Selling Products on eBay: What the Experts Don’t Want You to Know
Of course, you can sell stuff on eBay. But that’s not the real question.
The real question is can you build a business selling products on eBay?
The answer to this question is also yes if:
You can find a decent market niche and if
You make your own products or if
You can find a company that will sell to you at a real wholesale price and if
You have space to warehouse the quantity of products you will need to buy to qualify for a wholesale price and if
You have the time and inclination to pack and ship all those products yourself.
Why do I say this? It’s because, in my experience, the alternatives just don’t work well.
Flea markets and garage sales
Some experts suggest that you work garage sales and flea markets to find items to sell. There are two problems with this. First, you have to know what specific items will sell for on eBay in order to know what to pay for them. This means you have to do a lot of research so when you see that nice, blue glass plate for $3.00, you know it will sell for at least $15 and not $3.50.
Second, if you depend on flea markets and garage sales for your auction items, you will never have a dependable supply of product. In other words, you might find a lot of good stuff one month and clear, say, $200. But the next month you just can’t find as many items and your profit drops to $50. This means you’ve averaged just $125 for the two months. And how much driving and walking around did you have to do to earn that $125?
Drop shipping
A second alternative is a strategy called drop shipping. The way this works is you create a relationship with a wholesaler, put its products on eBay, sell the products, and pay the wholesaler who then packs and ships the products for you.
Here’s the catch. Your profit is the difference between what you have to pay the wholesaler and what you can sell the products for on eBay. And there’s the problem. Since you know what you will have to pay for a product, say $25 for a nice lambs wool sweater, you have to either start the auction at around $25 to avoid losing money, or do a “buy it now” for maybe $40 to get a $15 profit.
Oh, wait a minute. You have to pay the drop shipper to pack and ship the product - say $5 — so your profit drops to $10. Plus, you check eBay and find that similar sweaters are selling for around $25. So, what are the chances you’ll be able to sell yours for $40 or even $30?
This leaves the two alternatives where I believe you can build a business on eBay, again assuming you find a good niche. The first is to make the products yourself. The second is to find a company that will sell to you at a true wholesale price … assuming you have the space and inclination to warehouse and ship everything yourself.
If so go for it. I wish you success.
Here’s an alternative that’s free and makes sense for just about everyone. It’s called HD radio, a new technology that enables AM and FM radio stations to broadcast their programs digitally, a tremendous technological leap from today’s familiar analog broadcasts. These digital broadcasts provide listeners with radically improved audio quality, more radio channels through multicasting, and new data services. To learn more about this amazing new technology, just go my Web site, http://www.hd-radio-home.com, to get all the buzz.
Douglas Hanna is a retired marketing executive and the author of numerous articles on HD radio, old time radio and family finances.
