Hoarding is a genetic trait that I received from my mother. I wish it was art and antiques that she “collected” as our family would be rich now, but unfortunately she only collects trinkets and junk. Much of her collection has been bought from dollar stores until recently when she discovered she can buy cheap crap straight from China online. Now there’s a steady stream of junky plastic things being sent to her every week, all under $5 and all free postage.
My hoarding is a little more sane as one, I’ve kept myself in check with poverty and not having enough space to store things. And two, many of the things that I have collected have a money value. Some things I have include art, books, DVDs, CDs, toys, and knives. The toys and knives are a result of ecommerce ventures, so I have plenty of both.
Which leads me to the point of this post which is making money online with eBay. I have very little space to store anything and I’m living on the poverty line, so the only sane way forward was to sell everything! It’s just stuff sitting around collecting dust.
I’m not suggesting you sell the clothes off your back or your heater in winter as you’re obviously using that stuff. But things just sitting around and not being used should be moved on, whether that be to the junkyard or thrown up on eBay. You would be surprised how little you need to throw out though as people will buy almost anything. One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.
My eBay Money Making Strategy
Last month I sold about $500 worth of things that were just sitting around. They were mostly knives and toys, all of which sold for full retail prices, so it wasn’t like I was just giving the stuff away.
My strategy has been to list just one new thing everyday. That’s 7 things every week and about 30 each month. They quickly add up when you’re consistent.
If I had to list everything quickly then I would find a million excuses to put it off as it would be such a big job. It’s hard to come up with an excuse for not being able to list one product in 24 hours though.
I list my items for 30 days and tick the box to relist them 3 times if they don’t sell.
To start with I’ll list them for the maximum I think they could sell for. I’ll do a search for the item on eBay and list my item for an average of what others are selling them for.
If the item doesn’t sell after 30 days I’ll lower the price by 10 percent. Hopefully the item has people following it as they’ll be notified of the price drop.
I plan to continue this strategy until the price is just too low for me to consider selling the item and then I might put it up for auction. I haven’t made it to that point yet as most things will sell after a couple of price drops.
Make a Business Selling on eBay
After you have cleared your house out and you’re living a minimalist life with a few grand extra cash in the bank you might consider making eBay a more permanent money making venture!
Plenty of people are making truckloads of money on eBay. I know of people buying bulk second hand clothes and selling them. There’s also people out buying things at garage sales every weekend just to list them for more on eBay. Others are buying from AliExpress and Alibaba to sell them on eBay.
It’s a great way to get started if you’re thinking of starting an ecommerce business. There’s no start up costs and you’ll get a feel for how selling online works.
The Negatives of Selling on eBay
Overall I like eBay, but there’s a bunch of things that bother me about it too. Firstly you’ll have to give them about 10 percent of your sales which I believe is excessive.
eBay also encourages retardation in customers at the expense of the seller. So if you sell a widget and you clearly state that the widget is NOT waterproof and the customer comes back and says I went swimming with my widget and now it’s ruined, I want a refund, then opens a dispute with eBay then eBay will side with the retarded customer. To make the situation worse you’ll also receive negative feedback from the retard after you give them a full refund.
I know this happens through personal experience. I’ve also had a customer threaten to give me negative feedback if I didn’t accept a returned item that they used and no longer needed. Wasn’t damaged, just returned used with no packaging!
It’s good to know that you’ll get your money back if a seller rips you off but eBay takes this too far and there’s a lot of less than honest buyers taking advantage of it.
It’s why I never went full time into selling on eBay. I use it part time as it’s too large an audience to ignore completely, but most of my focus is spent on my own Shopify store.
So.. eBay
So, it’s perfect for a part time income in my opinion but I would never make eBay the focus of your money making strategy. I’ve heard too many horror stories to base a business on any one platform, especially one that dismisses sellers so easily.
Use it and invest the profits elsewhere. If you want to sell products online look at platforms like Shopify where you have more control over your business. You can spend the 10 percent you would normally give to eBay on marketing your own business. If Shopify disappears overnight you can move to another platform with your domain name. You’ll also be growing your own customer newsletter list that is yours to take with you wherever you go.
But for now, I’m off to list my one item on eBay for the day. I have been doing this for about a month now and I’ve got about 15 items listed, so I have sold a few. And, more importantly I have cleared up some space to hoard more junk, woohoo 😉
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