Example of What You Can Do to Make Money on Ebay

Buying and selling on Ebay is very easy. Here is one example of what you can do to make money on Ebay quickly.

One of my favorite stores is a discount store called Marshalls. You may or may not have one in your area but it is a store that sells brand name, designer clothing at a deep discount, especially at the change of seasons. If you know of a store that is like Marshalls, then this will work for you too.

Before you go, login to Ebay. One at a time, look up Polo shirts girls, then Polo shirts boys, Ralph Lauren boys, Ralph Lauren girls, Ralph Lauren baby, etc. (I always look for clothing with brand names like Ralph Lauren, Polo; Baby Phat; Tommy Hilfiger; etc.). Look in the left hand column for the words, "completed listings" (you need to be signed onto Ebay to do this). Put a check mark in that box. Go back up to the search bar where you have your search term entered, ie. polo girls shirts and click on search. When you get the search returns, you will see all of the items that have sold in green. You will see how much they sold for and a picture of what they look like. Write down that info for each search term you look up.

Armed with that information, and a credit card or cash, visit your discount store. Take a look at the brand names and compare what you see with what sold on Ebay. If you can make at least a $3-5 profit, then buy the item. Don't go crazy. Buy one or two items to start unless you see some unbelievable bargains.

Go home, take pictures, upload them to your computer and list them on Ebay. You can use Auctiva which is free for uploading even more pictures. Auctiva.com takes about a half hour to learn but it is well worth it because you can list as many pictures as you want for free whereas Ebay charges for each picture. Make sure when you are listing that you are pricing your items competitively.

More on how to list in the next blog. Next time: Why you must use good keywords in your title. That is very helpful to your success in selling your items and leaning what you can do to make money on Ebay.

Learn Ebay From an Ebay Millionaire

If you want to learn how to sell on Ebay the right way, you will be better off learning from an expert who has a proven track record and over a million dollars in sales. Click here to take a look at what he has to offer. I am an Ebay newbie and although my earnings are increasing, the tips and advice he is giving me are going to take me to the next level.

HOW DO I FIND OUT WHAT TO SELL ON EBAY - THE FIRST STEP

Another tip for Ebay success is to make sure you do your due diligence up front. Selling on Ebay is great fun if you don't intend to make it a full time business. You can collect items laying around your house, go to ebay, type your item into the search bar and see how many others are selling what you want to sell.

If you really intend to sell your item on Ebay, you will need to create an Ebay sellers account (click here to do that) Once you have created an account (a sellers account) you will want to redo your search. The next step will be to type the same search term into the search bar and then click on advanced search and look down the page for the words "completed listing". Once you find that, put a check in the box beside completed listing, scroll to the bottom of the page and hit search.

What this will do is bring up a page of your items, but you will see that some of the items have green numbers. Those green numbers represent items that have actually sold on Ebay. Take those numbers and see what buyers have paid for them. That way you can get an idea of how to price your own item to make it competitive in the Ebay sellers market.

A Gripe About Ebay - Sellers Get Screwed - My Rant

Please excuse my language, but it's really true. The p0wer is now in the hands of the buyer, not equally in the hands of both the buyer and the seller. I am both a buyer and a seller on Ebay and in all fairness, I don't see how Ebay is presenting a balance by prohibiting the seller to leave negative feedback for the buyer. Ebay's reasoning from what I can gather is that they don't want to lose any of their buyers. My reasoning? Without sellers, there are no buyers. Why pick on the sellers?

For example, I recently had a buyer whom I shipped a $15 product to. Ebay told me that they were investigating a complaint (mind you I had 100% positive feedback at the time and over 1500 positives). I provided Paypal with the tracking information and proof of delivery they requested. I have no idea what they told Ebay, but all I know is that it went into a dispute (automatically) through Paypal. I provided all of the documentation, ie. the fact that it was shipped the SAME day, proof through tracking that it was actually delivered, and proof of any of the correspondence sent to the customer. The end result? The customer won. I lost $40 due to fees, reversal charges, refunding not only the money for the product, but the money for the postage and I had to pay Paypal $10 for the privilege of my losing the case. In addition, I lost the $15 on the product. What could I do about it? Nothing. No recourse. No one to communicate with to find out why. It just happened. Paypal's decision was final and no explanation was given. They just took their $10 and went away.

So, if you have a buyer who decides randomly to cancel their order and who gives Ebay a good story, true or not, you will lose. You will not be able to complain. You will have to eat the costs through Paypal and you will start to get a bit miffed.

To top it off, I had another one last week. I work hard to build my Ebay business and as you can imagine, I almost blew a gasket! Another reversal, two in one month whereas before the changes, I hadn't had any, just 3 neutrals (two that were put in by mistake because the person thought neutral meant OK and I still cannot find the 3rd one although it is showing up in my feedback.

The one last week said it was under investigation and Paypal removed the $17.00 or so that had been paid to me while they investigated the chargeback. Surprisingly, the chargeback was made AFTER the buyer received their product AND left me POSITIVE feedback. . . oooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I wanted to scream! So, sorry, now I'm screaming!

Anyway, my point is, Ebay is the giant and I am just a number who is running a small business. My Ebay fees last month were a mere $380 on sales of just over $1700 . . .My little fee amount may not be that great but take the thousands of us who give Ebay $380 for fees and add that up and it may make a dent in what Ebay makes. If all of the little guys go away because we are put out of business by negative feedback or higher Ebay fees, then Ebay may have to rethink their decisions to make the sellers the fall guys.