I'm considering starting an Ebay business - What's the stuff that sells the best?

Question

I've bought and sold on Ebay for a couple of years but only a select couple of items. I don't know much about what else is out there that may be a possibilty to for selling.

Answer 1

eBay has several ways for you to determine exactly what the hot items to sell on their marketplace:

Items In Demand = the most popular items currently within that particular category. To see the In Demand page, go to http://pages.ebay.com/sellercentral/sellbycategory.html

Hot Items by Category Report = a monthly report that lists the fastest growing categories on eBay for the previous month. Go to http://pages.ebay.com/sellercentral/whatshot.html and select "Hot Items by Category" from the menu on the left.

eBay Pulse = "a daily snapshot of current trends, hot picks, and cool stuff on eBay". Go to http://pulse.ebay.com/ to see eBay Pulse in action.

Merchandising Calendar = eBay promotes specific categories on its home page each month. Savvy eBayers know that this home page exposure results in more interest in such categories. Go to http://pages.ebay.com/sellercentral/calendar.html to view the current Merchandising Calendar.


Buying from garage sales and selling on eBay is fun, and good getting a few dollars here and there from ebay. Sometimes, you luck out on an item and hit big, but many times it will just be so-so (assuming you can even get the price you paid for it). In terms of fun factor, it is great. But from a business stand-point, it is not. Not sustainable.

If you want to earn serious money from eBay, you need to have a well-thought out business model. Selling on ebay is getting tougher -- just look at the number of auctions that closes without a bid. Go to the boards on ebay and you will hear even oldtimers complaining about how stiffer competition plus higher fees make it so much harder to sell on ebay.

One success model of ebay is the couple Jay and Marie Senese (username jayandmarie) of the 1-cent CD fame. They have the highest positive feedback number of all sellers on eBay. Their business model is to buy very low cost CDs in bulk (those that CD stores sell in their discount bins) and offer them on ebay at a starting price of 1 cent http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_23/b3886080.htm Their success is based on the fact that they stumbled on a sustainable business model with products that people really want. They sold their business -- where else but on ebay -- for $5 million! Now that is success.

As for items to sell, you can:

1. Buy bulk liquidation items such as those at Liquidation.com. The capitalization may be big, but the idea is to sell the items individually and profit from it.

2. Find manufacturers of items you want to sell and buy discounted items from them

3. Make deals with retailers in your area, and offer to buy their unwanted items for deep discounts. jayandmarie - the most successful ebay sellers - made deals with music stores where they will buy the entire inventory in the discounted bins, and then sold the items on ebay for 1-cent starting bid.

4. Look for possible partners on the Web, preferably outside of the US. Import items from them and sell them on ebay. There's huge profits to gain from this approach.

5. Check out deals from outlet stores. Focus on brand names, which you will find to be easier to sell.

Answer 2

profit is always sales - cost of items sold - expenses - with ebay, you would also have addiitonal expenses of listing fees, final sales fees, Paypal fees, then you would have rent if you are renting a storefront, utilities, phone and internet charges. read some books about selling on ebay - there are lots out there - probably some by people who have set up consignment businesses like you want to do - you better get an up front fee for accepting any item from anyone to sell - for your time to list it and the listing fees expense, then also make the person selling the item pay for the final sales expense if it sells, and teh Paypal fees and then YOU take like 30% of what's left - make all those costs very clear up front, so people don;t accuse you later of trying to rip you off.- all your oput-of pocket costs will be covered and if teh item sells, that's where your profit comes in you will have to learn how to price things - people bringing items in will always think they will sell for a lot more than they probably will (and probably a lot of junk that isn't worth bothering with at all) - and unless you start with low minimum bids, no one will bid if they say you charge too much, tell them to do it themselves and they'll see what it costs and how much time it takes don;t forget to charge shipping, so you need to know how much something will cost to ship before you list it and if it costs too much compared to the price of the item, it's probably not worth selling on ebay - look for things you can make a high profit margin one

Answer 3

My wife enjoys selling on Ebay. She sees it as a hobby and a way to bring in some extra money and is something she can do and still be a stay at home mom. She has found that name brand children's clothes sell really well. She goes to yard sales and resale shops and finds really good deals, then puts them on Ebay. Do some research and see what seems to be listed the most and put them on your watch page. Then pay attention to what they sell for. Good luck.........

Answer 4

Hi, you should consider selling custom t-shirts. You can create your own designs, or people can come to you indicating what THEY want (like sports teams, special groups, businesses).

You can do this with a silk-screen machine or heat press, but the heat press machine is actually much easier to use and more cost efficient. You basically print out your design on special transfer paper, then you place it face down on the blank shirt and finally, you have your heat press transfer it (think of a super hot iron). Lots of people love custom shirts. Blank shirts only cost less than a couple of bucks so the markup potential is very high $$

Check out this auction on eBay. The seller is actually selling a heat press and everything you need to get started selling shirts: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=010&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&viewitem=&item=200117684802&rd=1&rd=1

Hope this helps and good luck with your future endeavors!

Answer 5

EVERYTHING is out there. And so it seems is EVERYONE.

Watch out for scammers who want to sell you "How To Sell on Ebay" information. They'll sell you the basic "course" for next to nothing and give you a lot of "free" reports, which they say are a $2,500 value. As you go along, you'll find that it's going to cost you a bundle to set up and run a business.

Not all Internet companies are scammers. Some offer good values, but, as the saying goes, "If it looks too good to be true, it probably is!"

Good luck to you.

Answer 6

You need to do a thorough research on what can be sold and the best is if you can sell niche item or services.

Besides, you need to build your feedback, it took me a while to have more than 200 positive feedbacks.

Then you also need to learn on pricing, shipping, ...

As for me, I took the products from here

http://www.ecosway.com/home/709692
(click on Go Shopping to view the products)

I have an eBay store where I sell some of the products from there. I can't advertise my store here, email me if you wanna know more.

Answer 7

I got lucky and got my hands on some men's pants from a closing factory. All brand new. I sell them on eBay and do well. If you want to get your feet wet pretty cheap I'll sell you some in bulk. Email me at [e-mail]

Answer 8

When people go on eBay they are usually looking for one of two things; an obscure item, or a deal. If you could provide cheap items out of wholesale lots, or supply hard-to-find items (E.G. swords, T.V. parts, collectibles) you should have a smooth time on eBay.

Answer 9

Well like they say 2 each is own. Everybody likes different stuff so it's really not what you sell it's who's looking.

Answer 10

The money is made in the buying. See what you can find to sell.