What to Sell on Ebay

There are a couple of different approaches when it comes to deciding what products you want to sell on Ebay. I want to take a moment to discuss a couple of the approaches and then discuss my take on each one. Finally, I’ll let you know what I do and also provide some (I think) useful links along the way.

First, what do most people sell on Ebay? There is no best answer to this question. Most people try to list items that will sell, and this is especially true since the listing fees were introduced. But there are a couple of ways to measure the key metrics.

The first question to ask yourself is what is the demand for a product? In many cases, it can be expensive to test a new market on Ebay (again due to the listing fees) so if I am, let’s say, entering the historical document reproductions market, I will create a dozen listings on an Ebay alternative. I prefer eBid since there is no listing fee. So, a run my trial listings and then crunch the data. What percentage of my auctions were sales. And what was my margin on the campaign? Once I have ascertained that there is a market for a set of items then I’ll expand my research.

On Ebay what is the competition like? Are there a ton of sellers in this market? What is the average final sale price on items that are similar to what I plan to sell? Using these numbers and adding in listing fees, do I think that the margins will be there to make the market a profitable one for me?

See, these are some of the things that you have to consider when deciding upon things to sell on ebay. Obviously there is a lot more that goes into it but that’s a good breathing point to stop for today.

Making Money on Ebay

There aren’t exactly secrets to making money on Ebay. That said, there are definitely certain things that you can do (and must do) if you want to become a big money player. The first thing that you absolutely have to do is educate yourself. I have seen people clean out their garage and go on to list a few of the things on ebay. They think that they are going to start making some decent money. But, once the items have sold (if they have sold) they find themselves not knowing what to do next.

What I find is even more common is people buy something on ebay and think to themselves, that was pretty easy — I should be selling on ebay. Or they see an infommercial from a person claiming that they make a lot of money through Ebay auctions. So they break out their credit card, order the product — which always require that they spend more money getting hooked up with “quality” sources — and a few months later find themselves down a few hundred to a thousand bucks.

Folks, this is not the way to make money on Ebay.

Let me tell you the way you should be approaching your Ebay business. First, treat it like a business. Make your purchases wisely with an eye on how they will affect the bottom line. And, please do some research. There are millions of Ebay sellers out there, but not all of them are trustworthy. Find a person with a blog or website that knows there stuff and learn from them.

AOL for instance has a pretty good site for information on how to make money with Ebay. So, that’s a good place to start. Read, read and read. And then, when you are ready to jump, jump in head first. Remember that fortunes (on ebay or anywhere else) are not made absent of work.

How to Make Money on Ebay

There are a lot of people out there today who claim to be able how to teach you to make money on ebay. Though the catch is that they all charge you a pretty penny to do so and there is no way to know in advance who is legit. So, in a lot of cases, interested people end up getting burned. In some ways it’s a lousy system that just doesn’t sit well with me.

So, I decided to do something about it.

As an Ebay powerseller, I know a few things about making money with Ebay and I know a few things about not making money with Ebay. And I am going to use my new blog here, Things to Sell on Ebay to talk about some of the best strategies to use when looking to make money with Ebay.

The first thing to realize is that there are two ways to make money with Ebay. The first is to actually conduct auctions yourself on Ebay’s site. Under this model your goal is to begin, start making some money while getting your feet wet, then ramp up your activity multiplying your profit. The other way is to use Ebay’s Partner Network to publicize other people auctions for which you can earn commissions for drawing traffic.

The question becomes how do you want to make money on ebay. Do you want to actually order and stock products and then sell them via auctions? Or do you have a blog or website and you simply want to refer others to Ebay and let them purchase the items from another vendor. Both methods work to make money and I only point them out because so many people rush in and join a wholesaling network before they have even sold a product on Ebay and get killed on listing fees. For many people using the Partner Network might be a better approach. Remember, that a passive income is sometimes the most desirable kind of income to attain.

Regardless of which method you choose, making money on ebay requires work. But, obviously you know that. If you are willing to put in the work you can make a substantial amount of money.