Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Items from Europe or China can take few weeks to be delivered.
I've bought from China shippers only 1-2 times. They wait until they have a whole shipping container before the boat floats.
I buy biltong (South African beef jerky, much better than American) who says 7-10 days but he always sends my biltong via Priority Mail. Needless to say I've given him a lot of +rep on Amazon. (My biltong comes from a seller in nearby Orange County.)
I often pay more for Prime items, just to get my greedy, grubby fingers on it sooner! I want moar!!! And I want it now!!!
In case you don't know, that is part of Amazon's success model: delivery in 2 days. About half of all American households are now Amazon Prime. (Which means Amazon has reached almost 100% market penetration of likely American households, and most expect they have topped out or near it.)
Anyone here know whats a good forum or article to get tips on learning to do something like this? If someone sends a lot of time doing it, could they make like 500-1000 a month doing this? ?
Depends on what you sell. Some items simply don't sell well anymore.
It could be easy money, as you don't own the inventory.
And it's still very time- and effort-intensive, just like all jobbing. If you have that time and ability as well as some market sense and business skills, it's no more and no less than independent jobbing out of your garage has always been.
But it's a lot more than just throwing up some eBay listings and waiting for the money to drop.
There are usually plenty of videos on You Tube about selling on ebay. It's a full time job if you want to make much money and even then, you could lose out. There's a lot to know and they keep changing things. There are facebook ebay groups that you can join if you want to learn and as a place to ask questions.
It's very competitive now though. Very hard to find anything that you can make a profit on. Make sure you check Completeds to see the ending price, if an item even sold at all. Do your research and do a lot of ebay searches to see what sells. Some people have luck selling parts to items--I mean, if you have the cover to a blender or the motor to something. Those people really have to know what they're doing. Some people have luck with vintage board games but you have to know exactly which ones and you have to know where to find them. I don't know what else to suggest, but just to tell you it's not as easy as it seems.
People should also consider eBay selling as a hobby if they have other income. My own selling was just a hobby and I never intended it as a profit center. I had a lot of fun although I made only chump change.
It's also a good place to get rid of things you don't want or need, but which are too good to donate.
Just a tip, set up your listing for a fixed shipping price and write the listing that shipping costs are not included in the auction price.
Another school says to state free shipping included but I never liked that. I always used Priority Mail so that I had a tracking number. Never sell anything on eBay without sending it with a tracking number.
People should also consider eBay selling as a hobby if they have other income. [...] It's also a good place to get rid of things you don't want or need, but which are too good to donate.
So you're suggesting we should use eBay for its originally-intended purpose?
I noticed there are lot of videos on this from people who do this. Such as they buy items like sneakers in discount shops like marshalls etc and have a program on their phone to check the selling price. Then once they do that, they would sell it on amazon/ebay for profit. I even saw a video on this on youtube on abc of a guy doing this. Thus he goes to walmart and all these other big shop places and buy items to resell it at higher markup.
I read that you need a lot of time to do this though. Also if one does this, having a car is absolutely necessary right? Thus i assume very few ppl could buy it online with a discount and then sell it online? Because it seems most of the people drive to the stores and then check items for resale.
Has anyone done this and is this a lot tougher than it looks? The other thing i wonder is this. Wouldn't the people who work at marshalls or walmart notice that you keep checking items for a long time etc and scannig it with your phone maybe say something about it? Because when i go to any shop, well its to look at items and buy items but not to resell. But it seem lot of people seem to do this based on youtube. I mean i could imagine someone buying a lot and having to store a lot of things in a garage or room etc. But do most people fail doing this? How much money would you say you would need minimum to do something like this? The other thing i thought about are most ppl paying for these items by credit card vs cash at these shops? That way they get back like 1 or 2% back? Like imagine someone spends 5000 dollars buying items at these shops per month. If they were able to resell it for like 6500, well thats some profit to be made. And getting some cashback as well. A lot of the sellers mention they only buy items where there is at least x amount o margin as well. Anyone here done this part time or tried this at least? Im also curious how many people fail at this compare to do okay. I mean if someone could do this in their free time and make a few hundred dollars a month, thats pretty good.
You can do it online, but if you do don’t expect anyone else to share their sources with you. There is enough competition out there already for most products. No one wants a new guy on the block undercutting everyone to get noticed.
Has anyone done this and is this a lot tougher than it looks? The other thing i wonder is this. Wouldn't the people who work at marshalls or walmart notice that you keep checking items for a long time etc and scannig it with your phone maybe say something about it? .
Some places ban people who are scanning items like books in bookstores and library book sales. Because re-sellers were causing problems, going through stacks of books, throwing them around in their eagerness and greed to find the more high valued items.
Also many places have caught on to this practice and they re-price their items accordingly.
This can be done but the challenges are there's no barrier to entry so a million other people are competing with you. Also if Walmart includes a packing slip and as your customer sees you sent them an order for $20 that they could have bought from Walmart for $7 many people will be upset and want a refund or may leave you negative feedback.
This is why I no longer buy from amazon. Most items I've found that I can buy at Wal Mart or Target for far less money. It amazes me that a novice seller thinks he can jack the price up that high. Some times I go through listings on amazon and ebay with my husband and we laugh at what people are charging for things.
And yes, sometimes people buy them but if they find out how much they were over charged, the seller is going to get eaten alive with negative feedback and the bad score can ruin his business.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Needless to say I've given him a lot of +rep on Amazon. (My biltong comes from a seller in nearby Orange County.)
