Mass selling on eBay

Redalligator

I noticed there are some items on eBay (stationary and other small products) sell for extremely cheap prices, usually £0.99 with free postage and fast delivery.

How do people turn a profit on these products?

I first class stamp is £0.65
A letter or small parcel would be maybe £0.10/£0.20 per envelope if bought in bulk?
And to buy the product itself would obviously depend on what it is
Then there are eBay and PayPal fees to account for

So even if they do make profit it would be a few pennies and that's not even employing someone to package all these products.

So how do they do it? Anyone got experience with this kinda thing as I've been interested for a long time

Cheers

sebloak

Check the location of the seller. Chances are it'll be China or thereabouts. I once bought something by mistake from one after looking at various sellers, not noticing it was from somewhere in deepest China with a 4 week delivery, but it arrived on my doorstep after about 3 weeks. It was less than half the price of UK sellers and no postage for exactly the same product i'd been looking for.

droopsnoot

I have wondered the same. I bought some bolts from a UK supplier, paid something like 99p including post. They came in a brand new padded bag (no reusing old ones, like I do), with a postage label for £1.17 on it.


The only thing I can assume is that the majority of customers will go for the "see sellers other items" link, and while they're buying the one item they actually wanted, they'll also buy some other stuff, and the combination will make the profit.


"Loss leader" I think is the term - sell a range of very cheap things to get the buyers attention, and hope they won't notice that other items aren't quite as good value. The old "Viking Direct" catalogues used to be good at this.

moneypit11

They also often get big discounts with the royal mail or delivery firms for the volume of items they post.

Redalligator

So unless you're a decent sized company it would be hard to push this way of selling?

rachlikeswinter

moneypit11 wrote: »

They also often get big discounts with the royal mail or delivery firms for the volume of items they post.

I think this is the key - business sellers will often have business accounts with Royal Mail and get cheaper postage costs. Much like the old franking machines in offices and the like; always less than a stamp that you and me would pay for.

As well as that, I imagine the phrase 'pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap' would apply here.