Make Money on eBay - Learn From my Mistake!
by Bob Hamilton
Learn from my mistake! Making money on eBay is all about the value of the items that
you sell. eBay buyers expect a bargain. There are a huge number of buyers waiting when you
have products that are of high value, yet you are willing to sell at a reasonable price.
That said, what was my mistake?
My daughter and I started selling on eBay as a means of selling excess inventory from
our retail store. Like so many others, we soon found that there was a better opportunity
on eBay than our established retail business provided to us. We could amake money on eBay
much more quickly and easily.
eBay was a marketplace filled with ready, willing and able buyers! We saw that quickly
and couldn't wait to get started. We selected our market niche. We selected our products
to sell. Then we started selling and selling and selling. It seemed that we had found an
almost limitless market and pot of gold that came with it. Soon we were selling hundreds
of items each month. Purchasing, listing, pulling, packing and shipping products had
become a fulltime job for both of us. We had found the way to amake money on eBay. Yet,
even with those great sales, we were not making a very big profit.
As we examined everything we quickly found that while our sales looked impressive, and
we had already become Powersellers, we weren't making the profits that we desired. Soon
the culprit became clear. Yes, we were able to make money on eBay. Our profit margins
would have impressed almost everyone. Yet, we had selected products that simply sold for
too little.
Here was our problem! We had found a great set of low-priced products. Let me give you
an example: Would you rather sell a pencil for $1.00 with a final profit of 30¢ each, or
would you rather sell a fire engine for $10,000 with a final profit of $4,500 each? More
realistically, would you rather sell $1.00 pencils with a final profit of 30¢ each, or
$15.00 pencils with a final profit of $4.00 each?
Though we weren't in the 30¢ category, we were simply working too hard for too little
profit. We weren't selling $1.00 pencils. They were more like $2.50 or $3.00 pencils. At
30¢ profit per item, you need to sell a lot of pencils to make a living! Preparing and
shipping a $1.00 pencil takes every bit as much time and effort as preparing and shipping
a $15.00 pencil.
We have since evolved our business out of the $1.00 or $2.50 pencil category and into
prices that provide a more reasonable profit for the time and effort involved.
Learn from our mistake. Include sales price in the formula that you use to select your
products. If you aren't selling for at least $10.00 (Or even more.), rethink your product.
You can amake money on eBay, but it requires that you carefully examine every aspect of
what you are doing.
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