Thread: Broke? Try Ebay...

What do you want to sell? They are literally thousands of items you can sell for profit. What have you researched so far? What niche interest you? What are you looking to achieve from selling on ebay? Do you want it to be a drop ship model? Do you want wear out your shoes and find products one by one and sell for profit? Buy direct from manufacture? Tons of choices, just got to figure out what you want to do and where you want selling on ebay to get you.

Luke

This is a great post! Thanks so much for sharing! I've been grabbing stuff to sell on ebay but hav enever had the time to sit down and process them all. Hearing stories about it happening really inspires me to get working!

A great tip on finding one's niche as well. I have bene grabbing stuff at random but will try to do more research on that. We plan to use the earnings to pay off our debt. Thanks again

Awesome thread, so glad I found it. I'm starting from scratch, first time on eBay, but looking forward to sharing. I hope I get advanced enough to ask Jill for advice (you are a rock star)!

Originally Posted by biophase

Hey Luke,

Great thread. A couple things I took from it that I wanted to mention.

1) Yes it is hard work, but it's not any harder work than if you were working a job for someone. It's probably easier when you think about overall stress.

2) You have learned a great skill. You can be dropped off in any small town and your immediate thought is not to get a job, it is to find the nearest thrift store. You have skills to begin making money anywhere. Worth way more than any job experience. What could or would your banker friends do?

3) Have you thought about slowly transitioning off of ebay and open an online store? You have repeat customers and loyalty. You may not need the ebay platform and you certainly don't want to rely on it 100%. You should start branding your auctions on ebay. Maybe you can start with a few items at set prices and see how it goes.

4) I've also found that if you worry about the money too much that business starts to suffer. Like you said, give that refund and resell the product you might make more the 2nd time. Don't count your profits because you will stress over amounts of $10. As long as my account grows I'm doing ok.

Pure truth in this post!

#2 is so true, it's all that matters after all > learning

Originally Posted by GMAhead

Awesome thread, so glad I found it. I'm starting from scratch, first time on eBay, but looking forward to sharing. I hope I get advanced enough to ask Jill for advice (you are a rock star)!

You're very kind. I'm really not a rock star, though. We just kept doing the very UN-glamorous, mundane, frustrating and sometimes disgusting, repetitive tasks that most people aren't willing to do. Come to B&P and I will answer as many questions as you can think to ask.

I'm glad I found this forum!
Maybe somebody can help me.
I am an immigrant, studying computer engineering. Since 2008, I have been selling women's used name-brand jeans. I hada 40/60 sha with a huge supplier, but the margins were too low for me to make any real money, thus I gave up. i sold about 600 pairs of jeans, though.

Recently, when I went back to Pakistan to visit, I located the manufacturers of big name brands - Nike, Ralph Lauren, USPA, Hollister, Aeropostale, A&F, Ecko.. Etc. I have, since then, been getting my partner there to supply small quantities, and it is selling exceptionally well, with huge profit margins. These are all factory extras.

What I am concerned with, though, is that I feel a huge burden of risk. i feel like it is a huge liability. Selling brand-name merchandise, without being a licensed distributor.. Is tht illegal? Can the brand owners sue me, for selling something with amanufacturer's label of $75, for just $35? Please do note that these are all originals.. Not knock offs. i am scared to expand this business. I cannot affford a lawyer. Any advice will be appreciated!

This would be a fast way to get kicked off of eBay. Not only do brandholders regularly enforce their trademarks (and their authorized distribution) but you would be subject to eBay thinking you are selling fraudulent knockoffs, and you would have no way to substantiate you weren't.

Nike, Ralph Lauren, USPA, Hollister, Aeropostale and trigger brands on eBay. As long as your goods emanated from an authorized distributor, it is NOT illegal. However, that doesn't mean eBay is going to allow you to do it on their marketplace.

Your other risk would be U.S. customs if you were talking about selling the merchandise for shipment within the United States. They will take the merchandise at the direction of the brandholders if the merchandise was not intended for United States resale... and you are simply out of luck in that circumstance.

High risk.