Can you really make a living selling stuff on eBay???

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

I think it depends where you live as well, my dad volunteers at one of the nationwide chains of charity shops, they get sent a lot of stuff other shops couldn't sell, things like shirts and suits with £30 or £50 price tags from the previous shop which they then sell for £3 or £5.

It's not my line of business but I think it could be done if you have the time, knowledge and a bit of luck to your foot in the door at a few shops. 

All those day time TV programs giving the impression everything is worth something along with with eBay, Facebook and the other smaller apps encourages people to sell stuff rather than give it away. 

That said judging by the stuff I've seen people throw in our communal bins you could probably make a profit from selling other peoples rubbish, council tips could be a gold mine if they'd left you take stuff rather than putting it in the ground.

martindow

I suspect a lot of people over-estimate how much they are making on ebay.  The sold prices are memorable but it is easy to overlook the price you paid initially, the Ebay/ Paypal fees, postage costs, mileage to the PO, etc.  If you note the time spent and the actual profit made the hourly rate can be pitiful. 

Many people enjoy the activity and treat it as a hobby rather than a serious means of income, which is probably just as well.

ciderboy2009

I spent a few years buying lost property at a local auction house.

When I started I could get 10 bin bag sized bags full of clothes for about £50 including buyers premium.  By the time I stopped this was up to around £200.

Of those 10 bags I would end up with about 3 that were weighed in as scrap clothing.  One would be thrown away (think used underwear etc).  One would be things I sold on eBay and the rest would be sold at boot sales (I used to do one every Saturday and two every Sunday).

Other than the odd genuine designer bits (you learn very quickly how to spot the fakes) there was never anything that made me silly money and the bulk of my profit came from the boot sales. 

When you took into acount cleaning costs etc then there wasn't a lot of profit per item.  However, the quantity I was selling was how I made my money.

I made just over £20k per year profit whilst doing it but it was a lot of work for the money.

forgotmyname

Specialise.....  You need your market and not buying any old tat.

Charity shops are often expensive these days, saw a cheap ASDA George item of clothing that was
50p more than the new price still on sale in store.

I have a local shop that sell tools cheaply,  I will buy the entire box. Sometimes its average but occasionally
its a good find. Missed out the the Vintage quality brands of Calipers/Verniers/Micrometers but struck
lucky on a box of machine tools they didnt have a clue about and charged me just 50p. 
Quite a few were blunt and undersize, but for quick resharpen and used on soft materials it
was a bargain still.

Mistral001

I used to sell a few things I bought at car boot sales on ebay at profit.  I am talking about 10 or 15 years ago before people had iphones and when Ebay was something a bit new to most people and  there were no auction-themed programmes on TV.   Now I would rarely see anything at a car boot sale that I think would sell at a higher price on Ebay.   As for charity shops, many have so many overheads for advertising, salaries and shop fit-out that they have had to put their prices up.  

Thick_n_Thin

Thanks all for the reality check. I’m peering over the hill at redundancy and thought perhaps eBay may provide me with a temporary income, like one of you said charity shop prices seem massively inflated now so I think I’ll probably try and sell as much of my own unwanted stuff before I start investing money into it, like a previous poster said the time fees and original outlay is taken into consideration I would probably be working for less than minimum wage. Thanks to everyone who has responded but love hearing people’s opinions and hearing their experiences.

fenwick458

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

That said judging by the stuff I've seen people throw in our communal bins you could probably make a profit from selling other peoples rubbish, council tips could be a gold mine if they'd left you take stuff rather than putting it in the ground.

this is my recent approach to it, if you can get it for free and list it you haven't got a lot to lose.
I don't think i'd have ever bothered, but it's one of the things that came from lockdown boredom.
I now sell at least £20 weekly worth of "broken rubbish" electrical parts that I would have previously thrown in the bin.
keeps it out of landfill too!

Mistral001

Recently I bought a second hand part for my laptop which was obviously salvaged from an old laptop.  I was surprised that there were people who were selling second hand parts for computers.   It was a fraction of the cost of a new part and it saved me £300-400 on a new laptop.  So there might be a profit in selling second hand computer parts if you could get the computers cheaply or for free.

PS I have also bought second hand parts for white goods such as washing machines.  In each case I would  probably have dumped the machine and bought a new one, if the parts were not available second hand, as the cost of buying a new part would make a  repair uneconomic.  

mimi1234

Back in the day, I sometimes bought things off the clearance stand at Boots to sell on eBay.  I naturally assumed that anything off the clearance stand would make me a profit  (oooh, it's half the original price, if I sell it for full price I will make a profit) but that was not the case.  I didn't factor in postage and packaging and eBay and PayPal costs! 

I sometimes see people huddled around the clearance stands with their phones and tablets out looking at prices on eBay, I assume checking before they buy to resell and whether it will make them any money.

There is a girl at work who goes hunting in charity shops and swears by it.  She got a lot of Moschino tops for £1 each and sold them for close to £50 each.  Good for her but sounds like hard work rooting through loads of stock.