Tips for selling on Ebay

Towser

Share and discussion your tips for selling on Ebay

soolin

Towser wrote: »

Share and discussion your tips for selling on Ebay

Reading posts and following this forum is a good place to start. Just remember though that forums like this only attract the negative viewpoints, we tend not to post the 99.999% of times that go well.

This used to be a very well used forum, it has died off a lot over the past few years and it would be nice to see it pick up a bit again.

lindens

There are a few facebook groups for the UK which i find very helpful

foxy-stoat

Dont sell on ebay - theres your first and only tip !

soolin

foxy-stoat wrote: »

Dont sell on ebay - theres your first and only tip !

But then how would I pay for all my holidays ? I will raise my glass to all those buyers who have paid for me to be sitting in the Canary Islands sipping wine by the pool this week.

RFW

soolin wrote: »

But then how would I pay for all my holidays ? I will raise my glass to all those buyers who have paid for me to be sitting in the Canary Islands sipping wine by the pool this week.

It's not much of a tip anyway, even though I tend to agree. My problem is that I can't get the traction on Ebay that I get on Amazon and can't spend the time getting the level up.

My last 30 days on Ebay was a fifth of my turnover on Amazon on Sunday alone. Admittedly I have 30 times the stock on Amazon. Someone I know in independent fulfilment told me that they expect Ebay turnover to be a tenth of that on Amazon. I'd be quite pleased with that.
Anyway, fair play to anyone doing well on Ebay, I'm quite impressed.
As for the OP, it isn't as easy as it looks, finding a product to sell is only the first part, getting it to sell is not a straightforward process, even if it's a great deal.

Gary123456790

RFW wrote: »

I can't get the traction on Ebay that I get on Amazon and can't spend the time getting the level up.

There is a lot of truth to this, I have ebay listings as a hobby on the side of my "day job" and it does OK and the profit margin decent - around 1/3 but with ebay you have to work on getting visibility to your listings as there are so many listings for the same thing.

So I spend lots of time searching for my own items and other people's, seeing what comes up for different searches, looking at what has sold for certain searches or what similar sellers have sold. So perhaps i'm selling one item, I find a similar seller, they sell a different (related) item and I do some research into that other item they are selling. Often I can find it, make a listing of my own and compete. People have done the same to me, taken my research and used it by copying my listing - blatant copies i've had taken down by ebay but if they are just similar there is nothing you can do, its just business !

I stick to repeatable sales on "good till cancelled" listings that I can buy in bulk at a good price and work on the listings so they sell - with some i've started them at a low price where I make little money and they start selling, this then bumps them up the search and then later on you can put the price up to the "normal" level for that item, but it has good visibility.

Offering a good service does well, so that your listings are premium service and you are a top rated seller, it all helps (tho hard to know how much).

It is all based around my hobbies tho, I sell what I know about and I know it is going to work well because i've done it myself. I also enjoy talking about my hobbies so when someone asks a question I provide a good response because they are asking about what i'm interested in.

Thanks.

ballisticbrian

Share and discussion your tips for selling on Ebay

First of all, put a value on your time. What is it worth? Minimum wage?


You see many newbies thinking that their time is "free" when it isn't. Even if you are selling old stuff, have you worked out if you could put it all in the nearest charity shop and done a few extra hours over time at work and actually made more money?

perfect10

Any old rubbish you can find round the house sells the best as no cost outlay - I recently watched a packet of crisps sell for £16, it was from the 1980's and found behind a fridge - there are loads of empty packets of sweets, crisps etc that seem to sell too! So start having a good look round at what you have then search on ebay to see whether it sells.

This_Year

perfect10 wrote: »

I recently watched a packet of crisps sell for £16, it was from the 1980's and found behind a fridge

The mind boggles! :eek: