EBay lets you earn while you sleep

[shellybelly]

I am so happy to have found a great way to make money even while I sleep... I get sales at night and wake up to more money. I would love to hear what others are experiencing.

[marleneb26]

What about the enormous fees? Do you still make a good profit even after all the fees you have to pay back to ebay? Is it worth it? I found it' better to be a buyer on ebay then a seller, is that still true? I stopped selling a few years ago due to the fees. maybe this has changed. would love to know.

[lorah]

I am by no means an expert, but here is what I know. eBay now charges 9% on the total sale, shipping included. I think this was their way of deterring sellers from charging outrageous shipping fees. Is it working? I dunno. I have also read that you need to have a bazillion items listed and that you need to set up a store (more fees) I do neither. I get 50 free listings a month and just this past week they had a FREE 5000 listing deal. I always come out ok. I list a few things, make a few sales and I think if I got serious about it that I could do well. The key is to find your 'niche' and run with it. There are still people selling who are making tons of money. And I believe it, even with the higher fees. I think if you really broke it down, and I haven't, and compared the cost of doing business with a DS company and determined a percentage that you spend on supplies, gas, paperwork etc that you would find the fees with eBay really aren't too bad. Just my 2 cents that is worth about a penny now.

[avonlady916]

I used to hit garage sales and sell books on Ebay.
It just got too expensive for the "small" seller. I no long do that

Bonnie

[sasta10]

I am moving away from ebay now because of ebays strict selling policies, few negs and complaint and you will loose your business over night. They are getting very harsh with sellers now. It's best to do business through multiple channels, so you are on the safe hand. The safest way would be to sell on your own site so you have control over things. Ta

[shellybelly]

I am grossing about 1200 a month and then with fees of a few hundred I am making money and happy with it. The overhead compared to a storefront is amazing. If I took all my inventory and went to open a store in the community I would lose money and it would take months and months to see profit. With eBay I was able to start with $15.95 a month plus a few fees to get going and the customer base is world wide. I live in the Portland Oregon area and I could never make this kind of money with a real store.

I am grateful for their fees and am thriving here so I am going to continue to grow my eBay store and keep making more and more. No excuses for me this is what I love to do and I hope that it inspires others to do that same.

http://stores.ebay.com/The-Cherry-Picker-Boutique

[johntpc]

I agree with the above poster. Selling on eBay is like having a space in the largest most trafficked shopping mall or street corner in the world. They do much more marketing than anyone could afford to do with a small business site. You have tons of exposure, your chances of succeeding are higher there than if you start from scratch on your own and don't know what you are doing.

The trick is to find items that you can sell cheap (or slightly under value) and still make enough money to make it worth your while. If it is over priced it won't sell quickly if at all. It may take time for everything to fall in place and for you to figure out what you can sell, but once you are established it can really take off with persistence.

On another note, I am currently looking for anyone who wants to work at home part time that has experience with taking clean clear pictures and cropping photos. Preferably someone who is comfortable working with computers. I could keep you supplied with a lot or a little work, you choose. Please PM me for details.

[Hugalicious Ragdolls]

I sell quite a bit on ebay, which is great as it funds the advertising costs for my own business

[versativadiva]

Originally Posted by sasta10

I am moving away from ebay now because of ebays strict selling policies, few negs and complaint and you will loose your business over night. They are getting very harsh with sellers now. It's best to do business through multiple channels, so you are on the safe hand. The safest way would be to sell on your own site so you have control over things. Ta

I never could understand why ebay is so helpful to buyers but not sellers. It use to be a seller could leave a negative or neutral when buyer didn't pay. Now you can't! So it makes it harder for other sellers to screen their buyers. you can view the old negs by going to a place, well do a google search for toolhaus dot org then you do a search for received by andput the buyers name in.

I realize in business, that the buyer is always right yikes.........but when they don't pay all you can do is request the final value fee back.

I think the fees now are around 12% for the buy it now's. and fixed price listings. Ebay has the traffic so what do you do? Etsy is cheaper but soooo many listings I got buried real fast.
Best to sell on your own site probably. What aperson can do is sell on ebay, build a customer list (be sure to save all their emails) then when you get your own site just send them there. You also can have a link to your own website on your MePage I think.
yeah fees are bad, but it costs to do business, but gee they must make alot of money. I heard they also own paypal.
well I got to gripe about ebay LOL so that will help my day!

[versativadiva]

Originally Posted by johntpc

I agree with the above poster. Selling on eBay is like having a space in the largest most trafficked shopping mall or street corner in the world. They do much more marketing than anyone could afford to do with a small business site. You have tons of exposure, your chances of succeeding are higher there than if you start from scratch on your own and don't know what you are doing.

The trick is to find items that you can sell cheap (or slightly under value) and still make enough money to make it worth your while. If it is over priced it won't sell quickly if at all. It may take time for everything to fall in place and for you to figure out what you can sell, but once you are established it can really take off with persistence.

On another note, I am currently looking for anyone who wants to work at home part time that has experience with taking clean clear pictures and cropping photos. Preferably someone who is comfortable working with computers. I could keep you supplied with a lot or a little work, you choose. Please PM me for details.

that is true about good exposure on ebay except that if you list in a category with 50,000 items in that category I have found you get lost easy so no one finds you. You can build a customer base though. Also if you list daily or twice a day it is more likely that you will be found by someone.