Ebay

Kelly-Lou

Hi

I'm not sure if this is the right place to put this post. After reading through alot of this thread to gain some income I have thought about Ebaying.

I wondered if anyone had any tips or advice for selling and making a profit. Would you start off with a shop? How do you find wholesalers I had a search but some sites want you to pay money to access them?

swimsink

I wouldn't know personally but by buying and reselling, I assume the mark up you charge isn't going to be too much more than the eBay & paypal listing and sellers fee's you'll get charged so I'm not sure you'd make anything! I know a lot of eBay sellers buy pallets of ex store/returned items (topshop, etc) for low prices and sell them on but it's luck of the draw what you receive. Hope this helps x

staffie1

Kelly-Lou wrote: »

Hi

I'm not sure if this is the right place to put this post. After reading through alot of this thread to gain some income I have thought about Ebaying.

I wondered if anyone had any tips or advice for selling and making a profit. Would you start off with a shop? How do you find wholesalers I had a search but some sites want you to pay money to access them?

Well, first off you will need a product to sell and a demand for it.

You need a business plan. Ebay is just a retail outlet when all said and done. You may well have to spend some money!
There will also be Ebay seller fees, on top of whatever else you have to pay for, so you will need to factor this in when deciding on your mark-up.

firesidemaid

do you currently sell your own stuff on ebay already?

start small. it can take a while to learn the ropes, do it well and develop a market or choose what you would like to sell.

you would also have to register with ebay as a business and with HRMC for tax purposes.

soolin

The hardest bit on ebay is actually finding a good reliable source of stock that guarantees you a profit. I have negotiated with many wholesalers in the past, also one more recently and in all cases with delivery fees etc I would have been buying at a hugher price than the items were already being sold on ebay.

On the ebay board (see my sig) there are a lot of very big sellers who do use wholesale, but of course no one will share details of their source - but I suspect most are in unusual or fairly unique markets. One thing I would caution against is drop shipping, unless you know the drop shippers (and again many big sellers actually do work closely with the factories or suppliers) you are entirely reliable on them getting the goods to the customer, if that gets slow, or goods arrive damaged then it is your stars and feedback that suffer. When you first set up it is probably best to buy in stock and hold it yourself to see how it goes.

For general advice about shops, listing etc try the ebay board, there is a very mixed bunch of sellers, some large ones, some smaller businesses like myself. I don't have a shop but many do..so there is a wealth of experience.