Learning how to sell on eBay is the easy part. You make an account, set up a listing and wait for the sale.
Easy, right?
Profiting and building a business is the area that no one ever seems to talk about. So the million dollar question still stands:
Can you make money on eBay and afford to eat more than Pizza Pops and Kraft Dinner?
Here’s the good news:
You can be the least sales savvy marketer, the most socially awkward person and still run away with a profit killing machine selling butterflies and rainbows.
Selling on eBay is easier than it looks and profiting happens before you reach the end of the rainbow. No unicorns required.
Anyone can sell on eBay for free.
They have a whopping 145+ million users (May 2014) making lead generation effortless. They’ve already built an audience for you.
All it takes is a systematized process and a few minutes out of your day to tackle these 3 steps.
My case study is going to demystify making money on eBay by demonstrating how a beginner turned a zero dollar account into a $300,000 store in 9 months.
To put the cherry on the top, I collected over 300,000 travel rewards miles…
…enough to travel the world 4 times and catch a show with the wife.
If you’re ready, let’s hit the ground running.
I made an exclusive checklist guide just for this post only. Download your free checklist for a step-by-step guide to your first $300k on eBay.
THE 3-STEP PROCESS TO START YOUR 300K JOURNEY
You don’t need a regression analysis to start selling on eBay.
The concept is simple: you buy stuff for less and sell them for more. There’s no need to over complicate the principles.
Your goal doesn’t need to be $300,000. It can be $3,000,000, $30,000, $3,000 or $3.
Whether you have a magic number or not, successful eBay stores all start by following these 3 steps.
Step 1: Create an eBay and PayPal account.
Step 2: Find products that sell backed with hard data.
Step 3: Choose a strategy that best suits your financial goals, condition and risk.
The first two steps can be done today before you’re done reading this article and the third one comes with a little discernment.
Heck, if you’re an eager beaver, you can have your first eBay sale within the next hour.Hot dam!
Lame/amazing jokes aside, this 3-step process works.
COMMITTING TO A BLIND JOURNEY OF BUY AND SELL (DECEMBER 2013)
I had sold a few things here and there on eBay, but nothing substantial.
I decided to give it a shot and planned my strategy with a budget of $20,000.
I set an aggressive goal to turn this into $40,000 by the end of April for part time hours.
I jumped into the cell phone niche because it’s what I knew. I bought $14,000 worth of iPhones in varying conditions.
It was too bad I didn’t know how to fix the ones that were damaged (80% of them)…
I found some DIY tutorials, followed them, permanently broke a few phones (including one that I threw against the wall), but managed to fix the majority of them.
I was finally ready to start selling by the New Year.
I WENT LIVE ON JANUARY 6, 2014 AND HERE’S WHAT HAPPENED:
I had profited about $4,000 and still had quite a bit of inventory left from the original load.
I upped my budget to a total of $60,000 since my strategy seemed to be working. I expanded my inventory to pretty much all consumer brand electronics and continued the buy and sell game on eBay.
WHY REACH A GOAL WHEN YOU CAN DESTROY IT?
I almost met my $40,000 goal in just one month. Hitting a net credit of $35,246.23 was pretty exciting to see.
May was no different
I eventually hit a plateau in August 2014 at $38,190.32 selling iPhones and a few other consumer electronics.
THE MASSIVE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN APRIL AND AUGUST REVENUE
There was about a $3,000 difference which isn’t mind numbing, but the difference was in what I had built.
I had created a viable business with multiple streams of revenue.
In January 2014, I built a simple website where customers could opt in for exclusive sales and be in direct communication with me.
The trust had already been built.
It was safe to assume that if a customer had received a product (exactly as described), they would be happy to purchase again or refer a friend without hesitation.
These are the exact results I got.
I now had eBay, Amazon, a direct sales channel and a wholesale system that were working synergistically to maximize profits.
I was cutting out the middleman, which meant greater profits while expanding my network of loyal customers.
How did I know what things to sell on eBay? Why did I choose them? Where did I get them for such a bargain?
Let’s dig deep into the step-by-step process I followed.
STEP 1: GET PAST THE SIGN UPS.
Let’s face it. No one likes signing up for new accounts, but there’s no other way around it when using this awesome sales platform.
There are two accounts required to start selling on eBay.
A. CREATE AN EBAY ACCOUNT
Making an eBay account will allow you to create listings and sell your products.
Visit eBay.com or one of their partner sites. This will define your primary currency and target demographic market.
CLICK TO SEE ALL EBAY PARTNER SITES
Head over to the register link and enter your details.
Follow the step-by-step onscreen instructions to complete your eBay account setup.
If you’ve signed up for an email address, you can set up an eBay account.
