Small EBay Business

Graeme7777

Hi,

I'm looking to make some extra money and setting up a small retail business on EBay seems appealing. The big question though is what I should sell? Does anyone have any suggestions of perennial good sellers that don't require specialist knowledge?

Thanks!

richt71

I'm afraid there's no easy answer here. Some hings sell well seasonally or for short periods. Mobile phones sell well but as far as I could see you require quite a bit of working capital to import them in bulk. Niche products do well if you can sell something differen, unique or quirky.

sammahootexpress

dvds look on virgin on line they have specials on i was doing vicar of dibley and others they sell well ,another good one lego sells star wars bits something to do with millenium falcon in wrong box sold a few can get about 7 and can sell for around 20 , sd memory cards look on ebay sell on amazon books go to charity shops can get a bargain. i loved it while i was doing it go to car bootsales and get in to the antique bits .:beer:

Littleali21

if i had the money, i'd go primark and buy dresses/tops/skirts that everyone's talking about (like at the min its the "seagul" dress)

they cost about £10 but they sometimes sell for £30+

even if you only make a tenner on the item, uf you do it ten times over, thats a hundred, easy quid!

oasisfeverish

Try sellling something that you have a active interest in, hobbies.

You would be the best person and would already have the knowledge to promote the products. Then Google hard for a few hours to find a supplier, email them, find out what their terms are, minimum spend needed, quickness of delivery.

Don't try to buy too much stock at once, trends can finish as quick as they start and you could be left with 'dead' stock and end up shifting bulk at a loss.

Gook luck.

I did this a few years ago, turned a initial £258 float into £12445 profit in a year. But it took lots of hard work and suppliers from US, Canada, Thailand and Turkey to reach that total.

hummy

i'm beginning to think ebay is not the easiest way to make a few bob these days as the margins are very tight on most stuff and there are a lot of ebay costs that you have to take into account.

I think the best way is to import from abroad, as that's still something where you can make a few pounds on. I was importing one particular item in for £7.50 an item and they were selling for £95 a piece. That was until everyone caught on and they started selling for £20 and it made sales difficult, as well as margins were hardly there.

Currently i'm doing an extremely specialist item that can be imported for £17 and is selling for about £105. But it's extremely niche and only list 1 of these at a time as i don't want to be in competition with myself. To make any decent money on ebay you really need to be doing volume sales.

The other thing that i use to do was try to sell unbranded goods of high spec items (not fake or copies but marketed as unbranded but same in spec). For example i had a dual screen DVD player which was probably better spec than a Phillips top of the range model selling for £350. Having advertised it as an unbranded version in the listing i would compare it to a high spec branded version. I sold all 100 DVD players that were imported at an average price of £195 and the cost to me was £85, so again nto bad, but you get squeezed out once someone catches on what your doing.

Hope that helps.

frivolous_fay

There's an ebay board on MSE, but don't expect posters to reveal their sources... only their wisdom

sammahootexpress

thats what bugged me on amazon u find a produdt but all o asudden loads r selling it then the price litterally drops sd memory cards they r cheap on ebay to buy and on amazon good profit till everyone starts dropping the price

Graeme7777

Thank you all for your helpful comments.