Ebay sellers thread (other platforms too)

[QuarterMillionMan]

Sold this today by auctions which I started at $1. Also, buyer pays $5 shipping. I subscribe to the Las Vegas Advisor monthly newsletter (yearly subscription is $50) which includes this valuable coupon book. I used a lot of the gambling coupons which I disclosed in my description of the item for sale. The gambling coupons which I used netted in a profit and possibly paid for my $50 subscription so this extra $9.55 is just the cherry on top. Buyer hasn't paid yet and the sale is not completed yet until the buyer pays.

[disneysteve]

I've been giving a lot of thought to my reselling business now that I'm more than a year into retirement. I really ramped up the business as I approached and entered retirement. It is a lot of fun. I've met some great people. It keeps me physically and mentally active and gives me (and us together) something to do with a lot of our time. The raw return on investment is solid.

All of that said, however, the actual amount I'm earning isn't really that much. I've realized that the total amount I'm making in a year between ebay and Replacements is the same or less than our portfolio earns in a day frequently. I've always said I wasn't doing it for the money and that's still true. I just feel like I'm at a point where there are other things I'd rather be doing with a lot of that time. Also, specifically with the china sales, I got to a point where I was working on that a lot. To prepare for a road trip to North Carolina, I really had to push myself to acquire about $5,000 worth of merchandise to make the trip worthwhile and I have less than 60 days to do that each time. I haven't enjoyed that pressure.

So I'm looking to trim things back. I am not going to stop reselling as I do really enjoy it. If I want to remain a supplier for Replacements, I do have the $5,000 annual sales quota, which really isn't all that hard to meet. I did it this year with my first trip in February. I was on track to do about $25,000 in sales to them this year but that's just more work than I want to do. As long as I can at least keep exceeding the $5,000 mark that would be fine. I'd rather not lose access to their database.

As far as ebay, I've been focusing more on catching up with my "death pile", items that have been sitting around for ages that need to get listed. That includes personal items from our own collection and belongings that I want to sell. This dovetails with our ongoing efforts to declutter. I've backed off some on attending estate sales. I still go to them, as I did yesterday when I bought 3 items, but I'm not hitting several each week or getting there an hour early to be at the top of the list.

So basically I'm trying to take it back to just being a fun thing I do on the side rather than a major focus of my life and time. I'm totally glad I did it the way I did it because I think it helped with the transition into retirement and this phase of our lives. And had I not done it, I would have always been wondering if I could have. Now I know, as I've always said, that if we needed the money, I could always ramp it back up. At the pace I was going, I probably would have done about $40,000 in sales this year and could absolutely have done even more if I wanted to. It's an awesome way to make extra money regardless of your situation. We're just at a point in our lives where I don't need to work that hard at it because it's not about the money for us.

Stay tuned. I will still post my monthly numbers and experiences. I've been reselling since high school. I'm not about to stop now.

[disneysteve]

Gotta love this.

ebay holds an annual seller's event called ebayOpen. It's held both in person and online. I attended online this year and last year but got to go in person in 2023. I came home with a bunch of ebay swag, some of which I later listed for sale on ebay. Today, I sold some of that swag. I don't normally look up buyers or addresses but something about this one jumped out at me so I Googled it. It's going to the NYC offices of ebay.

I literally sold ebay merchandise (which I got for free) back to ebay.

[disneysteve]

August 2025 wrap up

ebay:
$587.28 gross
$390.53 net

Replacements:
$194.00 gross
$115.66 net

Marketplace:
$10 gross and net

Total:
$791.28 gross
$516.19 net

As I mentioned in a prior post, I've decided to cut back on my reselling so these numbers clearly reflect that. I'm still at it. I'm still listing new items. I'm still shopping for items. I'm just doing it all a lot less than I was. Maybe I'll do more again sometime, maybe not. I'll see how its going.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Sold a $5 weight bench listed on Offer Up. 3 young Asian guys showed and wisked it away. I gave them the $5 back and told them that they did me a favor allowing me to free up space. I had used the weight bench as a mount for two 5 gallon Igloo orange water coolers. Now I'll be able to buy a shelf to put in where the weight bench used to be.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Scheduled an automatic "time away" for my 7 listings on eBay. Upcoming vacation trip to Hawaii and if something sells on eBay the buyers will know the item won't ship until I return. Good feature.