B. MAKE A PAYPAL ACCOUNT
PayPal is eBay’s merchant services company that allows you to receive payments for your eBay sales. You will need to create a PayPal account to both receive and withdraw money to your bank account.
Visit PayPal.com and sign up for a premier or business account. After you’re done, you can start selling immediately.
If you already have a personal account, you can upgrade it to premier or business status by logging in, visiting the profile tab and clicking on upgrade to a business account.
Next, you will want to add and confirm your bank account so that you can withdraw your earnings. This doesn’t need to be done immediately, but I would strongly advise getting it over with since it takes about 3 business days to complete the verification process.
STEP 2: FIND THE BEST PRODUCTS TO SELL BACKED WITH SOLID RESEARCH
Knowing the best things to sell on eBay normally starts with items you can get your hands on. But where can you find these mysterious items?
First, you need to know how to conduct market research on eBay.
Here is a bulletproof way to find out if your items will sell and be successful on eBay.
Visit eBay.com/.ca/.co.uk or the country of the currency you will be selling in.
Click on the advanced search link (right of the search box)
Enter in a keyword phrase (ex. iPhone 5S 16GB).
Check off the sold listings box under the search including heading.
Hit the search button.
By default, a list of sold items for your keyword phrase will show up giving you statistics on previous sale prices, dates, and links to the auction listings.
You can laser target your results by using the filters in the left column. I would recommend selecting a condition (new, used, not specified) and the most suitable category at the very least.
It’s important to investigate some of the listings that sold for more or less than the median. Some sellers mark an item as “used” when the item is in fact damaged.
A few key questions that will help identify if your products are popular on eBay are:
Can I get this item for less?
Why do some sell higher than others? Can I make mine a higher selling item?
Is the frequency of sales consistent enough to restock the item (compare dates)?
SOURCING YOUR PRODUCTS
You probably won’t get calls from suppliers offering you a bunch of iPhone 6s for $20. If you do, then don’t fall for it. Or if it’s the real deal…give me a call.
In order to find the best items to sell on eBay, you need to immerse yourself where the sellers are.
I’ve tried getting direct contracts with big name manufacturers, but my volumes weren’t even close to what they wanted. Authorized distributors would offer items that were $25 more than what I could sell it for on eBay because my volumes were not high enough.
Here are a few places you can start finding hot items to sell on eBay:
1. Local stores and chains
Have you ever seen a crazy deal at a major chain store? Well not everyone knows about that same deal.
You can find some easy things to sell on eBay right in your local Walmart, HomeSense and Target stores.
Sign up for their newsletters, do your research and buy when it makes sense.
Keep in mind that storage is a huge factor for any retail store. When it’s time to come off the shelves, items are marked for clearance or they’re sent back to headquarters for an online clearance.
This is where the majority of my travel points were gathered.
2. Local auctions
These can be an absolute gold mine. Local auctions are usually smaller and have some popular items you can sell on eBay for more than 200% margins.
I sold these speakers for $187.44 and purchased it for $40.
Live auctions usually have a pre-show where you can inspect the items available for bidding. Take a look through the items, do your research and bid accordingly.
3. Storage Lockers
I have yet to explore storage lockers, but plan on going to one sometime. These $100 lockers can turn into $30,000 ones if you happen to be lucky.
To be completely transparent, I only want to attend one to say “yuuuuuup” but probably never will.
4. Alibaba and DHgate
The majority of sellers on these sites are from Shenzhen, China – manufacturing central.
There are a ridiculous amount of scams you can run into, but with some due diligence and payment protection, there are some products you can find behind this magical rainbow.
From my experience, never send a wire transfer on your first payment, and if the deal is too good to be true, it definitely is.
DHgate is China’s eBay. It’s a safer solution to purchase items with PayPal and further negotiate on larger quantities.
Take note: any major brand being sold on these sites are fake. Don’t bother trying to pick up Beats by Dre, iPhones or any major consumer items here.
5. Google for Suppliers
This can be hit or miss, but it never hurts to look.
If you found some popular items to sell on eBay, do a quick search and send off some emails. Here are a few examples of search queries you can use to find baby products:
intitle:”baby wholesale”
intitle:”baby liquidation”
intitle:”baby clearance”
STEP 3: THREE STRATEGIES TO CHOOSE FROM AND SOME SICK MATH
Now that you know how to find some top notch items to sell on eBay, we need to choose a plan of attack.
Regardless of the strategy you choose, there is one commonality that makes all of them successful: customer service.
Solid customer service converts leads into sales. In fact, 34% of the people who asked a detailed item related question (pre-sales) purchased the item within 24 hours of receiving a reply.
Here’s a common example you can expect to see by delivering detailed answers promptly:
The magic words when selling on eBay are turnover and liquidity. The last thing you want is dead inventory.
Here are three profitable strategies to consider which will depend on your level of risk and cash flow.
In its simplest form, each