Share this
When I first became a SINGLE SAHM, the most important thing for me was continuing to be home with my kids. I wouldn’t let anything, even a divorce stand in my way. My solution was eBay. I could make a killing on eBay, good profits, ship when I wanted to, and still be there for every second of my children’s lives. It was the best of both worlds. Although I’ve been selling on eBay for 15 years, I created a very successful, stable income for myself and my kids in a year and a half. No teacher was telling me what I should or should not do. It was all trial and error. After all, the best secrets of how to make a living on eBay are secret, right?
Not today, my friends. Not today!
Here are 7 tips to making a living on eBay you won’t hear from anyone else…
1) Start out selling whatever
When you first start your eBay account, you just want to sell whatever you have lying around the house. A pile of clutter now becomes inventory be surprised at what goes for good money on eBay, especially if you break parts up. Let’s say your vacuum just bit the dust (pun intended) and you replaced it with a new one. You can make just as much money selling those parts off your old, mildly crusty vacuum as your NEW VACUUM COST! Not kidding! Someone else may not have the money to go out and buy a new vacuum, so they buy the parts off eBay and it saves them money. They are happy. You are happy because collectively for a few parts, they just bought you a new vacuum! It’s like the largest garage sale platform… only online!
2) Watch your fees
It generally costs about $10-$20 to send a box of something, depending on the contents. For example, that snow globe you thought was worthless just sold for $30. By the time eBay is done with you, you will have only profited $7. It’ll cost 16% in eBay/PayPal fees, about $10-$13 to ship it, and another few bucks in miscellaneous supplies (if you have to buy packaging.)
Here are a couple of solutions:
- Try to always ship items that you can fit in a First Class bubble envelope. You have 13 oz to work with. It’ll save you a ton of money in shipping. Skip this thought if you are shipping a snow globe.
- Make the buyer pay the shipping costs in addition to the selling price (either way, you can’t ask for more than your competitor’s buying price plus shipping price, so you’re still pretty limited there.)
- Purchase shipping from home. Use your computer to print your labels. You will save about 20% over the retail pricing they charge you at your local USPS. For this, you’ll need a scale. This is the one I use and love.
- Get your packing materials for free. I like to get my bubble wrap and peanuts from Craigslist. l would be amazed at how many businesses give GOOD stuff away for free in the Freebie section. I also like to save the packing materials I receive from purchases. Recycle it all.
3) Open an eBay store
Success lies in your credibility on eBay. If success is what you seek, you might need to consider opening a store. There are so many perks to having a store and the number one is that eBay promotes your store on search engines. You’re getting a lot more visibility and in turn, traffic to your site. This leads to more sales. Another perk is that it automatically gives you credibility. Do you know how many cases are opened with eBay by fly-by-the-night scammers?
People want to order from someone who has great feedback and has a store. Customers know you take this seriously and you have a reputation to protect. This means that if anything goes wrong, you’ll stand by them. They feel more protected and safe, so you can literally CHARGE MORE than your competitors, up to 20% more, depending on what you’re selling. If you have 100% positive feedback with over 50 feedbacks and a store, I’d say go for 20%. You’ll get sales over others who don’t have a store or 100% positive feedback.
4) Find things dirt cheap to sell
So, you cleaned out the closets, the attic, and the basement. If you are still running low on your own personal inventory or if you are a little low on extra income, look at the Freebie section on Craigslist or local Facebook groups. You can easily get yard sale leftovers, curb alerts, and free stuff all the time! Sell what’s worth money, and give away or throw away what’s not. Think it’s not worth it? This is how I made my living the entire first six months after I started eBay. What really went well for me was clothes. Sometimes, I’d even resell the clothes back on Craigslist separated by sizes.
Say someone has 500 pieces of clothing, and nothing is separated into sizes; you break up the lot, sell it by size and make a lot of money. There were times when I’d even pay $15-$20 for a huge lot and make back $200. Same thing with eBay. If you have a mannequin, you could start selling them piece by piece and get a lot more than that. It just depends on how much time you have.
Yard sales are great to find things, especially books and jeans. I’d get lucky and find a pair of Lucky Brand jeans for $1. Sell on eBay for $100. Keep your eyes peeled, and do your research. After a while, you’ll know exactly what goes and for what. If you keep your cell phone with you, never let them see you looking up something and then trying to buy the item. You just told them it’s worth something, and you’ll never score it for a good deal now.
5) Have great customer service skills
As an eBay seller, you absolutely have to be available for questions at all times. The general rule of thumb is that you want to respond to questions within one hour. I know it seems harsh, but if you call a company, do you want them to call you back next week? Or do you want help now? Because I guarantee you, they’ll just go somewhere else, buy from someone else, and you lost the sale. Likewise, always be professional and polite. There are times when you’ll wanna slap someone.
