Does anyone make a living on eBay?

Brooker_Dave

At the moment consumers only care about the price, I sell something for £150 delivered, and endlessly get asked to undercut the people selling broken ones on Ebay for £40 plus shipping.

It's like asking the Rolex shop to undercut the people selling fake ones for £20 on the beach...

forgotmyname

Just bought a car part. Its an expensive optional extra on most models but made by a 3rd party company that sell them to many manufacturers and for other uses also.

I was after a specific one they fit to Rovers and BMW's. But people want silly money for them as they are easily added.

I bought a unit from a Mercedes breaker for less than half the price, Complete with all the bits and brackets.

Tested it on the bench and works a treat.

celestius

I am not sure that I would be running an Ebay shop if I had options, however I have 4 small children so this is perfect for me at the moment, I can work from home, and fit my work around my family.
I put in a lot of effort though for what is essentially a part time job.

As for wholesalers - I was rather naive a few years ago and rushed into buying from them only to find that actually the profit was tiny, and once I factored in bad stock, lost in post items and competing against many other naive sellers it was probably 0.

Do your research. And try to find something you know something about to start off with!

StaffsSW

Yes, but as alluded to above it has become a race to the bottom on price and service. People come in with the same product, but undercut and under-deliver. Established sellers can either sit back and wait for the competition to kill eachother, or work on new areas.
Any product with a modicum of success will be copied by the morally nefarious, the tax avoider, the hobby seller, call them what you want... And sometimes the big players will just swamp a category with loss leaders to kill off competition.

To make a success at ebay selling you need to do something better or different from everyone else, and not necessarily do the same thing a little cheaper.

The constantly changing ebay rules and consumer legislation have pretty much knocked out the small time fly-by-night sellers, but it also knocked out the enjoyment and satisfaction for many others. I scaled it down last year, but still keep a hand in enough to pay the mortgage if I need to fall back on it, but it would be a last resort for me.

soolin

StaffsSW wrote: »

Yes, but as alluded to above it has become a race to the bottom on price and service. People come in with the same product, but undercut and under-deliver. Established sellers can either sit back and wait for the competition to kill eachother, or work on new areas.
Any product with a modicum of success will be copied by the morally nefarious, the tax avoider, the hobby seller, call them what you want... And sometimes the big players will just swamp a category with loss leaders to kill off competition.

To make a success at ebay selling you need to do something better or different from everyone else, and not necessarily do the same thing a little cheaper.

The constantly changing ebay rules and consumer legislation have pretty much knocked out the small time fly-by-night sellers, but it also knocked out the enjoyment and satisfaction for many others. I scaled it down last year, but still keep a hand in enough to pay the mortgage if I need to fall back on it, but it would be a last resort for me.

I do not agree entirely about price being the only deciding factor in sales. I routinely pay a little extra to buy items from a better seller for instance, I was buying ink this week and paid 18p extra per cart to use a TRS seller as the cheaper ones either had some feedback that concerned me or were unregistered businesses.

As a seller a number of my lines are not the cheapest in the category, yet I can often outsell those cheaper sellers. I will not race to the bottom price wise and will drop a line if it comes to that and find another instead.

fishybusiness

Yes, but as alluded to above it has become a race to the bottom on price and service. People come in with the same product, but undercut and under-deliver.

Not everyone buys at lowest price. There are plenty of buyers out there and some will pay more for a better service, however that may be described, a longer warranty, or maybe greater reliability in my case.

I´d rather sell less for slightly more profit, give my self less work packaging and worry less about just how many items I have sold.

Some of mine I sell at 20% more than competitors, sure they sell more, I´m happy I manage to ´get people in´to my stall.

Some small items I just break even on, in the hope buyers may come back.

forgotmyname

Unregistered business sellers... Oh my yes... I will avoid them like the plague if possible..

Looking for a car at the moment, Something different a a bit oddball.

Found one on Gumtree, Advert only listed a few hours ago. I write all the info down and the number to call. Seems they have several other vehicles for sale.
Selling the car to buy a van or will swap for a van, Why are you selling 3 other vehicles all vans?

Put me right off so the search continues.

If your a business and not registered as one then you maybe losing a lot of buyers.

soolin

forgotmyname wrote: »

If your a business and not registered as one then you maybe losing a lot of buyers.

It is odd, but it is a pet peeve of mine and I find myself moving straight on to the next seller

RFW

forgotmyname wrote: »

If your a business and not registered as one then you maybe losing a lot of buyers.

Agreed. Not only does it indicate the seller is a cheat, it also shows that they don't take their business seriously. The only good reason to do it on Ebay is to save a small amount on listing fees which seems short sighted at best.

As regards the lowest price sellers, with best match on Ebay that doesn't always work, the highest ranked search items can often be 20-25% higher than the lowest priced items.

andycris3107

I spent 8 years selling on eBay and for 5 of those it was my only income. I made a very good living until the last year. Finally I gave it up.

I was pretty innovative and sold a product with less competition that most but eventually others will see the benefit and copy therefore in the last year competition from Asia was immense to the point that taxes and business costs meant that competing was very difficult. I packed it in for my health in the end.