How can ebay sellers sell items so cheaply?

Mistral001

Over the past few months, I have bought using "buy now" several new items at a fraction of the price of being sold in the shops. How can these sellers do it?

Some examples:

2 metre long USB extension lead £1.50 incl. postage (retailed in the high street for £12.00 approx).

Ten genuine "Henry" vacumn bags for £5.00 incl. postage (Five brown paper compatable bags for £8.00 approx in high street).

Four blank ink printer cartridges for £3.25 incl. postage (one costs about £6.00 in the high street)

I have often thought of setting up an ebay shop, but what's the point as there must be very little margin on any of the above items.

In fact the USB cables were being sold by some sellers at £1.00 incl postage, but I thought they were too cheap and might be unreiable. Even if they were buying them in for 10p each the postage Jiffy bag costs would maybe eat up most of the rest of the rest of the proffits.

Are these sellers using slave labour or are the high street retailers just charging too much?

RFW

Mistral001 wrote: »

Over the past few months, I have bought using "buy now" several new items at a fraction of the price of being sold in the shops. How can these sellers do it?

Some examples:

2 metre long USB extension lead £1.50 incl. postage (retailed in the high street for £12.00 approx).

Ten genuine "Henry" vacumn bags for £5.00 incl. postage (Five brown paper compatable bags for £8.00 approx in high street).

Four blank ink printer cartridges for £3.25 incl. postage (one costs about £6.00 in the high street)

I have often thought of setting up an ebay shop, but what's the point as there must be very little margin on any of the above items.

In fact the USB cables were being sold by some sellers at £1.00 incl postage, but I thought they were too cheap and might be unreiable. Even if they were buying them in for 10p each the postage Jiffy bag costs would maybe eat up most of the rest of the rest of the proffits.

Are these sellers using slave labour or are the high street retailers just charging too much?

The USB cables I've seen retail in stores for 89p and many pound shops sell them, it's how the stores that sell them for £12 get away with it that's more of a query.
I can't say I know much about Henry vacuum bags, but I'd imagine that a number of wholesale or retailers of them have gone out of business and they have been snapped up at a fraction of retail to resell. I can't imagine they are even a great seller at a low price. They are a premium object that niche sellers can mark up for a large profit as people can't readily find them.
As for ink cartridges (and I'd assume you mean 'black' not blank), there are copies/compatible cartridges coming in from China pretty cheap. It would probably be trickier to sell those in high street store than online.
In answer to your last question, probably both online and high street retailers have products that have originally used cheap labour. It is often easier to 'get away' with higher mark ups in a store than online as in a store there isn't any immediate comparison, so often if someone wants something they will buy it then and there if it's affordable.
The other question about low margins on Ebay, it's true that some markets are pretty cut throat and some sellers are woring on low and no profit to boost sales on other items, pick up feedback and even to keep seller status, as selling a few items that only earn pennies could end up saving 20% on final value fees which over a month could be a few hundred if not thousands of pounds.

terra_ferma

Some of the factors that effect price are:

- price war between sellers, particularly if there is a new kid on the block, some will sell at a loss to get rid of them

- large bus. sellers will have discounted postage, and can post cheaply

- new sellers have not done their maths and are selling at a loss

- 'private sellers' not paying tax and vat

- some private sellers (genuine ones) may be happy with extremely low margins (hobbyists, second-incomers, unemployed), as long as they think they make a tiny bit of money.

- some sellers use ebay as 'advertising' to attract people to their website, and are less concerned with making a proper profit

loulou_1984

There are also a lot of stolen goods on eBay!

antrobus

Mistral001 wrote: »

Over the past few months, I have bought using "buy now" several new items at a fraction of the price of being sold in the shops. How can these sellers do it?

Because people don't know how to use the Internet?

Mistral001 wrote: »

2 metre long USB extension lead £1.50 incl. postage (retailed in the high street for £12.00 approx).

98p for a 3m lead on Play.com with free delivery

Mistral001 wrote: »

Ten genuine "Henry" vacumn bags for £5.00 incl. postage (Five brown paper compatable bags for £8.00 approx in high street).

