Ebay sellers thread (other platforms too)

[QuarterMillionMan]

Good job. For me it is gratifying to get rid of things I no longer need and get money for it. Sort of like decluttering which is liberating to free myself of the clutter.

[disneysteve]

I had a good sourcing weekend.

Yesterday, I went to an estate sale. Today I went to another estate sale and a flea market. Here's what I bought and what I sold it for. All sales to Replacements already locked in.

Pitcher. Paid $10. Sold for $80.
Cake plate. Paid $5. Sold for $20.
Pie server. Paid $5. Sold for $20.
Set of cups and saucers. Paid $165. Sold for $280.
Deviled egg plate. Paid $5. Sold for $25.
Olive dish. Paid $5. Sold for $40.
Candle holder. Paid $10. Sold for $60.

Total spent $205
Total sales $525

Not bad at all.

[disneysteve]

It's taken a while but people in my life are starting to learn what I do. Twice in the past week, someone has reached out to me because they had stuff to sell and wanted to see if I'd be interested.

One friend is cleaning out her late mother's house. The other I'm not quite sure why. Maybe thinking about downsizing as they have a large home and all 3 kids are grown and on their own and they are nearing retirement so perhaps.

I haven't connected with the one yet but the other I sent them an offer today on a set of china and I think I'll be buying that from them. I gave them a more generous offer than I would have given a random stranger but still left myself a reasonable profit.

Word of mouth is always great advertising.

[disneysteve]

Ebay provided a "calculate shipping" tool which gave a range of $5.85 - $8.24, so I went with the high range and put a flat $8 shipping charge.

Ah. Never use ebay's estimates for anything. Not price. Not shipping. Not promotion level. It's all AI crap. Weigh and measure your package and use a shipping calculator to determine the cost to ship to the farthest point if you are doing flat rate. I live in NJ and use CA as my guide. Now and then when something sells to AL or HI it might cost a bit more but that's rare.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Ebay provided a "calculate shipping" tool which gave a range of $5.85 - $8.24, so I went with the high range and put a flat $8 shipping charge.

[disneysteve]

I underestimated the cost of shipping where I charged $8 and the actual shipping cost is $8.24, but no biggie.

How are you determining your shipping cost?

[QuarterMillionMan]

I underestimated the cost of shipping where I charged $8 and the actual shipping cost is $8.24, but no biggie.

[disneysteve]

The broken Invicta watch sold for $8.50 + $8 shipping to a buyer in TN. Ebay is amazing at making money selling things. Why more people don't sell behooves me. I guess people like to store their belongings in Public Storage or just dump or donate their unused items.

Glad that worked out well for you.

I totally agree. I say it here all the time. ebay is like printing money. Day after day I sell things for 5, 10, and even 20+ times what I paid for them, sometimes within days. The ROI is incredible. Folks who are struggling to make ends meet or trying to pay off debt or save for some big event like college or a wedding really should consider it. I just think the average person doesn't have it on their radar as a thing to do.

[QuarterMillionMan]

The broken Invicta watch sold for $8.50 + $8 shipping to a buyer in TN. Ebay is amazing at making money selling things. Why more people don't sell behooves me. I guess people like to store their belongings in Public Storage or just dump or donate their unused items.

[disneysteve]

My broken Invicta watch has 2 bids, $1 and $1.25 now and buyer pays $8 ground advantage shipping. And here I was happy to get $1.25 for it

Why would you be happy selling something for $1.25? After fees and taxes you'd be losing money (unless you padded the shipping cost).

ebay take about 15% of the total of sale price, sales tax, and shipping. If you sell it for $1.25+$8.00 shipping, that's $9.25 plus sales tax. ebay will take about $1.50 of that leaving you $7.75. Subtract shipping from that and what are you left with? Would it really be worth your time to photograph, list, pack, and ship an item to maybe walk away with a dollar?

Since it's an auction, most bidding takes place in the final 30 seconds so hopefully the price goes up, but starting at $1 is a big risk that you've just wasted your time.

[disneysteve]

Big score today. Someone on Marketplace was giving away two sets of Kaplan Bar Exam review books. Apparently one of the law school in NJ gives them to all graduating students for free (well included in tuition) so this woman gave away her set and another set from a friend I guess. There are 9 books total and they sell on ebay for $100+ each. I'll get one set listed tonight and as they sell, I'll list the second copies, and there's a third copy of one of the books for some reason. So potentially I could gross $900-$1,000 on a bunch of books I got for free.

Turns out they aren't worth quite as much as I thought, but still good, and cost me nothing. I did my research last night and listed the first 4 for between $74 and $99 each. There were some comps for over $100 but most were selling for less. I'm going to be aggressive with pricing to try and move them quickly. If there's no action in a week, I'll cut the prices. If I have the opportunity to send offers, I'll be generous with those. Since they are for the 2024-2025 exam, I don't want to sit on them for too long. I paid nothing so whatever I get for them is great.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Nice score. My broken Invicta watch has 2 bids, $1 and $1.25 now and buyer pays $8 ground advantage shipping. And here I was happy to get $1.25 for it but it could sell for more, 2 more days until the auction ends.

[disneysteve]

February 2025 wrap up

ebay:
$610.17 gross
$445.45 net

Replacements:
$5,014.83 gross
$3,715.39 net

Total:
$5,625.00 gross
$4,160.84 net

As expected, February was a big month as it included a road trip to Replacements with 22 cartons of china. ebay remained steady despite me listing very few new items. That's a big benefit of building up an inventory in that even if I step away from it for a bit, the sales keep rolling in. I've already met the $5,000 sales quota for the year to Replacements so that hurdle is complete. And to think when I first signed up last July, I didn't know if I could manage that and here I am hitting it just 6 weeks into the year.

I'm giving myself a little break since coming home from NC. I had a bunch of stuff that needed to get listed on ebay so I've been focusing on that, and have already sold a number of the items I listed. We were also away for a few days last week. March will probably be good but modest, nothing like February. I'm planning to ship china to Replacements for now. No trip planned. Maybe later in the spring. Right now I've got $437 worth packed and ready to go that I'll ship out this week.

Big score today. Someone on Marketplace was giving away two sets of Kaplan Bar Exam review books. Apparently one of the law school in NJ gives them to all graduating students for free (well included in tuition) so this woman gave away her set and another set from a friend I guess. There are 9 books total and they sell on ebay for $100+ each. I'll get one set listed tonight and as they sell, I'll list the second copies, and there's a third copy of one of the books for some reason. So potentially I could gross $900-$1,000 on a bunch of books I got for free.

[EasyMoney00]

A buyer left me negative feedback for a purchase. All he said was "Too expensive". How is that my fault? Nobody forced him to buy the item. If he wasn't happy with it, I accept returns.

I looked at his profile and it turns out he has left the exact same comment for 3 purchases in the past month. I'm checking now on how I report him to ebay for abusing the system.

update: eBay has already removed the feedback for me.

That's really strange. What would be the point of doing that? Maybe their account was compromised?

[QuarterMillionMan]

Ebay is fair about those negative feedbacks and removed your's. Once someone gave me a positive review but maybe a month later wanted reimbursement which I would have done but eBay ruled in my favor.