[disneysteve]

Scheduled an automatic "time away" for my 7 listings on eBay. Upcoming vacation trip to Hawaii and if something sells on eBay the buyers will know the item won't ship until I return. Good feature.

Yep. Time Away used to only be available to sellers with a store subscription but they made it available to everyone some time ago. Good move on their part. I use it regularly when we are away. I've even used it when we weren't away but I was otherwise occupied, like when my wife was in the hospital.

[disneysteve]

September 2025 wrap up

ebay:
$520.01 gross
$388.91 net

Replacements:
$0 gross
$0 net

Marketplace:
$50 gross and net

Total:
$570.01 gross
$438.91 net

I continued to sell more casually last month as intended. I have started to pick back up a bit with my listing activity so we'll see how it goes. I do have I think 3 sets of china in the garage that I need to process. I bought some stuff last week at an estate sale that is already listed so hopefully that will start generating some sales. And I've been slowly listing some stuff that's been sitting around the house for ages, like years, and already sold a few of those items.

[QuarterMillionMan]

I made this sale today. Prior to this sale, on Temu, I bought 12 of these water bottle holders for $1.69 each. But for free shipping on Temu they require a $20 minimum order so I bought 12. I knew that I could resell these things in order to make some of my money back and today was that day albeit I didn't make all of my money back but it's a start.

[disneysteve]

Good job, QMM. That's a great way to trim your own costs. Buy in bulk and then sell off the extras.

[disneysteve]

Reselling really shines when you can buy things in bulk. A couple of weeks ago I went to an estate sale. In the garage, I found a carton with over 40 brand new commercial knives, like the kind butchers and chefs would use, not your average home kitchen knives. I bought the whole box for $75.

I made the first sale from that lot today. Somebody bought 3 knives for a total of $86. After fees, I'm up $5.73 on my initial investment, but I still have over 40 knives left to sell. Every sale from now on will be all profit. If I average even $25 each, that will be about $1,000 profit on my $75 purchase. I've already gotten my money back so however long it takes to sell them all is fine with me. I'm in no rush.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Nice score disneysteve.

[QuarterMillionMan]

I purchased on eBay a new $3 Nalgene 32 oz water bottle plus $9 shipping, the tax in California is 10% so my total was $12.30. If I purchased one where another seller with the exact same new item was selling it for $12 with free shipping, plus California's 10% tax, $12 x $1.20 tax = $13.20 total. It makes a difference and I saved buying from the first scenario.

[disneysteve]

I purchased on eBay a new $3 Nalgene 32 oz water bottle plus $9 shipping, the tax in California is 10% so my total was $12.30. If I purchased one where another seller with the exact same new item was selling it for $12 with free shipping, plus California's 10% tax, $12 x $1.20 tax = $13.20 total. It makes a difference and I saved buying from the first scenario.

Bingo. A lot of buyers filter their search to show items with "free" shipping and often end up paying more as a result. There's no such thing as free shipping. It's just a marketing gimmick. It's always best to filter by total price and choose that way. In your case, you saved on sales tax.

[disneysteve]

October 2025 wrap up

ebay:
$548.14 gross
$256.49 net

Replacements:
$0 gross
$0 net

Marketplace:
$0 gross
$0 net

Total:
$548.14 gross
$256.49 net

As mentioned previously, I've cut back a lot on selling for a variety of reasons. Still at it but way less by choice. I'll probably get back into it at some point but not to the extent I was doing it a few months ago.