I had a lady the other day who ordered something twice. I contacted her to ask her if she meant to do that, and she said no. I canceled the transaction. She said nevermind, I’ll just buy two. I shipped out two, then now she’s saying she only received one even though USPS says it was delivered. Don’t skip out on package tracking. Sometimes you’ll just have those customers who have nothing better to do than make trouble and drama for everyone else. It’s part of the job. You HAVE to be polite. Just know that you are protected in cases like that, and it’s just a matter of time before eBay decides in your favor, but if you’re rude and mean, customers, CAN slap you with a harassment case. If you’re found guilty, you can be kicked off. Even little snarky remarks are considered harassment, so always practice fantastic customer service skills.
6) Sell weird stuff
The more oddball your stuff is, the weirder, or rare it is, the better it’ll sell. This is exactly the opposite if you sell on Amazon With eBay, the rarer the items are, the more money you’ll get, the faster they’ll sell, and the more bidders will bid. Speaking of bidding, I never hold bidding auctions. I do buy-it-now with payment required now. Just save yourself the hassle of all the thousands of non-paying bidders out there wasting your time and setting your items for buy-it-now. You can do the best offer, but in my opinion, it’s a waste of time. I always only got super lowball offers, like 10% of what I’m fairly asking and the ones that want to ask for less, don’t need the best offer to do so, they email you anyway.
7) Find your niche
After a while of selling, you’ll start to find your groove. You’ll start to know what people want to buy, what they like, and what sells well for you. What do you like? What are you most knowledgeable in? You want to sell those types of things. For me, it’s Littlest Pet Shops. They make over 3,000 different pets and they are considered collector’s items since you can’t just go and buy what you want in the stores. Kids and parents alike go crazy over them and there’s an entire underground world of LPS. Another great thing to sell on eBay that is highly sought after and profitable at the moment is Squishmallows. These soft, squishy, stuffed friends are reminiscent of the Beanie Babies of yesteryear and are fairly new, so they could fade out in time. But for now, a quick search and a sort to show highest to lowest should be enough to prove my point.
I hope that I have inspired you to get started selling on eBay and see the huge potential in making a fantastic living on eBay. It’ll take some time for you to get established to the point that you are steadily selling. I had over 600 LPS ads in my store and well over 5,000 LPS items when I was selling them full-time. You’ll want a large selection if you want continual sales, enough to make a great living from eBay, but most people don’t need THAT much.
You can find more information on how to make a living on eBay as well as other sources of how to make a living from home on my blog. I have been fortunate to be able to be a single stay-at-home mom, and I wish all the best to you as well in your endeavor to work from home. In our economy and with the increases in expenses, this will become more and more possible as the years go on. There are so many things you can do to work from home and earn legitimate money to help your family. eBay is but one way.
Are you ready to get serious about flipping? Check out this free webinar.
Sarah is a stay-at-home mom of two wonderful children. Her passion is showing other women in practical ways, how to quit the 9-5 and be able to be home with their little ones as well. From homeless to well-off, this single debt-free mom is most known for her ability to live well on $18k/year. Sarah loves encouraging others that dreams do come true if they are willing to consistently work for it. Follow her blog: Saving Money Never Goes Out of Style.
Awesome ideas! This makes me want to ramp up my eBay selling. Thanks for the info and motivation.
I have sold some stuff on ebay but am still confused on how to do packaging. I had always just used boxes that i had. What is yhe best way to charge shipping and use the usps boxes.
Hi, Jamie. Sarah offers some great eBay advice at:
http://www.sarahtitus.com/make-a-living-on-ebay/
Jamie, great question. I would try to ship things that can go First Class Mail if you want to run a business. Otherwise, all your profits get eaten up by postage. If you have to ship things outside of that, use calculators on the eBay form and have the buyers pay exact shipping. Sometimes Parcel Select is cheaper, sometimes Priority Mail is cheaper. I always insure anything over $30, and Priority Mail gives me insurance up to $100. Bear that in mind when making a decision as well.
What is the scale you use…you mentioned it in the post but there is no picture or description of what brand it is? Thanks 🙂
Hi, Kathy. I believe this is the scale Sarah recommends:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003N3ZVJQ/
Yes, that is the one I use Angie 🙂 except that mine is 75 lb capacity, which I’ve never really used over 50 lbs anyway. 🙂
What is the process for setting up an ebay store? I have tons of stuff to sell and individual auctions are time consuming. Ebay is ambigous. Could you post how?
Hi, Stan. Sarah has several great posts on running an eBay business at http://www.sarahtitus.com/make-a-living-on-ebay/.
Stan, you’ll want to set up an eBay store if you plan on making eBay a business. If you want to sell a few items here or there, it may not be worth it. It’s fairly easy to set up. You’ll be prompted to select monthly payments or yearly payments (to save money) as well, so bear that in mind. I would suggest monthly payments when just starting out as it’s a contract, meaning you must pay a large penalty if closing early.
