Buying/Selling on Ebay/Amazon (credit card, fees, wholesale, sales)
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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.
It's the 2000-teens variation of being a small wholesale jobber. And it has all the long hours, low returns, intensive effort and risk it's always had.
It's the 2000-teens variation of being a small wholesale jobber. And it has all the long hours, low returns, intensive effort and risk it's always had.
Buy and sell vintage and collectible items from Craigslist, live auctions and garage sales. Higher profit margins and the deals are everywhere, all the time. There's no minimum to get started and even better, there's no max to how much you could make.
The fly in the ointment is the hassle of dealing with typical eBay buyers. In my experience they are lazy, uninformed, and some are downright sociopathic. eBay's terms of service protect buyers while sellers largely get the shaft in any dispute.
1. Retail Arbitrage is finding products online that sell for more money on eBay or Amazon than they do at a Walmart, Costco, etc, etc, etc. When an item sells you go buy it from the store. Say for example you find a car defroster spray at Walmart for $2, it sells on Amazon for $10, you list it on Amazon, when it sells you run to Walmart to buy it and your profit is the $8 minus Amazon fees and gas to go buy it.
2. Dropshipping. You find an item on Walmarts website, Ali Express etc. You list it on eBay, Amazon, Shopify, etc. When it sells you order the product online so you don't have to leave the house, you put in your address as the billing address and the customers address as the shipping address and the item arrives to them.
Do some people make money doing this? Yes.
Most of these guys on Youtube showing this to you are making more money selling you a course on how to do this, than they are actually making money doing this themselves.
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.
For ebay you can go around to garage sales and get stuff cheap. Then you photograph it, research the price and put it on ebay. You get 50 free listings/month. It's not that great though because there are millions of sellers and not enough buyers. Ebay barely even advertises so buyers don't always think of it.
Also, you sell it, they pay through PayPal, you have to print out a label, package it, and ship it off. Then they can still return it and you have to refund their money. Sometimes they send it back damaged and you lose your money.
Do your ebay research by looking some items up and then checking Completeds. People search by key words so check out the titles that the sellers used when they had a great sale. You learn as you go along and you start out small. It's an awful lot of work and there isn't as much profit as there used to be. Many people have hundreds or thousands of listings--those are the people who make the money. Small sellers sort of get ignored. Anyway, one tip is to list a few items every day--or at least fix a title or change something every day. If you ignore your listings, they just die on the vine.
I quit selling online because of the hassle and the fees, and the more the competition grew, the less money I could make. You just can't compete with sellers in China willing to sell something for almost nothing.
And the fees for Ebay/Paypal, the last time I calculated them were around 16%, if I remember correctly. Amazon is much worse, because Amazon also sets your shipping costs, which often don't cover your actual shipping costs, which is insane, but that's the way it is. Amazon fees with the low shipping allotment ate up nearly 50% when i tried selling on Amazon.
If you find something for nothing, then you will be ahead, but don't forget the returns where you lose most of your out of pocket on those items.
But, then, you also have to deduct your supplies, too. And if you bought inventory, you have money tied up there, too, that you may never recoup.
If it's a side business, you might get a tax write off, if you need one. But, I think people probably do better just selling stuff on Craigslist. That has it's own hassles, but at least you don't have all of the fees and shipping costs or returns, etc.
I think picking up free stuff listed on Craigslist, and then having a garage sale would be ideal. I wish I had the space/storage to do that.
I quit selling online because of the hassle and the fees, and the more the competition grew, the less money I could make. You just can't compete with sellers in China willing to sell something for almost nothing.
And the fees for Ebay/Paypal, the last time I calculated them were around 16%, if I remember correctly. Amazon is much worse, because Amazon also sets your shipping costs, which often don't cover your actual shipping costs, which is insane, but that's the way it is. Amazon fees with the low shipping allotment ate up nearly 50% when i tried selling on Amazon.
If you find something for nothing, then you will be ahead, but don't forget the returns where you lose most of your out of pocket on those items.
But, then, you also have to deduct your supplies, too. And if you bought inventory, you have money tied up there, too, that you may never recoup.
If it's a side business, you might get a tax write off, if you need one. But, I think people probably do better just selling stuff on Craigslist. That has it's own hassles, but at least you don't have all of the fees and shipping costs or returns, etc.
I think picking up free stuff listed on Craigslist, and then having a garage sale would be ideal. I wish I had the space/storage to do that.
While I agree with everything you said, especially Chinese sellers comming in, it is still possible to make money selling online but stay away from the stuff Chinese sellers sell. I realize that may be EVERYTHIGN lol but seriously stay away from Alibaba stuff like phone chargers and all that. Focus on things that are harder to find, can be sourced in the USA, maybe more handcrafted items, maybe vintage stuff from thrift shops. Now there are more people doing that its easier than trying to sell a phone case for less the a manufacture who not only makes the thing but gets free government subsidized shipping.
And the fees for Ebay/Paypal, the last time I calculated them were around 16%, if I remember correctly. Amazon is much worse, because Amazon also sets your shipping costs, which often don't cover your actual shipping costs, which is insane, but that's the way it is. Amazon fees with the low shipping allotment ate up nearly 50% when i tried selling on Amazon.
I just found this out after not selling anything on ebay for a long time. Sold some Roseville pottery that had been my MIL's. 15 pcs with sales of about $440. Pulled up my account at there are $54 in just ebay fees alone and I don't even know what the Paypal fees are. Good thing they were free to us. I didn't realize that their fees had gone up so high. I have my account set up as no returns, but I guess that doesn't stop Paypal from siding with the buyer and give them their money back and take it from me. Getting to really hate them.
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