The Ebay Goldmine Thread

Towser

List all the things you have sold at a profit on ebay or elsewhere that have proved to be a great find. For example, items that you are likely to come across at car boot sales and charity shops that 'always' sell for good prices on ebay. If we list them here, then other MSEers can grab them when they come across them , like a pooling of knowledge and experience.

Many times i've been in charity shops and auctions and mulled over whether an item is valuable or not and had absolutely no idea, so left it, only to discover it's real 'value' on ebay when it's too late.

If there are items that you regularly keep an eye out for in charity shops and car boot sales, list them here, and we can all keep an eye out. Books for example are a mixed bag. There are literally millions out there, and a box full of them will quite often bag you nothing at resale, but an individual book could land you £££s, it's just a matter of knowing what to look for.

My example: New Naturalist nature books. These quite often fetch hundreds on ebay. Here are some completed sales:
Haynes Car Manuals are another good example. The right book could land you £10+. When i sold my peugeot 306, i listed the manual on ebay and got about £8 for it.

I know a little about books and comics (not much), but i know nowt about pottery/clothes/children's toys/ceramics etc. But with some examples here, we could help each other.

C'mon, share the knowledge (and potential wealth)

pinkshoes

Sharing knowledge would be lowering wealth...

soolin

I think it is a good idea for those rare random items that you would never imagine would be worth anything, but it would need to be only higher value items otherwise any thread would be unwieldy. To me for instance selling a book for £8 would probably not be worth bothering with after fees and postage.

A good tip though is to search 'comps' (a term I picked up from US reseller forums) - get in the habit of always having an ebay app or page on your phone where you can search sold listings. That way if you find say a batch of New Naturalist books you can search the titles as most don't sell on ebay at all, so a quick check could mean not buying one unless you can see a good sales history.

Even at auctions now half the dealers in the room are searching ebay whilst they view the listings.

theonlywayisup

Posting lots of threads should help.

Towser

It doesn't look like I will be making any money soon. It's all so secret and I can't get in.

theonlywayisup

Towser wrote: »

It doesn't look like I will be making any money soon. It's all so secret and I can't get in.

If you found the golden egg would you show someone the hen that laid it?

Browntoa

Been asked and answered before on this board.

soolin

Towser wrote: »

It doesn't look like I will be making any money soon. It's all so secret and I can't get in.

I thought my idea of checking comps was a valid suggestion? We can't all know about everything, I still use sold prices to decide whether something is worth buying or not, you don't need to be obvious if you are searching in charity shops, a discreet check on your phone is all it takes.

The other thing with lists is how quickly things change value. What is expensive today may well plummet in price by this time next month.

Towser

Thanks soolin I wanted 2018 view on things. Most of these threads are old have I missed the boat?

Ms_Chocaholic

soolin wrote: »

I think it is a good idea for those rare random items that you would never imagine would be worth anything, but it would need to be only higher value items otherwise any thread would be unwieldy. To me for instance selling a book for £8 would probably not be worth bothering with after fees and postage.

A good tip though is to search 'comps' (a term I picked up from US reseller forums) - get in the habit of always having an ebay app or page on your phone where you can search sold listings. That way if you find say a batch of New Naturalist books you can search the titles as most don't sell on ebay at all, so a quick check could mean not buying one unless you can see a good sales history.

Even at auctions now half the dealers in the room are searching ebay whilst they view the listings.

I thought I'd just check Ebay to price up the books but typed in naturist books and got a totally different type of book :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

RFW

Towser wrote: »

It doesn't look like I will be making any money soon. It's all so secret and I can't get in.

Ebay's no secret.


Write a list of things you know about that you have seen in boot fairs/jumble sales. Go to Ebay search and search for those items on completed listings to see what has sold (don't look at what is being sold). Once you've seen a few things that have made good money, or something approaching good money and you can start hunting for them. When you get to a car boot sale double check items on your phone to see if you've got a chance of earning on them.


If someone on here tells you Iphones sell well you have next to no chance of making any money on them. I could tell you my business but again you wouldn't be able to turn a profit on it, I know it inside out and have been in the industry for years.