Thread: Broke? Try Ebay...

I wanted to post this as I think some of the new people on the boards could use this as motivation on how to at the very least generate cash to build up capital quickly. Also, using ebay is a great way to learn some business principles in customer service, management, and MARKETING.

So about two years ago I started ebaying with the help of my mentor Jill. (Who is on the board as well). I will say that she was a very big help and gave me the information needed to get going. Even to do this day, some of the advice and tips she gave me has assisted me in growing my business as some of things she told back two years ago took awhile for me to put in place. Again, two years ago...I was a college student working in a dead end job to pay for private school tuition which isn't cheap. I live in rural North Carolina where they are "no jobs" as people always say. The job I did have, I got laid off of but thankfully I had already been ebaying so it wasn't a big let down for me. My location is far from Beverly Hills, fashion isn't a concern (unless it is between wearing a straw hat or John Deere hat!) and at first I was worried this model wouldn't work for me. I learned quickly, you just have to go the extra mile (or many miles in my case) to get to where you want to be. So never let your physical location be a reason to hold you back. Make it an asset!

So, my niche is selling preowned clothing, men's clothing to be exact. Where do I find them? Thrift stores. So basically, just go to a thrift store...know the brands that sell well (designer names) and find stuff that is in good condition. Where I am, I probably average in at around $5 per item. Take good pictures of the items, list on ebay....average item brings $20. Pretty simple, eh? Well, it really isn't THAT easy. I am very motivated and it tested me at times to keep pushing forward. Ebay is a saturated market and items don't bring what they brought 5-10 years ago, much less 2 years ago. You have to stick to your niche, rise above your competitors with better pictures, more inventory, and better customer service.

Now, back to my situation. I got my four year degree, yipee! Where could I go in North Carolina to get a job? Charlotte in the banking industry? Yeah, they are really hiring at the moment! Winston Salem for the tobacco industry....few decades late for that. Raleigh for the tech industry...maybe, but I majored in business so I wouldn't be very marketable. My back was against the wall, so I decided to suck it up and start pushing out some volume on ebay. I went from selling a 150-200 items per month to 400-500 items per month. For this holiday season, I expect my sales revenue to be around 50-60k and I will probably bank half of that. 30k banked in 3 months...not terrible.

You can use any niche to make money on ebay. You just have to have the knowledge and be ready to work your butt off and put up with the BS from customers because it will come. For example today, I am posting 560 new items, sold about 60 items today which I have to send out invoices and packages, process refunds, relist the returned items, deal with items that I bought off of ebay to resell that wasn't as advertised. Oh yeah, and I gave the guy that takes pictures for me about 90 items to picture and he in return gave 120 items already pictured to ANOTHER guy who writes the descriptions for me. Remember I told you about my dieing rural area job market? CHEAP LABOR! Why fool with doing something that anyone can do when I can spend the day shopping and make $500-$1000 EASY. I have made $4k in on store before.

You can make money in any niche. You want to make $10k a month, just create the system and put it in the hours hustling. I have did it before and will again. They are people making a living selling golf clubs, tools, automobiles, parts, you name it.

Some quick advice with ebay.

1. Honesty- Be honest about the item you are selling. If you try to cut corners, you will never make it.

2. Feedback- Does it suck processing a $300 "profit" refund back to a customer after he held onto a suit for two weeks and probably wore it? Yes. But is it worth ruining your feedback which is really the only reason people will trust you do begin with? No. So gives those refunds no quesitons asked. Be a problem solver, be sweeeet, smile! It cost me THOUSANDS per years returning stuff, but without doing it I would be out of business. Ebay gives all the power to buyers, trust me.

3. Hustle- Need I say more? Go buy product, take pictures, kill it on turning inventory. I am now one of the bigger players in my niche. The more you sell, the higher your items will bring cause your repuation grows, customer base grows. Just like any other business....just hustle and grind and the money will come.

4. Focus on the cash- At first, I was worried about each items profit. I bought "x" item for $5, sold for $20. Then ebay fee's, pay pal fee's...I made $10! Forget about it. Now what I do, my paypal account is at $8,500. A week later, it is at $10,000. Great, I gained $1,500. This has been THE key for me. Focus on building your cash up, not your profit per item.

5. Marketing- Find ways to keep customers coming back. Give discounts, send e-mails to former customers...encourage people to do save you as a favorite seller. Stay in touch. This is building your customer base. Some of the guys I compete against have thousands of eyes gauarnteed to be on the auctions every week. This comes with time and delivering on your promise each and every time. See, 1 and 2 again.

