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I guess you should start by reading all the information at the ebay website. I know a few people who make their living by selling on ebay. They have hundreds of items on at any given time. It's a numbers game. Sometimes they lose money on an item and sometimes they make money. They have told me that ebay has changed a lot since they started and ebay makes it very difficult for sellers. Now, commercial sellers have taken over, and ebay is trying to copy Amazon.
You are at a disadvantage for feedback issues and at the mercy of dishonest buyers. I feel the ship has sailed to be successful on ebay, but I wish you luck.
it all goes down to finding right suppliers and products that will sell. Finding supplier is a nightmare, as you will be looking at hundreds of middlemen. And every single one of them wants your money, and often - for nothing.
You will have some sort of starting capital. suppliers want to sell in dozens and hundreds, or you get miniscule discount not worth dealing with.
you WILL have to lose money due to dishonest buyers. Ebay is favoring buyers and so does PayPAl. And plenty of those will be around waiting for you.
If you want to make any reasonable amount of money, your life will be dedicated to ebay. The smaller the items, the more time you will be spending packing and shipping.
I have been selling niche product on ebay for almost 4 years. I finally quit. Quality went down, last shipment was 30% problematic. Manufacturer quit making product that sold well, and new one, after fees and costs, I have very little left and much time involved. Not worth it. I have better investment.
An acquaintance of ours was selling RC cars and did well. But he had entire house stuffed with them and half life spent on handling. He is selling iron gates now, but has to deal with containers and warehouse at the port. Allegedly, he does well. But if you have good daytime job - that still beats anything else.
Oh, and beware - China man will out bid you always.
I started off on ebay and from my experience the best thing you could do is start small. My BIL makes a living on eBay too. It is time consuming but he loves going to auctions. Everyone has stuff that sits around but someone else wants it. Go through your closets and junk room and put them up on ebay. Be willing to let it go for a reasonable amount though. Ebay is a discount shopping venue.
Selling on ebay is not as easy as it looks so get organized. Get a paypal account, a bank account for selling and business expenses. Hopefully for buying inventory later. Get the feel for it. You will need boxes and they are expensive, get those on sale or start collecting some. For some reason people do get upset about shipping even when you charge your actual cost so be careful about that.
Again, the best thing to do is get started in a small way and it will put you around people who are also doing it, have a common interest. Wing it and you will find something along the way.
I used to sell on Ebay, but, not nearly as much as my brother. He and his wife often buy a whole houseful. Pick out what they think will sell and have a lot of it for a yard sale which brings in quite a bit each week. They didn't start out doing this, but, shopped many places, flea markets, thrift shops, He says he is amazed how fast something sells that is old, but, he describes it and the photo isn't enhanced. Collecting the money owed isn't always a breeze,
I happen to live in a town where an outlet store wanted to get out of selling shoes, so I bought a couple dozen and sold them all, so, bought more and this went on for maybe a year or more. Men buy large size heels.
As someone mentioned upthread, start small and you'll sell more if you only charge a reasonable fee for handling.
Ebay has made it very hard for sellers, now some sellers have their ID ex: mystuff you buy something & it comes direct from walmart.
How do you compete anymore?
You list an item and at the bottom of the page are paid advertisers selling the same item as yourself, could be a lower price but the shipping is high.
You have to find your own niche, it takes a lot of searching and time.
I sell and buy a lot of stuff on ebay, hobby stuff and certain items I use but can't find anymore due to them being old styles or discontinued items. I don't really make much money though, it's probably a wash. Occasionally I'll hit upon an item that gets me a good profit but usually it's just getting a few bucks for something I don't want in my house anymore and I'm ok with that.
You can list 50 items for free each month. If you are watching your Ebay mailbox you can catch specials during the monnth. Back on the 9th I think it was, they offered 5000 or unlimited items listed free for 10 days. I had exhausted my 50 for the month so the special let me list them again.
You should never have to pay a listing fee if you use their free 50 and the off and on specials.
If you use Paypal or Ebay to create your shipping labels you get the delivery confirmation for free. That saves you the 80 cents you'd pay if you took the package to the post office. It does cost you the ink to print but being able to hand the package to the mail carrier is an advantage that offsets the cost of ink since it saves you trips to the post office. It also lets you mail items when the post office is closed. If you create your own shipping label and the package will fit just drop it in any mail box.
I once bought a cell phone car charger for 1 cent and $4.99 shipping and handling. Wow, a car charger for a penny. When the package arrived the actual shipping was 83 cents. The seller likely sold the charger for a loss but made profit on the $4.99.
Nowadays Ebay charges you final value fees on shipping and handling, so as far as fees, it does not matter what your shipping is. Buyers will tell you in their bidding, whether your S&H are too high.
Back the the car charger. One penny and $4.99 shipping was the same as if the charger was $5.00 and free shipping. Still a good deal on a car charger that Verizon wanted for many times higher.
Sellers can not leave a negative feedback no matter how dishonest, etc. the buyer may have been.
The buyer can leave a negative no matter how pleased they really are with the item.
Shipping labels do not show the amount of the shipping. So, if my item has shipping and handling at $3.99 and it will ship for $2.99, the buyer can not see this. If they really want to see it they can weigh the package when they get it and go to the postal service site to see what the actual shipping was.
99% of buyers are eager to open the package and get the item so it's well past the point where they are worried about the shipping charges.
It will take you time to accumulate alot of feedback. Mine is over 1000. You'll start as 0 and have to earn all your positives one by one. And avoid neutral or negatives.
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