Making Money on eBay...Who is really doing it?

[Packard]

The U.S. online gaming market has headed way South as we all know. When I type in a search to make money on eBay, I get all kinds of ads, I think most of them are B.S.

Is anyone really making money on eBay out there? I am looking for advice/mentoring on the subject.

[wmspringer]

I used to...not a lot, but enough to support my hobbies.

The trick (not much of a trick!) is to find a steady supply of something that has a steady demand on ebay for more than your costs.

[h_ven]

My mom once bought a pez dispenser at an auction for $1. I turned around and sold it on eBay for ~$100. Now thats +EV.

[RobertHunter]

Yes you can definately make money on Ebay. I used to do it a lot before I got a pimp and started whoring about 1 1/2 years ago. I know a guy here in my town(the county's population is about 275k) that supports his family quite nicely from Ebay and I know of many others who supplement their income through Ebay. There is probably things lying around your house that you could sell. For example, my digital camera of 3-4 years just broke so I put the USB cable & memory card up for auction and they sold for $18.00. I have a good friend that he and his mother sells clippings of plants out of their yard on Ebay. I have no experience with it but I have also heard people make good money selling new items on Ebay. I would think that if you go the route of selling new items you would definately need to set up a legal business. Hope this helps and feel free to PM me if you'd like.

[Directrix]

I used to make about 4k a month selling one item on eBay. It's the same as any Internet marketing, really. Find a hot niche, buy for cheap, and sell for 1500% more than what you paid. I wish I had stuck with it, but didn't have the time.

[BradleyT]

The people who make real money on ebay - not the ones who find some knicknack at a garage sale for $2 and sell it on eBay for $30 and then write a book about it claiming that's how to make your fortune on eBay* - have a steady supply of product and items that will sell for a good profit.

Selling things on the Internet isn't hard at all but finding the products at a low enough price that allows you to sell for a profit is the hard part.


*I was at Barnes & Noble a few weeks ago and was looking at some of the eBay books. There are a few out where the entire contents of the book is stupid $3 items bought at a garage sale and then sold on ebay for $8 - $100. It's like a picture of the item and then a small article - "I saw this cookie jar that reminded me of one my grandmother had when I was a child. They wanted $5 but I was able to talk them down to $2.50 and some pocket lint. I was going to keep it for sentimental value but I just knew it would sell on eBay. And you won't believe it but it sold for $12.50!!! That's 500% profit on just one item!! And of course I made $2.50 on shipping for an extra 100% PROFIT!!!!!!". Repeat that with 75 items and you have yourself contents for a book I guess.

[John Kilduff]

I was going to try to make money selling on eBay, but the prospect of having to figure out how to get all set up to use the digital camera (which I have never used) appeared rather daunting and I haven't pursued the project yet. Not only would it take getting used to a digital camera, but how to download the files, store the files, etc...wth, I do not know how to do any of that stuff. Why don't they make it SIMPLE??? Heck I can't even figure out how to get my printer working again--message says the computer is not "communicating" with the printer, but all cables are in place, and it used to work.

[livinitup0]

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My mom once bought a pez dispenser at an auction for $1. I turned around and sold it on eBay for ~$100. Now thats +EV.

[/ QUOTE ]

Reinstall the printer software and check that the usb cord works with something else, it could be a bad cord.