Ebay for a living?

Im trying something new(well not new but still pretty new for ebay) which is also not strictly speaking legal on ebay. Will see how it goes and let ya ppl know.

ebay has a lot of potential. you can build a solid foundation with very little capital and build your little business empire in a few years...

radarsurge said:

If you're any good at SEO, get a niche product off worldwidebrands.com - show up organically (make sure you have decent profit per sale, like $100-$500). No fees to pay, no one telling you what you can and can't do. good luck.

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Thanks Radar.

Jesus....when i read stuff like this...i wanna run the other way. Guess that's why the top ranked sellers are making all the money. Ebay is tough on the little guys.

AnonNow said:

For the past 2 years i've ONLY been selling on ebay. High dollar electronics, but i've always maintained 100% positive. I do an average of 8,000-9,000 in sales monthly and slowly increasing. I paid all fees to ebay and paypal promptly, and rarely had any cases opened against me. Yeah i got screwed from time to time on a charge-back or a scam or something, but the money i was making was incredible.

The same month i hit 10 years on my eBay account, i also reached the gold level power-seller tier, and became a top-rated seller. With my eBay store discount, gold level, and power seller discounts i was paying maybe 3-4% in fees, which everyone knows is nothing at all. I was pumped to be able to turn all the extra cash into profit. I continued selling as normal, and all at once, three buyers with 0 feedback purchased my items, and before they even arrived to them left negative feedback with 1 star DSR rating. 15 days after i received my accolades, i was stripped of them and my account was restricted heavily. after 10 loyal years.

My advice to anyone that is making, or wants to make a career out of eBay.

Sell more then 400 items per month - eBay divides it's sellers into two categories. The ones that sell under 400 items per quarter, and the ones that sell over 400 items per quarter. If you sell under that amount you're feedback drops off every 12 months. If you sell over that you feedback drops off at the end of each quarter.

So let's say you just started on eBay, and you finally get your starting restrictions removed for being a decent seller. But within the next two months you accidentally describe an item wrong, forgot to ship a package, charge to much for shipping, or you don't answer a message from a buyer quickly enough and they decide to leave you a 1-3 star rating. Then your account will then be restricted again, and for generally 50-40% of your average monthly sales for the next 12 months with absolutely no way to recover.

eGay sucks

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spider7 said:

Jesus....when i read stuff like this...i wanna run the other way. Guess that's why the top ranked sellers are making all the money. Ebay is tough on the little guys.

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I'm willing to bet that those were all Top Rated Seller stealth accounts that left 3 negatives. Once they start seeing their sales drop they start checking the competition.

i've been making a living off ebay for that last 2.5 years. i recently outgrew my home and moved in to a real office. the fees are high but that's the price you pay for the exposure. the worst thing is dealing with dumb buyers and scammers.

i do about $10k-$15k/month in gross sales (best month was $20k). my margins are around 15%-20%. i'm willing to put up with the hassle considering my ebay work only takes ~15 hours/week.

I thanked, but I don't follow it all trough, all in all it gives me an idea you used to earn.. This is Hard Work my Friend, I'w been selling product ove fiverr dot com, 80% autopilot 20% hard work= 250$ a month ! But this 20% work part is more then 5 hours a day !

Any way thank you for sharing your method

$250 a month = <$10/day with 5 hours work = <$2/hour? tough job!!

I own a couple stores, and I earn most of my income from eBay and Amazon.

I feel like I could write a book about it, and nobody would read it lol.

I earn about 11k a month in profit. I gross about $30-$45k a month in sales and have about $70k invested in inventory, which puts me in the top 1% of eBay Sellers. I have 3 employees, 2 in China I pay $800 a month to, each and work about 30 hours a week and 1 in the U.S. that works full time. I myself work about 30 hours a week while I maintain my other businesses. I sell across several accounts. Legit, the hardest part about selling on eBay was getting to the point where I had enough money invested in inventory to allow me to make as much as I do now. I went to eBay live and couldn't help but be really smug hearing people talk about how eBay changed their life and how they have total financial freedom yet they only earn maybe $1000/mo in sales from the $4,000/mo in gross sales. They are pretty much their own slaves, but that's what they want I guess.

In 2014 and 2015 I'm going to invest heavily into eBay and try to walk away from it with $250,000 from selling off all of my inventory and cease from purchasing more and probably refocus my efforts solely on Amazon after a leave of absence, or leave eCommerce all together and focus more on my more physical businesses. I invest all of my income from online into rental properties in Illinois and I went from owning 2 rental properties to owning 12 in 2 and a half years. I purchase a new home once I make about $45,000 which is about the average price I buy a forceclosed property for, but recently it seems to be drying up and there are less foreclosures, so prices on these homes are going to 60k. For about $80k you can buy a nice home that doesn't need to be remodeled. I do this because I've always felt that the money I've made online wasn't going to be permanent and I've worked pretty hard to not be reliant on it. I knew a couple people I took eBay related classes with that reached $2,000 a month in profit and did things like got a mortgage on a $200,000 home, and a monthly car payment... that when things on eBay changed... they lost it all leaving them with a garage full of outdated crap they are selling for less than they bought it for.

If I could give anyone advice on eBay - don't shoot for the high profit stuff. Buy fast, sell fast, sell a lot, and move on to the next item.

Selling on eBay full time can be stressful as hell. I believe less people can run an eBay based business than they can run a brick and mortar business despite what people think. It's lonely too.

I know a guy who buys at big box stores and resells on ebay. He travels around the country buying and listing, and seems to be doing fine.

stressfree said:

about as safe as banging a $5 whore bear back.

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Made my day lol.

If you have the right product then yes otherwise its very hard

My friend and I have been buying off a popular classifieds site, and reselling the items on eBay for a decent profit. We created a tool that compares every item listed on this popular classified website with the "completed, sold" listings on Ebay. It shows the potential profit on every single item.

I just created a website to share this tool we created. PM me, and I'll send you the url.

nativepro said:

My friend and I have been buying off a popular classifieds site, and reselling the items on eBay for a decent profit. We created a tool that compares every item listed on this popular classified website with the "completed, sold" listings on Ebay. It shows the potential profit on every single item.

I just created a website to share this tool we created. PM me, and I'll send you the url.

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would it happen to be postedprofits.com , lol? -- def a good idea though, what type of margins/gross are you guys getting. The problem with this type of business is it's near impossible to scale. Very good sellers will cap out at a net of 50k, the best will be at around 80-100k. That's if you're in a huge metro market. If you're in a smaller area, obviously much less. Best of luck -- I'm over my CL flipping days.

One of my mates does. buys and sells guitars

I used to but the fees man.
These fees.

Im trying to live my life from eBay, actually

Those ebay fees kill everything

the fees on ebay are a killer

Why do I get the feeling that the last 5 posters before me are all the same person?