take alot of time. When I mentioned finding local product to sell, this is a drawback. That is why I wanted people to stay away from small margins. Becuase everytime you write a new ad, you just made it cost alot of time, not worth it.

If you sell local items, you may want to find higher resale value items, becuase you will be writing new ads for every one of them.

One way to avoid this, it create a template that will work well for any item and then make the description area of the ad easily changeable.

Well, enough said, Thanks for the input and will post something later.

Thanks

Steve

I am purely attempting to give people a perspective on what to avoid. The pitfalls of ebay.

If your making money selling CD or DVD's then you are a better seller than I am, or you have a better source than most.

DBL distributing requires you to have a business and three business credit contacts, most new commers won't have this for years to come. They also require good credit and they require that you have a full blown website, not ebay. Besides DBL prices aren't all that great. Sometimes they will have a great price on something, but it rarely beats ebay pricing. Evertek, is one I am not familiar with, I will check them out. Unless it is the Computer Power supply corporation you are refering to.

When you own a business with a store front most of the distributors will have reps and eventually send them to you to try and sell their products - when i owned a sports card shop i had reps calling or coming by every day - same thing i owned a real estate and mortgage company for 8 years(not retail) but still had every rep you can think of call and come buy to sell everything from office products to office equipment ,furniture,phone systems , pens , papers ,printers , fax machines ,sign companys etc and all these distributors sold cheaper than i could get locally -my experience is you need to be in business a year and be in the yellow pages -there are alot of scammers also so be carefull................BUt one thing many have said on here and it is true EBAY IS THE BEST WHOLESALER you will find .i am still negotiating to buy out part of a sporting goods stores supplys that i found on ebay mostly baseball stuff as spring training is about to start and i live in florida and these items will sell locally and on ebay as bought a sample run of 2500 items and placed 23 of them on ebay friday .i paid $2 an items have bids on half and 3 are already up to $16 each ....If YOU TAKE YOUR TIME AND BUY IN LARGE ENOUGH BULK YOU WILL GET GREAT DEALS ON EBAY not everyday or maybe even every week but i always seem to find something every week or 2 but i spend about 2-4 hours a day and have a system of how to search the items if not you just type in WHOLESALE OR LOT you will get 100's of thousands of listings ...Another good point is as the poster said is buy for long term - the sporting goods i am looking to buy i should make between 20-40k but it will take 12-24 months..ths solar lights i bought off lq.com i shoudl make 3-5 k but will take probaly 6-12 months ...you have to good money-time and patience and than it is still even difficult .

Just to answer your last question. Link hidden: Login to view

What suprises me, is that you can sell enough DVD or CD's to make money. ebay, paypal fees vs. customer demand for a particular CD since most people are looking for a particular CD or DVD, would be difficult to make money with.

Answer:' If your stuff isnt selling. Get rid of them fast thats where lots can help you from loosing money'
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Alot of buyers will have to decide what they want to sell and learn from mistakes before they actually get the hang of it. Most small value items can sell if they find a suitable market for the product. Ive seen things from baby wipes to can openers making people alot of money. But the seller will in the end decide what they want to sell.

The only thing we can do is have discussions like these to help them the best we can with our own experiences. It might owrk well for us but can be a disaster for others.
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You asked about how dvd's can be profitable. I sell dvd's as one of my money making products.
Also dvd's are not the only items we sell but it is an item we sell very quickly and in hard numbers. We also use offsite advertising like google keywords to bring people to our store and we flood many forums with our store ad's which brings alot of offsite visitors to our ebay store.

Now im not sure what factors in my sales because I have so many different techiniques from listings and guarantees that gets me alot of repeat buyers and many multiple item sales at a higher price then most new and some experinced sellers. {im not going to state them to the open public though lol}

The way im setup with purchasing and paying fees:

If I average 500 dvd sales a month thats a good $1500 a month to $3,000 a month for me and my wife for about 65-80 hours work per month. As my profit per item ranges from $2.00 to $7.00 per item based on its closing price.

2006 starting in august we averaged about 1k a month in profits from sales. Not huge but it gave us 1 grand in play money every month.

Last year we averaged 190 sales in dvd's and 4-5 dvd lots each month. Which gave us our powerseller status because they sold for several hundred each lot.

We had bigger plans for 2007:
We just boosted our listing and sales 2 weeks ago. as we took a break from november to feb 9th. Collecting up a massive stock of movies in the process. We currently have 1800 titles sitting in our den And I think were buying more then we are selling lol.

So far In 2 weeks we have sold 320 items and 11 dvd lots, Selling totals of $980 And shipping totals we charged at $1840. Expenditures of $790. Making the dvd's our most profitable selling line for 2007. If this keeps up I might drop a product line so I have more time for movies.