Lastly, I will tell any newbie reading this....this isn't glamorous. This isn't passive. You make what you put in to it. This also will never make you rich. I will bet every dollar I have ever made on ebay, you will not make millions on ebay. This is just a way to generate capital and learn some business tatics along the way. This isn't easy....sometimes it SUCKS. I will leave you with this, I am planning on buying my first home with cash. I could be putting it into something else like apt buildings or such but I am just not comfortable with that yet. But can you imagine buying your first home with cash....no monthly payments. Pretty nice. I will be doing this at the start of next year and it all came "one piece at a time" (Johnny Cash flashback for a moment).

Again, any niche will work. You just have to figure out your plan and HUSTLE with it. I worked until 2am last night, who cares? I make double what any of my friends are making at the local bank. If you are selling used golf clubs, people will laugh at you. They have laughed at me. Guess what? They will still be renting a year from now and working a dead end job. I will own a a home worth six figures free and CLEAR. I let them have a laugh...I will be laughing at them when they are 60 something and still working. With no bills or worries, I can eventually work less on ebay and more on my fastlane business if I so desire. It is all about having the choice! If you are in that dead end job slaving away with no plan, you have zero choice. Just keep punching the clock and packing the lunch bag, you are owned.

This isn't a career, this isn't a fastlane business. It is just a step to get the next step in your fastlane plan. I hope this helps one broke college kid somewhere who has a dream because if I can do it, so can you!

Luke

Good questions.

You know, I have never really studied when the best time is to list stuff. I would imagine Sunday evenings are the best though. I have looked at my store traffic and typically on average Sunday is the highest.

I use to always do 7 day listings, but then I started building up so much inventory I decided to go to 5 days and essentially get two extra turns per month. I pretty much look at like, if somebody is going to find your item and bid, 5 days is plenty of time. The two extra turns per month is worth it for me to pay a few extra 100 in fee's.

As far as how I list them, majority auction with a fair starting price. I am going to more fix priced listings with free shipping as it suppose to get more exposure that way. All a way to make money by ebay really....you will get screwed either way on fee's. I probably pay 2k per month in fee's. Just gotta roll with it. That is why it is important to find a niche you can sell items for a solid profit and quickly.

If items don't sell after say 3-4 weeks, I just unload them for a low price and move on....

Originally Posted by hakrjak

I was a $10k/month profit player doing Ebay about 7-8 years ago... Then the whole sh!thouse burned down, and my profits fell through the floor. I was buying bulk product from China or overflow from mail order companies, and reselling online.... But then others copied my business model, and before I knew it I was out of business.

There definitely exists an opportunity for people to replace their "day jobs" with Ebay... I'm really glad to see you are doing so well! I'm considering getting back into it on a smaller level just to get some extra cash in this crappy economy!

Ebay fees have gone through the roof in the past few years. I'm wondering how you list your items typically Luke to minimize them? Do you use a store fixed priced listing, or do you do an Auction and start it at .99 cents? Do you find that certain days are better to end your auction on?

Cheers,

- Hakrjak

I agree Hak. It is a LOT tougher today than it was when we started 6 or 7 years ago. That Luke is doing so well, with the current economy, and ebay's RIDICULOUS fees just makes me giggly happy. That's a kid who has the gumption to do what it takes, no matter what!

I used to be afraid of the competition, until I had a few dozen run-ins with difficult customers. Then I was suddenly reminded of the old adage, "I'm willing to do (or put up with) what others are not willing to do (or put up with), so that I can have what they will NEVER have!" There's really not that much competition, because most people will never have the chutzpah to hang in there.

Well done, Luke! Great post.

Originally Posted by snowbank

Great job Luke. What's your plan with this?

Keep doing what you're doing? Scale it into something bigger? Use the funds you're building to start a passive company?

It is so hard to really scale. It is hard to hire people to shop for me because the locations are so far away....and the local markets really aren't viable enough to pay somebody to shop for me, I have tried it. So essentially, I have just focused on me doing the buying and outsourcing the rest (picture taking, description, ect).

Basically, if I list 1000 items...with getting help, I may pay out $1500 for them to help me. But it would take me three weeks to get out that much product myself working hard at it. I elect to pay them....and I can make that $1500 back EASY in 2 days of shopping in a major market. 3 weeks vs 2 days? Easy choice for me.

My plan really is first, buy my house with the money. Then I am going to start using the funds to build my lead gen site that is in the debt collection niche. It should be actually up within the next week or so.

She knows a lil bit about selling clothes on ebay....

But yeah, as far as your questioning with marketing. I have not did any article writing or SEO work. I look at it this way, ebay is not my website and I am not going to spend time doing SEO for them. Marketing, by that I mean....product presentation, retaining customers. Other than delivering a great product with a great picture, not much more you can do....IMO. You can become a "top rated seller" (which is a joke program I might add) and that will probably help your sales and it reduces your fee's.

