Permanently Closed Marketplace Sales Thread
- Thread starter grafx77
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itexpert2030
Junior Member
- Dec 26, 2014
- 104
- 9
Would have been better if it's one time purchase?
LongToeNail
Regular Member
- Jun 21, 2015
- 243
- 159
Going to give this a go soon
Kphoenixchantrey
Newbie
- Feb 11, 2015
- 3
- 0
I would love to trial the software also 
I'm very interested indeed!
I'm very interested indeed!I will soon buy this tool to improve my sales, but i have a couple questions. What kind of profits do you usually get from the item you have sold on ebay when all the expenses (fees) are cut so how much do you average get net profit per item? And is it easy to find low priced items with good profit margins, because i don't want that my paypal selling balance for the year gets too high, and then they will ask me to provide a TAX ID
Last edited:
Hi folks,
It's about time I weighed into this thread to help others and give you my first hand experience of Profit Spy over the last month where I have been using it intensively over the last 25 days or so.
In summary, I would avoid this software for reasons that will become clear shortly, but give it a try if you have a tough skin and don't mind being treated like poo on their shoe by 'support' - It's not just about unfriendly customer support, there are technical and practical issues with the software too, that I point out below. Plus there are alternatives which enable you to achieve the same (or better) results.
Just a tiny bit of background first. I'm from the UK and used the UK version of Profit Spy. It's not dissimilar to the US version, it just uses different proxies. I've had an aged eBay account for around 10 years, so I had unlimited listing ability on eBay (if you start with a brand new eBay account, the amount of listings will be restricted but can be increased as the account ages).
I purchased one month's subscription of Profit Spy Agent (basic) plan. I found this to be perfectly adequate for my, (and I would expect most people's) needs for reasons I'll explain in a moment.
Fortunately I have some experience of RA (retail arbitrage) already, and have been using both Amazon and eBay for years, so I wasn't starting out as a newbie. It's possibly important to note that I worked with this full time over the last 3 weeks as I'm in between work at the moment.
I won't go into what the software does, I'm assuming you have a general feel for that already by now. The instructions provided in the videos are pretty concise and informative. In general I hardly had any problems operating the software from the word 'go.' I started out at version 1.6, so already it had been improved several times over already and now showed images of the product between eBay and Amazon which was useful.
With the basic plan, you get just one 'scrape' working at a time. I found this to be adequate. As long as you keep those arbitrage lists running when one finishes (and now you can queue them up), there will be quite a number of lists available to you if one of those scrapes hadn't provided any fruitful returns. That's more than enough work for you to do with one scrape operating at a time. Two or three scrapes is somewhat surplus to the speed at which one works if you are listing the resulting items scraped properly.
With the basic plan, you also can't update the prices automatically (you can get updated Amazon prices on higher plans). But because you have to delete scraped listings anyway once they mount up (so you can scrape more), it seems impractical to use Profit Spy to monitor price updates. You're much better off putting your own practices in place for this - Like using PriceYak, or doing it manually on your spreadsheet.
The software is not without its faults. In my personal view, the software is barely in a usable state and needs a lot more work... At least from a UK perspective. I had many issues with 70% or more of the listings scraped using comparisons between UK Amazon and US or AU eBay, including and accounting for the shipping fees of shipping the goods internationally. For example, a toy that is $40 + $35 shipping on eBay will obviously seem like there's a huge profit margin in it when compared to a local Amazon prime version of the same item. That's unusable because there will be other sellers on eBay selling it locally. Far, far too many of these to wade through and remove. As this is difficult to explain, I've included a screen grab here to illustrate my point:
... Well unfortunately I can't post images yet (after 2 years on Blackhatworld!!) but if you want to go to igmur-dot-com and use this reference after the / you will see it: 1eU4XM5
There are other issues too - The scraper pulls out a large percentage of items that have *ended* on eBay and not actually sold (Profit Spy thinks the item sold at the end listing price). Such listings are no good either, because there is no proven sale at the price point the seller ended the listing at. By the time you have removed all these unusable scrapes, you might have a few to work with that you can actually list. And let me tell you, this takes time to weed out all the unusable scrapes - Because you have to physically go to the eBay site each time to check if the item actually sold, or just ended without a sale.
However, with perseverance and hard work, you can make this work. I just don't feel you really need Profit Spy. This is because you can find items on Amazon with big discounts that can be listed on eBay without needing fairly pricey comparison software like this that has to be worked through anyway. It isn't the software that will make you successful, just your eye to find bargains on Amazon selling cheap or with heavy discounts that could be listed on eBay. The RA model works with or without Profit Spy.
As for results, I got pretty decent results personally. Remember though, as I've said - Your success is down purely to how hard you work to not just getting lists up on eBay, but the quality of those listings. If you list in bulk, you will likely have poor results as everyone has the same main image, the same title, the same description. It's between you and 10 other sellers listing the same thing. That's why I say the quality of each listing is so important, changing the title, using Adwords to get better keywords, using your own image from a google image search, etc. It all helps to stand out from the crowd. This will fare you better in the long run. It's this extra time on each listing which makes spending anything more on higher Profit Spy plans not worth it (and I was working full time on this).
