What sells on eBay?

[Winmar]

I've recently got into selling on eBay, and have started with a strategy of selling small, light items like badges and cricket cards. I'm looking at branching out a bit though, and am wondering what is likely to sell and be profitable. Any ideas?

There's one dude selling old Indonesian train tickets, and he's actually getting bids on them. Only 99c at this stage, but I'm surprised they go at all. I could make a killing if I dig out all my old tickets (I'm a hoarder of shit like that).

Anyway, let's talk about eBay, as I dig it.

 

[ifyouwantblood]

When you sell something, you have to pay a fee, right? Where and how do you pay a fee of, say, 98c for example. I've been looking to sell a whole heap of CD's, but have heard you have to pay some stupid little fee to Switzerland or something.

 

[Winmar]

Yeah you pay a listing fee, starting from 30c. If you start bids at 99c the listing fee is 30c, but if you start them at $1 the fee's 50c, so I know which I'd choose!

Then you get charged 5.25% of the final selling price. If you receive payment using Paypal (which you probably would if you sold to an overseas buyer) you pay something like 40c plus a small percentage of the amount received. There are no fees for buying. Because of the Paypal fees, I now make it available to buyers, but specify that I'd prefer direct deposit into my account. Takes a day or two to go through, but doesn't cost me owt.

The eBay fees are invoiced monthly. I get them billed automatically onto my credit card.

 

[salty]

I've bought a few things on ebay. Only sold one thing and that was a guitar. No problems with the sale and getting payment and shipping it to the dude.

I have so much old crap i should try and sell.

 

[TinMan666]

I've sold a few guitar pickups, and bought a book and a sound card.

The sound card took a while to show up but overall no real problems.

 

[Sydo]

me sell stuff

 

[The Amazer]

I once tried sell a signed photo of my friend. The bids got up to $5,000,000 but eBay said it was a joke auction.

There goes my $5,000,000

 

[Goreripper]

I've sold a few things on eBay. Books and CDs mainly. There are all kinds of strategies apparently to making money on it, but it basically all boils down to having stuff people want to buy.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

It also depends on timing...one day people will pay twice as much for something as anyone will pay for it a week later. Ebay is fickle, but I love it.

 

[Goreripper]

Yep, that's true as well. I know what does sell for good prices though: John Grisham novels. I got rid of one for $30 a few months ago.

 

[Spiff]

Inconceivable. *shakes head*

 

[Winmar]

Hmmm ok then I'll hunt them down at second hand shops!

 

[dreamwatch]

I spend ALOT of money on ebay, mostly on beads and jewellery making supplies. There are definatley some days that are hotter than others for selling stuff. Apparently anything that finishes on a Sunday evening will raise a decent price. Be warned though that most people are looking for a bargain; to me as a buyer I'm looking on ebay before anywhere else because I don't want to spend what I'd have to in a retail store. So if you can sell something that really isn't very easy to get hold of thats a plus. To give you an idea there was a woman selling sterling silver chain in 5ft lengths that was suitable for charm bracelets. Believe me when I tell you you could not get this anywhere in the UK, you just couldn't. So she was able to command stupid prices for it. As soon as another seller came on board her prices dropped dramatically. So if you have a niche product you'll be in the money.

 

[KoichCPA]

Rob, I suggest selling cambodian children. They are almost impossible to get in this country at the moment.

 

[Winmar]

I did try that, Josh, but eBay kept removing my listings. Bastards.

Btw, was it a paperback or hardback you sold, Brian?

Yeah I agree, Bev, finding a niche is the key! Hmm Sundays, I'll keep that in mind. I'm always looking to pay less than I would retail as well, otherwise I'd just go to the shop and be done with it. Where was that woman selling the chain based? I've seen recently that British comedy DVDs can go for a lot over here, but people don't seem to be willing to buy them from UK buyers. So, I'm going to try to get UK DVDs on the cheap and resell them here. I ordered a Graham Norton one recently with that in mind....

 

[Spiff]

Perhaps the reason they don't want them from UK buyers is because they don't have region-free DVD players.

 

[Winmar]

Yeah I thought of that, but figure the majority of people would have them these days. It seems that people here generally tend to buy from Australia or Asia...that's what my limited research tells me anyway!

 

[Spiff]

Hmm, I've never bought from Asia. All my DVDs are from Australia, the UK and the USA. Yay for the Coalition of the Willing!

Oh, and I have one from New Zealand. But I guess people get the pirated ones from Asia, which don't interest me at all.

 

[Winmar]

Hehe Coalition of the Willing DVDs. I only have Australian and British ones so far.

It's not so much DVDs I've seen go from Asia as electronics. There's a heap on sale there. I bought a data cable for my phone from Hong Kong for a lot less than I would have paid in a shop here.

 

[dreamwatch]

She was based in the UK.

Maybe it's the postage and packaging that puts them off buying from the UK? And then theres import duty etc (do you guys have that?). Taxes are the number 1 reason why I do not buy all my jewellery making stuff from the States - they have 50 times the range, it's less than half the price but you just never know what you're going to get hit with when it comes to import taxes and postage and packaging. Frankly, it's a bummer.