What a seller does on a particular product is also based on how much time and effort in the product. Lets say this person that had over 1600 feedback only sold a few hundred items a year. Whenever they could find the items to sell. But was not that serious.
Also what if that seller started his account in 2000 but did not start seriously selling untill late 2006. There is no way you can just look at that sellers feedback and know whats really going on and make a judgement on what he/she makes each year.


Not to mention the countless ebayers that dont leave feedback.
I have over 1900 sales and growing fast on my dvd sellers account
Im almost to 1000 in total feedback. almost 50% have not left me feedback. Right now My ebay says Im waiting on 149 feedbacks in the last 90 days. Before I went on break I was waiting for 600 feedbacks.

I started my account in 2004. By may 2006 I had 27 feedback because I was experimenting with ways to make money and loosing a ton. I did not seriously start selling untill I think july of 2006. We closed 760 dvd auctions and probably 20 lots of 50-100 last year with winning bidders, from july to mid november.

So if we looked at my feedback rating and it shows 960 total feedbacks recieved but not the actuall amount of sales. Lets say you would guess I made 3 each sale. If you looked at it by my join date I would have only made $2,880 in 3 years. Even though my selling spree was only for 4 months out of those 3 years.


We brought in a estimated profit amount after expenses except for gas of around $5200 in 4 months.

And thats just on the dvd's, We started new accounts and
began selling clothes and fitness products in october one of the reasons we took a 3 month break from dvd's. They have been marginally profitable. But harder to sell alot of them due to the time required to generate a listing. Eg pictures, uploading,individual items descriptions and other things. More profit per lot but more work per listing.

Im not trying to knock anyones very informal posts. But New ebayers cannot afford to risk larger sums of monay on product to sell. Small items are the best for an inexperienced seller because if they screw up the loss is just marginal. And not complete bankruptsy.

I definately agree on selling just 1 item that makes you money. I recently found an item very high in demand in the fitness accessory field. And pay 7.00 for 1 item and sell it repeatedly for 20-27 each.
I pay full retail price for that item too lol.


They will have to find thier own selling style and ways to promote thier stores to make profits. There is nothing that can beat bargain hunting. Buying for pennies on the dollar and selling huge. But you gotta think 'start Small' And work your way up from there. :D

Oh just a note for those that are interested. In signing up for a account with dbldistributing.

A trick I use.
I dont have a physical business address/storefront.

I work out of my home.

So I use my parents address as a mailing address but have my mail forwarded to a P.O box. And use my home address as a Business/storefront address :D

Jimmy i noticed on your ebay store that you sold accessories for the slendertone-flex. Where do you purchase these, and do you know of wholesellers who sell the slendertone-flex belt? I can understand if you dont wish to tell me, but I had thought of the idea, just cant find a wholesale source for them..thanks

Oh just a note for those that are interested. In signing up for a account with dbldistributing.

A trick I use.
I dont have a physical business address/storefront.

I work out of my home.

So I use my parents address as a mailing address but have my mail forwarded to a P.O box. And use my home address as a Business/storefront address :D

How do you get around the fact, that DBL requires business references for credit, they don't take personal credit as a reference?

Good post, thanks. I agree, if your new starting out small is critical until you know what your doing, but every product sale requires different knowledge and advertising.

Sounds like you have done a good job with your dvd sales, congradulations.

As far as the feedback, I was taking into consideration that people don't leave feedback. My return feedback is probably higher than most, because my after sale correspondence with the buyer is extensive. I improve feedback response becuase of it.

Jimmy???

I have talked to several people who claim they buy something retail and sell it on ebay and still make profit. I have yet to understand how this is done. I know that it is likely to happen in a niche market, maybe, but I am curious, is there one particular reason an item is cheaper in the store, than on ebay???

One person I know, does this at christmas time, becuase there will be a large demand on product internationally than locally, which allows him to buy it in quantity in the local store and sell on ebay. PS3' are an example of this, or TX elmos, but aside from those special circumstances, is there some criteria, that makes product cheaper in the store than on the net??? You obviously were looking for this particular product, so I am wondering what specific criteria you are looking for, other than cost???


Thanks


Steve

Jimmy i noticed on your ebay store that you sold accessories for the slendertone-flex. Where do you purchase these, and do you know of wholesellers who sell the slendertone-flex belt? I can understand if you dont wish to tell me, but I had thought of the idea, just cant find a wholesale source for them..thanks

I buy the accessories from playitagain sports. I have a deal with them to purchase cases at a time. I can make about 2-3 bucks on them each. But thier not a high profit item. The slendertone belt isnt very profitable at all. I dont know how these sellers are selling them for 80 a piece and making any money.

One of the managers of that store gets them for me at his cost. My Sisters Husband =)

As far as the belts themselves the lowest he can get them for is $112 not profitable enough to sell. Id actually loose a ton even trying.