It is now toward the end of my month with Profit Spy. I have about 170 listings on eBay and have made approximately 400 in my first month - Which isn't bad considering the listings were accumulating from a lower amount earlier in the month.
But as I have said, I believe you can achieve the same results without using Profit Spy at all. Some of my successful listings weren't found with Profit Spy. You also have to consider that the same searches in the same categories on Amazon are being scraped / performed by other Profit Spy users who are pulling the same results, thus increasing the competition for those same items that end up on eBay. Toward the end of my month, I found myself repeating some of the same categories and finding the same results.
SUPPORT & THE PEOPLE BEHIND "PROFIT SPY"
Ok - whilst the software itself is usable (with faults as listed above) and I have found it generally useful, and I could recommend it for tentative use, especially if you're new to this game - I would not recommend it for one, very big reason - The support is absolutely dreadful. What do I mean by dreadful?
Well, I don't mean that there is no support. In fact, to give them (him?) credit, they respond pretty quickly (within a few hours) to technical issues you are having with the software. So that isn't at issue here.
The issue is HOW they respond to you as their customer. All I can say is, unless you can bite your lip each time you feel humiliated, put down, spoken to sharply, rudely - Then you will need to put up with the force that is John Hinkle. The best way to describe him is a 3rd grader who never left 3rd grade! The attitude is immature, aggressive and arrogant. He won't accept constructive criticism, no matter how politely you put it. I've been online for over 20 years and I can quite honestly say I haven't come across anyone as arrogant in my entire life online!
This attitude of his simply must be hurting his business and so my biggest word of advice to him would be, if he can't take a course himself on how to learn appropriate customer service, then pay someone else to do it for him.
I'll leave you with a parting word of advice - if you're thinking of cancelling after one month - Leave it until the very last day before you end the subscription. I ended my subscription on the Saturday when the 30-day subscription wouldn't be up for renewal until Wednesday 11th (it is the 9th today), and he pulled my entire account yesterday (Sunday 8th). Likely because he took offence that I ended the subscription. As I said, shocking!
There is a Facebook Profit Spy page too that is billed as a 'support' group. But posts from members like me that I would have considered to be fairly neutral, still won't pass his strict moderation if it doesn't suit him - So nice flowery, praising posts only, please!
Final judgement: If you have $67 to spare and want to give it a try, the software won't harm your dip into retail arbitrage and may even give you a good start. Just be prepared to be treated like an insolent child!
It's about time I weighed into this thread to help others and give you my first hand experience of Profit Spy over the last month where I have been using it intensively over the last 25 days or so.
In summary, I would avoid this software for reasons that will become clear shortly, but give it a try if you have a tough skin and don't mind being treated like poo on their shoe by 'support' - It's not just about unfriendly customer support, there are technical and practical issues with the software too, that I point out below. Plus there are alternatives which enable you to achieve the same (or better) results.
Just a tiny bit of background first. I'm from the UK and used the UK version of Profit Spy. It's not dissimilar to the US version, it just uses different proxies. I've had an aged eBay account for around 10 years, so I had unlimited listing ability on eBay (if you start with a brand new eBay account, the amount of listings will be restricted but can be increased as the account ages).
I purchased one month's subscription of Profit Spy Agent (basic) plan. I found this to be perfectly adequate for my, (and I would expect most people's) needs for reasons I'll explain in a moment.
Fortunately I have some experience of RA (retail arbitrage) already, and have been using both Amazon and eBay for years, so I wasn't starting out as a newbie. It's possibly important to note that I worked with this full time over the last 3 weeks as I'm in between work at the moment.
I won't go into what the software does, I'm assuming you have a general feel for that already by now. The instructions provided in the videos are pretty concise and informative. In general I hardly had any problems operating the software from the word 'go.' I started out at version 1.6, so already it had been improved several times over already and now showed images of the product between eBay and Amazon which was useful.
With the basic plan, you get just one 'scrape' working at a time. I found this to be adequate. As long as you keep those arbitrage lists running when one finishes (and now you can queue them up), there will be quite a number of lists available to you if one of those scrapes hadn't provided any fruitful returns. That's more than enough work for you to do with one scrape operating at a time. Two or three scrapes is somewhat surplus to the speed at which one works if you are listing the resulting items scraped properly.
With the basic plan, you also can't update the prices automatically (you can get updated Amazon prices on higher plans). But because you have to delete scraped listings anyway once they mount up (so you can scrape more), it seems impractical to use Profit Spy to monitor price updates. You're much better off putting your own practices in place for this - Like using PriceYak, or doing it manually on your spreadsheet.
