Ebay sellers; how much do they REALLY make?

Factual Questions
1

I hear they can make upto 30 grand a year reselling stuff on ebay; other report that they’d barely turn $500 a month.

I suppose it all has to do on whats being sold/how much, but anyone who ebays or knows someone, how much do these guys make?

2

Note that I’m talking about the big boys with 500+ feedbacks a year minimum

3

Speaking as an eBayer with over 1200 feedbacks, both selling and buying… here’s a few tips.

  1. Never “buy” something with the urge to sell it without checking history.

  2. The real key to eBay is to be able to find a wanted item that is easily replacable with a high margin. In other words, a good mail order product, if you will. The problem is the time it takes to write a product description… a GOOD product description isn’t easy. If you have an endless stream of product that is the same, and has a demand… you’re golden. You have to hit one button to RELIST it and away you go.

  3. It beats the lottery. It’s like a lottery in REVERSE. I’ve sold books for $600 that I bought for $1. I’ve sold packages for over 1000, but mostly I make my on stuff I buy in huge lots for pennies.

  4. All the regular mail order rules apply. One friend of mine buys “introductory tapesets” wholesale off a speaker. He puts them on eBay for cost. He loses a dollar or so on each sale, but he makes it back, because 1/4 of the buyers step up and buy his “big package” after hearing the small package.

  5. I almost never buy anything without seeing what it’s going for on eBay.

4

(Note: I myself don’t sell on e-Bay, but I have two family members that do: one (A) that does it as an adjunct to their existing on-line business, the other (B) as an adjunct to their mostly mail-order business and to sell off extra crap.)

It really depends, as the OP surmised, on what the goods are. And, it also depends on if they’re concentrating only on e-Bay or if they’re using it as a tool to their main business.

Family member A deals in (normally) easy to mail, high-profit margin parts that will eventually wear out from age/use and need replacing, so there is a built in repeat market. Normally they’re using e-Bay to dump stuff that they’ve got waaaaaay too much of, items that are cosmetically damaged or otherwise aren’t ‘perfect’ (but are still perfectly good to use), or items that they only have a handful or less of, and are therefore not worth listing on their main business website. (Odd lots, in other words.) Sometimes they make just enough to recoup expenses on something, but usually they’re getting at least a 50% markup on the item. They’ve got usually about 50+ auctions running at any given time, and I’d guesstimate that they’re making a couple thousand a month, easy. (Most of which is plowed right back into the business, since they’re still interested in growing.)

Family member B doesn’t fit the OP’s request for info on the big-boys, as they probably have one or two listings (at most) on e-Bay: they’re normally buying, not selling. But, it provides a good contrast. They sell off extra collectables so that they can have some ‘fun’ money or to buy extra goods for their regular store. The income from this is rather bursty: a few hundred there, then nothing for awhile.

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