Make Money With Ebay

[choreminion]

Good for you! I take it that means you didn't leave college with $40-100,000 in debt!

Not for that diploma. Round two is a different story lol

[Gailete]

Not for that diploma. Round two is a different story lol

I did so many work study jobs on campus that at the end they owed me a bit 12 years later when I went to nursing school I took out my first college loan and so left with about $2K in debt but got it paid off ahead of time. I think because I had to work so hard for my college money, I appreciated my education a whole lot better than those that wait for checks from the banks and the bank of mom and dad! It is truly a learning opportunity to work your way through as you learn real quick what is a need and what is a want when money is so limited.

[Gailete]

There are much opportunities to make online money where you can show your skills and services to earn money and to make online profits

This is very true except for those who won't look for opportunities with their eyes and brain wide open to see them, AND they have to understand that there is NO get rich quick on line way of making money. It is as hard to make money on line as it is with any other job, except you can squeeze it in between other things and work in your jammies if needed. But then, the folks that are looking for fast easy money aren't going to be successful in regular jobs either.

[Michael S Brown]

Before I started blogging and making money in affiliate marketing I used to do the Ebay thing. At first it seemed OK. I made decent money doing it. But, as others mentioned when they started turning the fees up and charging for every single detail it started killing my profit. Combine that with a direct increase in competition.

Plus, larger companies have used eBay simply as a "loss leader" to pull people into their ow online stores away from eBay. This is where I personally think the money from eBay is at now for most sellers. It's hard to go in unless you're in a strictly unique niche.

A buddy of mine who has done well with eBay said where he made the most money was auctioning the items over being a store seller. But, the key was he listed only a few of the same item at a time to keep the competition on his bidding up.

[~bs]

ebay just changed their fee structure, which I believe will hurt small sellers. It's basically 10% flat ebay fee if you don't have an ebay store. If you have a store, you'll see rates from 6% - 9% (flat) depending on the category you're selling in. This flat rate system is simpler, but you'll end up paying more on fees the more expensive the item you're selling is. The old rate had a step down system, where fees were gradually lessened as you hit higher dollar thresholds.

I do sell on ebay successfully. Main thing is to make sure you factor in all the fees into calculation of whether items are profitable or not. The top rated 20% discount on ebay fees, doing enough volume to have an ebay store, & paying for the fees themselves with a credit card is key in managing fees.

Listing fees don't really apply if you have an ebay store because you get a number of free listings. Now, even without a store, you get 50 free listings. Most "add-on" listing options that cost money don't do all that much in increasing exposure of the item and are a waste of money. If you need to get a certain price, just set it as a buy it now 30 days. Even if you do pay a listing fee, it's only $0.20 or $0.50.

[disneysteve]

ebay just changed their fee structure, which I believe will hurt small sellers.

An incredible service that started as a way for the small seller to have a voice in a global market gradually devolved into something entirely different, which is really a shame, but I guess they decided that the corporate business was where the money was.

I really wish someone would come along and do what ebay used to do so well. It was great while it lasted. And what's really unfortunate is that ebay led to the death of in-person sales like antique and collectible shows. We used to sell at shows from New York to Virginia. Once ebay got popular, the shows died out. Ebay was a lot less work and was much more profitable. Now ebay sucks and costs a lot more to use than it used to but the shows are gone too so we're left with nowhere to sell our merchandise. I have a basement full of old stock that I can't get rid of. I actually donated a bunch of stuff to a charity auction recently just to get it out of the house.

[~bs]

Well if you sell it on ebay, you'll get something, which is arguably better than nothing.

But if you aren't a powerseller, and don't have an ebay store, your total fee is going to be 10% + 2.9%, which is a zinger. Before, with the graduated rates, if you sold a $500 item, you'd pay maybe $30 in ebay fees. With the new 10% flat rate, you'll pay $50, an increase of 66%. The higher the dollar value of the item, the greater the difference. For cheap knick nack stuff, you're probably about even or slightly better with the new fee.

[Gailete]

There are also other places to sell if you don't want or need an auction format, such as ecrater. It doesn't get as many views as ebay, but with time and patience you can grow a nice business with basically no fees other that PayPal fees. I've been selling there for 5+ years. Things have slowed down some but it seems to be in light of Google changes which also got rather money hungry and keeps changing how their search works.

[~bs]

There are also other places to sell if you don't want or need an auction format, such as ecrater. It doesn't get as many views as ebay, but with time and patience you can grow a nice business with basically no fees other that PayPal fees. I've been selling there for 5+ years. Things have slowed down some but it seems to be in light of Google changes which also got rather money hungry and keeps changing how their search works.

The disadvantage, as you pointed out is the relative lack of traffic on other sites. I'd rather do higher volumes on ebay, and deal with the fees than sell elsewhere. I can list an item on ebay 10-20% higher, and it'll still stand a decent chance of selling because all it takes is 1 out of 100 people that viewed it to make the sale. For another site, you may have only 10 people viewing the item, and need to list it at a lower price to make his sale.

To each his own I guess, and i think it really depends on the seller and the business he's in.

[Gailete]

The disadvantage, as you pointed out is the relative lack of traffic on other sites. I'd rather do higher volumes on ebay,

I left ebay in 2008 because my store sales had tanked. Within a year at ecrater my sales were not only up, I was doing better than I had at ebay. At this point almost 3800 ecrater sales. My location I don't think really bothered my sales. What did however, was google's caffeine, Panda and Penguin 1 & 2 changes! Still trying to overcome those changes as we don't know if our visibility dropped due to being on ecrater (but sellers from many other venues including ebay are also reporting low sales) or to our stores themselves. I have always shied away from practices that weren't good for SEO, and am trying to see what else I can do to get my sales back up.

One of the nice things about ecrater is being able to list as much as you want with no listing fees, and you get to do your own promoting and marketing with links that come directly to your store. Many don't want to do any promoting and so don't get much in the way of sales.

Anyhow, as always when selling on the internet, be prepared for change at any instant.

[Sheila89]

Is using PayPal as other payment option ok? Are there fees applied for this option?

[Gailete]

Is using PayPal as other payment option ok? Are there fees applied for this option?

Which site are you asking about? Paypal payments, no matter where you use them, if they are a business account have fees included. Currently 30 cents plus 2.9% of the entire amount paid I think. International transaction have a higher rate.

[~bs]

Which site are you asking about? Paypal payments, no matter where you use them, if they are a business account have fees included. Currently 30 cents plus 2.9% of the entire amount paid I think. International transaction have a higher rate.

Maybe I'll give other sites a look. Sometimes not good to have all your weeds in one basket


For paypal, you can get lower merchant rates of your sales are more than 3k pet month. It's around 2.5%. Not a huge difference, but can add up. Doesn't hurt to apply.