If you want to brush through listing a ton of items quickly, simply click “sell similar item.” Everything is pre-filled in for you, so be sure to change the spots you need to and leave all the static info the same. It’s a fast way to list a bunch of stuff quickly. 🙂
There is no link for the scale where you say here is the one I use. Most local Facebook groups for freebies have a policy that you are not allowed to sell items you get there for free. That will get you banned from the group.So be sure they are okay with you doing that.
Hi, Kathie. I believe this is the scale Sarah recommends:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003N3ZVJQ/
Thank you for this article, I am trying to sell on eBay and etsy, but I’m not sure how to get my selling business going. This answered a lot of my questions. I will just keep trying:)
Luv your post. Am just selling 40 items a month at the moment because it’s free listing. Been thinking of getting an ebay store, the 20.00 a month. I stop and start all the time so not sure if l should. What would you advise. And also what happens with tax if you sell a fair bit. Do you need to declare it?
Here are a few articles that may help explain things a bit.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/11658852/ns/business-answer_desk/t/do-i-have-pay-tax-stuff-i-sell-ebay/#.VLaTcivF_3g
http://www.ebay.com/gds/Taxes-and-Ebay-eBay-Sales-May-Be-Subject-To-Taxes-/10000000000720733/g.html
Your advice is very motivational. I have recently become an Ebay seller last month, but I’m haven’t thought of using it as a full time source of income rather than passive income. Thank you so much for your knowledge. I know it will take a lot of dedication and communication to achieve making my Ebay store as second source of income.
What is your eBay store name?
I’ve been selling on ebay for nearly 10 years and the one thing that’s constant is *change*. Every time you turn around ebay have changed something, so my advice to newbies is to keep up with everything by paying attention to their announcements.
I’ve made decent money ebay but it’s becoming quite the roller coaster for small sellers so expect the unexpected!
Great article! There are many perks to selling on eBay. I started back in the fall of 2013 around Thanksgiving to be exact. I also wanna crack into selling on Amazon. I made my first sale back in September. However, it took five months for it to sell. I wanna list a plaque on there, but haven’t found the time. Any suggestions?
I’m so happy to have found your site!
Do you believe that it’s best to use PayPal? Do buyer feel more of a sense of security using it?
I believe you have several payment options at eBay, Yvette. PayPal is likely the most popular however.
Hi Sarah,
I am very new to learning about how to sell on eBay & am getting started. Your post and information on Pinterest has really helped me a lot so far out of everything I’ve read. I did have one question however, and that is how do I find or get free shipping materials on Craigslist? I see where people are requesting peanuts or even selling 100
Feet of bubble wrap but was just not sure how to go about it all the way your post read. 🙂 so maybe you could explain to me how you are able to get these free items to help your business? Thanks so much and I’m eager to get started and on the right track.
-Vicki Miller
vickilmiller.miller5@gmail.com
Great article! Just what I needed to get back in the swing with eBay! Thanks for sharing!!
Great piece of advise. It does take a lot of commitment and dedication to get a steady source of income from Ebay.
This article was great!
Thank you kindly for sharing.
You are a definite go getter Sarah ~ Bravo!
HI, I enjoyed reading ll the information. Did you need to get a business permit? When is great time to get the permit after starting to sell on ebay?
Hi, Vianka. You can contact Sarah with additional questions through her website http://www.sarahtitus.com/make-a-living-on-ebay/.
Very nice article!
As a fellow eBay seller and garage sale flipping guru, I only saw one thing I slightly disagreed with-when you said that you’ll never get a good deal if the sellers see you looking things up with your phone.
Honestly, I always look everything up on my phone, even in front of the seller. For all they know, you are texting someone, and I’ve never had anyone raise the price on an item after I looked it up.
Just wanted to let you and your readers know not to be afraid to look an item up before buying it. Some people have actually seen me scanning book barcodes into eBay and asked me about it, but still charged me $1 anyways.
The act of pre-screening items online with my phone has made me thousands over the years and also saved me hundreds by not taking chances on items I thought were worth something before I checked online and realized they were junk.
Happy Flipping! 😉
~Veronica
I would love to start an eBay business just wondering how long before you started making around 500 a month and how much money did you use to startup
I’ve done the same thing with Ebay. Getting a good rating helps tremendously! I search garage sales and goodwill, but the craigslist idea is great! also bidding on items in lots and selling individually almost always guarantees a profit.
Great tips, Sarah. Thanks for sharing!
Hi you sound like an amazing person. I will soon be starting an ebay shop. Thanks for the article it helped build some confidence in this endeavor I am about to begin. I hope I can build my business quickly.
Best of luck, Amanda!
HEY! GREAT NEWS!
I am an ebayer and found that the USPS has upped their “First Class” mail from 13 oz. to 16 oz. WOOOO HOOOOO!
Thank you for all your great info. Using what I can learn from you, I look forward to really getting into high gear with my online endeavors.
Again, thank you so very much!
Love~
That’s great, Karen. Best of luck!