I am glad my post helped and PM me if you would like to ask any questions as you get started and in the future.

Originally Posted by bateati

Jill has been helping me lately as well. (Thanks a lot Jill)

I've been buying some inventory and I'm learning what brands are worth buying. In a few days I should have my first listings up. It should only be a few items but I'm just trying to break the ice. I'm not so worried if they sale or not, I just want to get some motion going.

I'm currently looking for a mannequin so I can make the clothes look nicer in the listings.
I have a digital camera, internet, computer and car. . . I should be good to go.

I'm trying to raise money to re-invest in my other business ventures and this is a perfect way to start.

You mentioned Marketing on the e-bay listings. Do you write articles and do seo work to drive traffic to your listings?

Class for me started today (studying electronical bs so I can program, create my invention ideas) So if you intended to help at least one person out, I'd say the information you shared definitely gave me a better idea on what to expect.

Good day !

Very inspiring post, Luke.

Just out of curiosity, why not sell women's clothing as well as men's clothing? Also, what software would you suggest to use for keeping everything organized and running smoothly?

Women's clothing is very trending. One day it is in style, the next year it is out. Not saying they are no money in it, but I think you would have trouble finding second hand stuff consistently.

Men's....I can guy buy a suit from 1980's and as long as it has been taken care of, it is still in style, because the style never REALLY changes. The great thing also is...that suit has probably been worn maybe at the most 30 times in a 20-30 year span.

You will find new stuff though that people just donate with the tags on it! I got 16 Armani Collezioni NWT suits and a NWT Gucci cashmere jacket in one store. I also found two Hermes ties for like $1 each, they will probably resell for $100 each. The deals are out there, you just got to be willing to wear out a pair of shoes to find them.

Oh, as far as keep stuff organized. The guy who handles my description writing uses excel and imports into turbolister. All free tools, essentially. I really don't know how he does it but that is what I pay him for.

As far as keeping inventory organized, I have a pretty big basement that is honestly FULL with probably a solid 1000 items. I hang them on clothes rack and then also have some already prepackaged ready to be mailed out and ordered by a tag number.

Honestly, it is a HUGE mess down there....I will be glad when the holiday season is over so I can take a breather and slow down volume wise some.

Nice job Luke, I'm very excited for you. Way to stick to it and make it work, that is very impressive.



And a pat on the back to Jill too for getting you started!



I spent a summer doing eBay when I was waiting for college to start and had sold my business and it is very hard work. One thing i learned that I wanted to pass on is that I tested starting auctions at what you called a "fair price" or just having them all start at .99.

It was really clear that auctions that started at .99 ALWAYS sold for more in the end.

Keep in mind I was selling computers, so maybe it's different in other markets, but worth a test probably.

Jon,

I know at least one top seller in this space who does this. He apparently came to the same conclusion you did. I found, however, that when you're dealing with inventory as variable as clothing, that it's not as easy to scientifically analyze as when you are dealing with more of a commodity. For instance, I've had items that I'd listed 3 times for 19.99, to no avail. Then, on a lark, I listed it for $59.99... And it sold immediately. Perception is reality. If you can't see, feel or touch a garment, you have to depend on the seller's perception of value, relative to the other items they have listed. More art than science for sure.

Thanks Jon..

As far as trying to .99 auctions, I do this pretty much after listing an item a few times with no interest. I will just go ahead and unload it and move on. Sometimes they bring good that way, sometimes you just get a buck. Another added benefit is, it will bring in extra traffic to your other items.

But yeah, with clothes you have to be careful. For example, I just purchased three Armani Collezioni shirts off ebay from a new seller. He had them priced real low and I ended up getting all three for like $30 after shipping. One wasn't it great condition, but I will get over $100 bucks for them on the resell no doubt about it....maybe closer to $150.

Another thing, I always thought that a common size like a 44-46 regular would bring more because more people are in this size range. But it is more a supply and demand issue. If I get a 38 long or a 50 short, those will sell for way more and actually fairly quickly because they are a handful of guys looking for it and will pay premium dollar for it because they are going to have to get a suit tailored for them if they go buy retail.

If you can target thrift stores near affluent communities, you find find a better quality product and more quantity ... I remember when I was broke and poor back in Chicago and I'd hit up a local thrift store that was adjacent to the richest community in the Chicago suburbs ... some of the clothes I got there were incredible as all the rich people would wear stuff a few times and get sick of it.

In other words, you might want to target thrift stores near affluent communities.

Great post!! SPeed+Thanks!