Does anyone make a living on eBay?

RFW

forgotmyname wrote: »

What about the auctions?

I have bought stuff from the auctions, But my local one is costly.

15 - 20% buyers premium +VAT also. So your £100 bid is £140 to take it out the door.

If your reselling you need to be wary.

Again, it isn't the auctions that are expensive, it's the punters who don't know what they're doing that make it so.
If you have patience and look beyond what everyone else is looking at, auctions can be a better way of doing it.
Don't get caught up in thinking that if people are paying £100 for something it must be worth it, the best knowledge at an auction is that everyone else is an idiot. View goods, stick to a price. You need to be paying at most a third of the reselling price.

Ideally something you think you can get £5 for should be bought for £1 or less. If someone pays £3 at knockdown, they may think they've done well, add in auction fees and tax, brings it up to over £4, take off Ebay/Paypal fees from the £5 and they're losing money.

It's hard work making money.

How do you end up with a million pound in the bank after selling on Ebay for a year? Start with two million and work hard!

soolin

forgotmyname wrote: »

What about the auctions?

I have bought stuff from the auctions, But my local one is costly.

15 - 20% buyers premium +VAT also. So your £100 bid is £140 to take it out the door.

If your reselling you need to be wary.

I agree with what both you and RFW say about auctions, I go to several a month.

Every time a new series of any antique type programme comes on the TV we are awash with newbies chatting loudly and excitedly about how they are going to become a Lovejoy (who incidentally in the books was a crook and a murderer) and make so much money from auction buying and reselling that they can give up the day job.

They tend to get carried away, at some of the shall we say, rougher end of the auction market the regulars can bid them up and dump lots on them just to clear them out of money before the good lots come up. I've been to 2 auctions this week, both very quiet after Christmas- at one in particular stuff was going unsold- 3 crates of HB books in excellent condition, 3 boxes of vintage tea sets, dinner sets vases etc, 2 boxes of DVDs - all unsold with lowest price offered by auctioneer of £5 (£6.10 after premium). Come the summer with the newbies in and those same boxes will be going for £30-£40.

I am extremely careful what I buy, one auction tends to get a lot of an item I particularly like - I am often the only bidder as no one knows my market for these- and he now calls me from the podium if he things my concentration has lapsed and I've missed a lot.

I do make mistakes though and still have 'proper' art stuffed behind every wardrobe and every door in the house- real stuff, signed oils, water colours etc- I cannot resist a mixed lot in gilt frames for a fiver - unfortunately every one else including my buyers can resist old art As for the antique and military swords- I try to forget about them stuffed out of site everywhere

soolin

Just to add as well, that auctions do sell new stock as well. Prices seem to be higher as regulars often already have a market for the goods- but again newbies can go a bit wild. One auction for instance last year had nice leather (unbranded) belts- about 18 in the lot. Auctioneer estimated £20 and newbies pushed them to nearer £100. Yes that still makes them less than £6 a belt after fees- but you'd need to balance that against belts in the local market for the same price or even places like Primark where you can pick up an unbranded leather belt for a fiver sometimes.

Brooker_Dave

One for OP:

https://www.argosclearance.co.uk/

theonlywayisup

peace800 wrote: »

Does anyone make a living on eBay or decent money?

Yes, thank you.

forgotmyname

Mate bought ex argos stuff by the pallet load.. He only got back 1/4 of what he paid.

You really need to know ehat your buying. If an item comes with many parts, These parts have have been removed...
Or someone buys a new item and returns a similar one thats faulty and swaps it over.

I need to find a use for a pallet load of canvas style webbing

RFW

forgotmyname wrote: »

Mate bought ex argos stuff by the pallet load.. He only got back 1/4 of what he paid.

It used to be that you could get mail order returns for 10% of retail, whenever I've looked at that site it's been going for 50% plus. Even at 10% it wasn' always easy to turn a profit, there's a lot of work involved in handling returns.

Brooker_Dave

I just talked some dreamer out of spending £300 on a pallet of 15 "untested" car booster packs that had been returned to a national retailer.

Pembroke

forgotmyname wrote: »

I need to find a use for a pallet load of canvas style webbing

Furniture restorers or Upholsterers ?

RHemmings

RFW wrote: »

It used to be that you could get mail order returns for 10% of retail, whenever I've looked at that site it's been going for 50% plus. Even at 10% it wasn' always easy to turn a profit, there's a lot of work involved in handling returns.

What I can't understand is damaged goods being sold for 50% of RRP. E.g. look at this sold listing:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Round-Back-Electro-Acoustic-Bass-Guitar-by-Gear4music-Damaged-RRP-99-99-/351278446743?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item51c9d3b897

That's a serious amount of damage for a cheap musical instrument that doesn't have much resale value. And it sells for 50% of RRP? How? I wouldn't expect a perfect condition second hand item to sell for much more than that.