Numatic Henry HEPA Vacuum Cleaner Bags, Pack of 10 - £5 from John Lewis or £3.80 from Amazon

Mistral001 wrote: »

Four blank ink printer cartridges for £3.25 incl. postage (one costs about £6.00 in the high street)

What's a 'blank' ink printer cartridge? I expect you mean 'black'. Depends on the printer I suppose.

Mistral001

Sorry everybody, I did mean black ink and not blank.

RFW

I see what yoy mean about buying bankrupt stock and from China. If budget shops can sell USb leads at 89p, they probably are buying them in at 10p as many of the budget shops are in the high street nowadays and have high overheads. Also I never thought about the ebay fees which would be on top of postage, so many must be selling at a loss for various reasons.

Terra_ferma

I know what you mean by "hobbyists". People who maybe have safe reasonably well paid jobs but have watched Dragons Den or the Apprentice on TV and want to dabble in "business" for themselves and be their own boss. Or maybe earning a little extra for an weekend break abroad etc.


lou_lou

Maybe some stolen goods on ebay, but some criminals might think it a but public. But in saying that it probably still happens.


Antrobus

Thanks for the price comparisons. Good to see some high street retailers being realistic with prices

The shops that sell the USB leads at £12.00 are shops which are well-known major chains. I think often these shops depend on the bigger commercial and government department customers. There is the old saying in the early days of computers when IBM was way ahead of everybody else but cost twice as much as anybody else. The saying goes somthing like:" nobody got the sack for specifying IBM". In other words some junior from an office sent out to by a usb lead for an office would play safe and just go to the well-known shop and pay £12 rather than the pound shop. Just think of the criticism the junior would get if the usb lead he/she bought from a pound siop caused the office computer to go down for the afternoon. If the £12 lead bought from the major retailer in the fancy packaging failed his/her boss would just blame the lead and not the junior who bought it.

jafsie

What is even more perplexing to me is amazon, often I have seen used items which are FAR more expensive than new for EXACTLY the same thing.

For example I bought a book (NEW) for £2.99 they had 6 USED in stock at £38.50 each

I expected to get swindled but it was the real thing

Hammyman

Mistral001 wrote: »

Over the past few months, I have bought using "buy now" several new items at a fraction of the price of being sold in the shops. How can these sellers do it?

Some examples:

2 metre long USB extension lead £1.50 incl. postage (retailed in the high street for £12.00 approx).

I pay 50p or less at the IT auctions I go to.

Are these sellers using slave labour or are the high street retailers just charging too much?

At the IT auctions I go to, a mains lead for a laptop or desktop that PC World charge £10 for and my local PC shop charges £3 for, I pay £5 for 10. USB similar story. I can buy a mouse and keyboard set for a quid.

When I come to sell them, I can sell them for less because I don't have £200 a week shop rent and another £100 a week business rates to pay.

mikey72

I don't think comparing prices to high street shops is a reasonable guide.
As Hammyman says, USB leads, HDMI leads, I normally pay from 10p as a special offer, to no more than £1 at catalogue price.
AA and AAA batteries are another good one, if you avoid Duracell, a box of 40 is about a fiver for branded ones.
And these are just general trade prices, not offers, which are worth getting a stock of.
Normally you have to spend about fitfy pound at a time though, so the postage/handling charge is covered.
Seansonal products are another good example.
A glowing inflateable snowman is thirty quid in December. They're ten for thirty quid in January.

And then again, there's some rubbish on ebay, so cheap isn't always best.

macfly

loulou_1984 wrote: »

There are also a lot of stolen goods on eBay!

Yes - major criminals are hijacking lorries full of usb leads and henry bags and selling them for less than a quid.

mikey72

macfly wrote: »

Yes - major criminals are hijacking lorries full of usb leads and henry bags and selling them for less than a quid.

There are some sellers though, you look at them, then look at their other items for sale, and you have to think "fence", and run a mile.
(Or at least click off the webpage)