I also have a deal with vitaworld to purchase fitness suppliments and other accessories. They are a small business that is located here locally. They are friends of my wife, and go to the same church as us.

Jimmy???

I have talked to several people who claim they buy something retail and sell it on ebay and still make profit. I have yet to understand how this is done. I know that it is likely to happen in a niche market, maybe, but I am curious, is there one particular reason an item is cheaper in the store, than on ebay???

It was just something I stumbled upon while actually looking for the item for myself and my wife. The retail outlet that sold the stuff to us ran out. So I went online to look for it. And could not find it. Then I went to ebay and only found 1 and it sold for a price that was just unbelievable to me. I decided to wait. Then when our supplier got more I bought 4 and listed 2 on ebay. 1 sold for 20 bucks more then I paid for it and another sold for about 17 more.

Well I now get them from 3 different stores. Wish I could get them by the case but I dont want the retailers to know what i intend to do with them. I buy every one they have as soon as they come in. I know its not going to be a huge money maker but heck a couple hundred extra a week and some easy sells I cant pass up. I try my hardest not to let the retailers know what Im doing with them. Dont want them to start selling them online and beat me out of possible profits. Funny thing is the account Im using to sell them has less then 30 feedbacks and is still generating at least 20 bids with a 1 cent starting bid.

Im assuming its just like what I am doing. This is an untouched field online. A product that nobody online sells. And its still wanted by consumers and several of thier local outlets dont sell them anymore. I searched for an hour to find this item online and could not find one company online that sold the item. But there are many that need this item and are willing to pay to get it. So untill more supply comes in.

I have bought alot of movies retail from walmart and flipped for a profit of $3-4 back on ebay along with some dollar store items and nutrition supplements i have found at BIG LOTS STORE .

I started selling Trading Cards made only like 50 bucks a week but for a 14 year old at that time it wasnt bad. Then started to sell Lacoste shirts it went incredably well until I reliase they were fakes and I just stopped with that money I invest in small things like Sim Cards, Trading Cards, and Toys they only bring about 2.00 bucks each after all the fees but I sell a couple of them a week and its pretty good to make extra money.

Currently I want to open a Smc store with my account altought I have heard some bad things they never failed me and I see a couple of stores selling about 300-400 items a month thats atleast 600 bucks profit a month not bad. I will open my store with in a few months until i can get my POWERSELLER status back know think about this Im a 16 year old kid making atleast 500 bucks a month profit not so bad when you think about it this is EXTRA CASH and if they can why cant I.

Current Month of Febuary
Sold: Quantity: 56 Amount: $907.00
(Current month (Feb))

Dont go with why end Electronic they will not work you will have to get them atleast 30% off pretty impossible if you ask me.Now think about it eBay has just about everything under 10% off retail then between eBay and Paypal thats 10% of fees so right there you have to get a product 20% below retail to just break even wheres your profit.

How do you get around the fact, that DBL requires business references for credit, they don't take personal credit as a reference?

I dont, I dont use credit. I purchase items individually. You dont have to sign the credit app unless you want them to extend credit to you.

You can pay by credit card on items you want. But they will charge you to setup a dropship account and verify your address. That is why they want buisness address information. Thier courier actually verifies the existing address for them.

I pay by credit card. Heck its not that hard to have an account with them. They make it look hard but they dont care as much as they act.
My next door neighbor has an account with them and hes a complete idiot. He has a registered buisness as a Car accessory installer but He has no business or storefront. He buys for personal use only.

Jimmy , i hope you neighbor doesnt read this forum - LOL

Thanks for the response.

That has been the theme from alot of sellers on ebay, they have someone, or know someone, or have access to alot of a product through there jobs. Buying from a local business and reselling seems to be a common theme.

Its funny I run a large business, in the radio industry and we sell millions of dollars in radio equipment, but I can't buy enough product even from my own company to sell it cheap enough on ebay. There would not be enough profit.

Every quote I have had from overseas, is either too high priced, or you have to purchase too much of the same exact product to make it worth while.

I have found a couple of local artist, that are pretty well known in gallery's but don't sell online, and I am thinking of providing them with a means of selling they're art work online. I don't have to purchase it and the value is not set by competitors. I think for me
this maybe one avenue for reasonable profit.

Again buy from unique local vendors and help them sell online. Many local business owners don't want to get involved in the hastle of online selling.

Steve

You can pay by credit card on items you want. But they will charge you to setup a dropship account and verify your address. That is why they want buisness address information. Thier courier actually verifies the existing address for them.

I pay by credit card. Heck its not that hard to have an account with them. They make it look hard but they dont care as much as they act.
My next door neighbor has an account with them and hes a complete idiot. He has a registered buisness as a Car accessory installer but He has no business or storefront. He buys for personal use only.