STILL Struggling to Make a Consistent Income on Ebay
By ljksn72
@ljksn72 (14)
United States
October 17, 2010 2:33pm CST
I know I am not the only one experiencing this but sometimes it really feels like I am. I have been running a ebay "business" for the past 10yrs with hit and miss luck. The reason I continue to do it is that I have made some pretty decent money on there from time to time depending on the products I am able to source and sell. That has also been the problem for me as well. I find myself always looking for something that will make me a good profit because the minute I find something either it stops selling well or eBay changes the rules and I can no longer sell it for some reason.
It has always been my dream to run an online business and eBay has been the perfect site for me to partner with because they have "built-in" traffic. Now before you even ask let me just say that YES I have already tried putting up my own site but as some of you may already know it takes lots of time for people to not only find your site but to also trust you enough to buy with you. People know ebay, they trust ebay, therefore; they are willing to buy on ebay. I would like to continue trying to hammer out a little business on eBay but after so much time and energy spent just trying to get into a profitable flow, I am becoming very discouraged.
If anyone is interested in sharing, I would like to hear your ebay experiences as a seller. What kind of luck have you had? Do you plan to keep building a business there and if not, what other route are you thinking of taking?
1 person likes this
3 responses
@thezone (9394)
• Ireland
17 Oct 10
I have been using ebay for years with buying and selling. I never considered building a business out of it though. I consider it more of a hobby and any profit I make is usually just spent back on the site itself. I like ebay as most of the time you can score yourself some great bargains and it is great to source some hard to find items.
I think you are right though to be successful on ebay as a seller you really do have to have good products and a good supplier. It is also important to keep up with the current trends and prices of what ever products you are selling. I would usually buy wholesale lots and re sell them at some stage, which has worked out well for me most of the time.
@ljksn72 (14)
• United States
17 Oct 10
Thanks for sharing your experience and opinion of how ebay works for you. Your input has also been helpful to me because it shows me that I was right in my thinking that people are usually coming to ebay to score BARGAIN priced items. It's totally clear to me now that I need to try to get a smaller profit and sell larger quantities.
Thanks for sharing your opinion thezone!
@TeamCholent (2832)
• United States
17 Oct 10
What I have noticed is one needs to have small profit of each item and rely on selling many items as the cheaper you are the easier it is to sell items. Also you should maybe try and broaden your items for sale, get some new items such as USB drives(funky ones like pizza slices etc). Try and get returning users to your store. Remember there are 1000's of stores on Ebay, what makes you stand out?
@ljksn72 (14)
• United States
17 Oct 10
This is absolutely GREAT advice. My previous method had been to try to get a large profit on each item but now you have given me a totally new way of looking at this. I can see how this would work much better because people are really on ebay to look for the cheapest deal on the coolest items so I do need to consider pricing my items lower for quicker sales. Thanks so much for the advice. I think I am going to head over to ebay now and adjust the pricing on my current items for sale.
Thanks a ton TeamCholent!!
@insulin (2479)
• Philippines
18 Oct 10
I dont' find selling on ebay my main business but I started selling there last 2009.So far I earn pretty well since the convertion of dollar in our country is big.I am not really depending on luck but what I did is studied and observed what customers want.I am indeed planning to buil a business and I want to focus in antiques since most people in ebay is intereste with antiques so for me that's where the big money is not big but atleast decent earnings.It took me 6 months to study every products that people bid a lot and yes I got the attention.I also studied which category is with free insertion fee so I can relist it everytime I want.Ebay Is a great place to sell and It helps me a lot.
