selling cellphones on ebay?

Hi,

A while back I took care of a rental property for a family member and there was a tenant in his building that sold loads of cellphones on ebay.

Just wondering but how is that done? Do you need to have some sort of distributorship setup with Sprint, ATT etc?

Anybody been in that type of business before?

I'm talking about stuff like this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Unlocked-Bl...0812568824?pt=Cell_Phones&hash=item1c20fd80f8

I've done it, but if I was to go back I would have picked a different product.

I would buy them used/new/broken from people on Craigslist or in bulk online and make a decent mark-up, but eventually it all went downhill when eBay asked me for the credentials on my source. My eBay was suspended and there was no way around it. If you're doing it wholesale there's a VERY small mark-up and there's a lot of scammers in the industry. I got taken for over a few grand before from some scammer in China. If you're going to buy them, do it in person. Consider everyone else to be out there to steal your money.

If I were you I'd keep looking for a product with a higher profit margin. Unbranded phones actually do better.

The hottest is selling the iphone. I know of someone doing this but problem is getting enough inventory. There's just too much demand for broken phones so he's not doing enough volume to make any significant amount of money.

iphones are the market and huge