The software is not without its faults. In my personal view, the software is barely in a usable state and needs a lot more work... At least from a UK perspective. I had many issues with 70% or more of the listings scraped using comparisons between UK Amazon and US or AU eBay, including and accounting for the shipping fees of shipping the goods internationally. For example, a toy that is $40 + $35 shipping on eBay will obviously seem like there's a huge profit margin in it when compared to a local Amazon prime version of the same item. That's unusable because there will be other sellers on eBay selling it locally. Far, far too many of these to wade through and remove. As this is difficult to explain, I've included a screen grab here to illustrate my point:
... Well unfortunately I can't post images yet (after 2 years on Blackhatworld!!) but if you want to go to igmur-dot-com and use this reference after the / you will see it: 1eU4XM5
There are other issues too - The scraper pulls out a large percentage of items that have *ended* on eBay and not actually sold (Profit Spy thinks the item sold at the end listing price). Such listings are no good either, because there is no proven sale at the price point the seller ended the listing at. By the time you have removed all these unusable scrapes, you might have a few to work with that you can actually list. And let me tell you, this takes time to weed out all the unusable scrapes - Because you have to physically go to the eBay site each time to check if the item actually sold, or just ended without a sale.
However, with perseverance and hard work, you can make this work. I just don't feel you really need Profit Spy. This is because you can find items on Amazon with big discounts that can be listed on eBay without needing fairly pricey comparison software like this that has to be worked through anyway. It isn't the software that will make you successful, just your eye to find bargains on Amazon selling cheap or with heavy discounts that could be listed on eBay. The RA model works with or without Profit Spy.
As for results, I got pretty decent results personally. Remember though, as I've said - Your success is down purely to how hard you work to not just getting lists up on eBay, but the quality of those listings. If you list in bulk, you will likely have poor results as everyone has the same main image, the same title, the same description. It's between you and 10 other sellers listing the same thing. That's why I say the quality of each listing is so important, changing the title, using Adwords to get better keywords, using your own image from a google image search, etc. It all helps to stand out from the crowd. This will fare you better in the long run. It's this extra time on each listing which makes spending anything more on higher Profit Spy plans not worth it (and I was working full time on this).
It is now toward the end of my month with Profit Spy. I have about 170 listings on eBay and have made approximately 400 in my first month - Which isn't bad considering the listings were accumulating from a lower amount earlier in the month.
But as I have said, I believe you can achieve the same results without using Profit Spy at all. Some of my successful listings weren't found with Profit Spy. You also have to consider that the same searches in the same categories on Amazon are being scraped / performed by other Profit Spy users who are pulling the same results, thus increasing the competition for those same items that end up on eBay. Toward the end of my month, I found myself repeating some of the same categories and finding the same results.
SUPPORT & THE PEOPLE BEHIND "PROFIT SPY"
Ok - whilst the software itself is usable (with faults as listed above) and I have found it generally useful, and I could recommend it for tentative use, especially if you're new to this game - I would not recommend it for one, very big reason - The support is absolutely dreadful. What do I mean by dreadful?
Well, I don't mean that there is no support. In fact, to give them (him?) credit, they respond pretty quickly (within a few hours) to technical issues you are having with the software. So that isn't at issue here.
The issue is HOW they respond to you as their customer. All I can say is, unless you can bite your lip each time you feel humiliated, put down, spoken to sharply, rudely - Then you will need to put up with the force that is John Hinkle. The best way to describe him is a 3rd grader who never left 3rd grade! The attitude is immature, aggressive and arrogant. He won't accept constructive criticism, no matter how politely you put it. I've been online for over 20 years and I can quite honestly say I haven't come across anyone as arrogant in my entire life online!
This attitude of his simply must be hurting his business and so my biggest word of advice to him would be, if he can't take a course himself on how to learn appropriate customer service, then pay someone else to do it for him.
I'll leave you with a parting word of advice - if you're thinking of cancelling after one month - Leave it until the very last day before you end the subscription. I ended my subscription on the Saturday when the 30-day subscription wouldn't be up for renewal until Wednesday 11th (it is the 9th today), and he pulled my entire account yesterday (Sunday 8th). Likely because he took offence that I ended the subscription. As I said, shocking!
There is a Facebook Profit Spy page too that is billed as a 'support' group. But posts from members like me that I would have considered to be fairly neutral, still won't pass his strict moderation if it doesn't suit him - So nice flowery, praising posts only, please!
Final judgement: If you have $67 to spare and want to give it a try, the software won't harm your dip into retail arbitrage and may even give you a good start. Just be prepared to be treated like an insolent child!
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Last edited:
itexpert2030
Junior Member
- Dec 26, 2014
- 104
- 9
Right Don't expect to get rich in a day, you can create a snowball effect and make a great living from it.
wajdisawaqed
BANNED
- Jun 29, 2015
- 110
- 9
Its Possible to get a review copy please?
B
Banned member 185991
Guest
Reported for fake reviews:
Source: https://forums.digitalpoint.com/threads/paid-reviews-for-bhw.2780007/
Archived copy: http://archive.is/poAs9
OP....
Are you stupid?
Source: https://forums.digitalpoint.com/threads/paid-reviews-for-bhw.2780007/
Archived copy: http://archive.is/poAs9
OP....
Are you stupid?
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