Making money on eBay

[extra.account]

Hey

I've always though eBay was much better for buyers than seller, yet you see people making businesses from it. I think tonight i confirmed that.

I saw an offer online, selling a weight/mass gain sport product for about £5 a kilo when you buy in bulk. I know from my own experience that that's very cheap, usually its about £15+ a kilo in shops. I thought I was on to a winner, until i did the maths. Sending 25KG of the stuff to my house would on cost £5 in postage, they must have had a nice contract with parcelforce. Add to that the cost of individual tubs and other stuff and it was more about £8 a kilo. Not bad still. Checked out postage costs, thats were it stumped me. To send 5KG in weight to somewhere else in the UK would cost about £8/9.

Checked out the competetion. I planned to sell in 1KG portions, but found nobody was bothering with them. Then saw people were keener buying 5KG portions. The competetion claimed to offer free postage and were selling at about £41 for 5KG, free postage. Thats what I'd need to sell at just to break even, plus the expensive postage.

See what I mean? Like where are these people getting their products from? £5 a kilo is dirt cheap, i was convinced I'd make a profit.

Sorry for my bit of a rant, just very disappointed :/

Thanks

PS. Does it really cost £9 to send 5KG? How do these guys get it so cheap?

[blown away]

That is the main problem with ebay - the way that some sellers are undercutting everyone and even selling at less than trade, I have a feeling that with with a good proportion of them , they are selling at a loss to drive customers to their own e-commerce sites, or they are selling fakes/unlicensed stuff brought cheaply from hong kong or wherever.
I dont suffer with it too much as all my competitors are professionals and we stick more or less to rrp. BUT, in the die cast model sections - I honestly don't know how some sellers ever make a profit and actually suspect that some are wholesalers themselves, as is happening now at collectors toy fairs. I know for a fact that one of my suppliers for sci fi stuff is selling at near trade prices on ebay under a (ever so slightly) different name, but I've clocked him from his trading address.

It's a real pain and I really don't know why they do it - it is really having a damaging effect on ebay and that is why people like me are getting their own websites up and running, ebay is getting a reputation as something of a jumble sale with buyers mistakenly thinking that everything should be pennies - I had one chancer offer me £50 for a kite - the rrp is £120 and I have a special offer on of £80 , needless to say I declined!

[extra.account]

Yeah good point, I saw this listing: cgi.ebay.co.uk/5kg-Tub-of-80-Whey-protein-Concentrate-unflavoured_W0QQitemZ300138882788QQihZ020QQcategor yZ97034QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

That guy is selling for about £45 on ebay, but similar on his website would cost about £60 with P&P included.

Man that sucks, there's no way I can compete with that.

Why do people bother buying from RRP websites when eBay exists? Say I was going to start a small website selling a few weight gain products for prices much higher than that on eBay - why would people even bother when most people know about ebay?

[jelly3]

Ebay may end up being a victim of it's own success for this very reason.
I remember buying something on ebay for £0.01, (I think it was a soundcard about 12 mths ago). The postage was only £2.00 but what I thought was utterly ridiculous, was this UK seller had 200 of the exact same item on as auction items at the same time. Even if you were deliberately putting this on as a loss leader, you would surely have other normally priced products as well.
He could not have made anything from the postage. And at the time listing was 20p minimum.
No one could reasonably be expected to compete with that.
He may well have been not that bright.



This is the reason that so many wholesalers that I contacted wanted an assurance that I would not sell their goods on ebay, some of them see it as cheapening their goods.

[Page]

The supply chains will get shorter and shorter due to the internet - not just ebay.

I reckon that there is now no great reason why leather bag distribution (for example) cannot be done from India or China - (by air) - as opposed to coming to the UK (usually by ship) and then being distributed.

This is already happening from Italy.

It work with high value - low weight and bulk items.

That is why we get sellers on ebay.co.uk distributing from Hong Kong etc - because the sums add up - for buyer and seller.

Retail is a very rapidly changing world at the moment. I know people who had successful web sites but have now largely abandoned them as more people move in to their areas.

As always business is tough and the best survive and go on and do better. Just occasionally you may get some glory years or months of easy money.

[atlascs]

I've heard lots of people made a living on eBay by finding products that had not been listed properly (i.e. misspelled titles and naff descriptions) and purchased them for less than the going value. They then re-listed the items and made a healthy profit.

I'm not sure of this kind of thing still goes on but the old saying must apply...if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.

[Morgy]

I think that is a myth... people buying stuff cheap with mispelt titles etc. That comes about from people trying to sell ebooks on how it can be done. The money is made selling the ebooks and not mispelt stuff. At the end of the day most people know what it is they are selling and will not let it go for considerably less than they think it is worth

[ken_uk]

ebay is going downhill rapidly, some sellers are getting away with what appears to be outright fraudulent terms, yet ebay is quite happy with it.
The buyer experience, both browsing and buying is deteriorating, and selling fees keep increasing. It will reach a point where the 'good sellers' are priced out, and also unable to compete with the dirty tricks employed by the so called pro sellers, and they stop selling.
Ebay will end up with just a load of dodgy auctions, with misleading terms/pictures etc.

Browsing ebay its easy to see many things such as

'Picture is not of the actual item' or similar wording
'Item may be damaged/scratched' or whatever tucked away in the small print of a auction for something made out to be in great condition
'Item may not work/may not be complete despite any item description that may be given' - so a seller can say whatever they want about a item, then send you junk...
'Item subject to a X percent restocking fee' combined with 'buyer responsible for ALL postage costs, including return costs' so the buyer can just send out junk to all sellers, and profit on restocking fees.
I have even seen 'this auction is for a screw' as a clause in a auction for a laptop (or at least it was meant to be a laptop, until that clause....) - ebay was quite happy with that....

It is possible to make money on ebay, if you have a product that you can get cheap enough, and good selling skills, or a unique product with good selling skills, or you just luck out... But its a painful process these days, due to ebay putting ads on the TV all sorts of people are signing up, many with less intelligence than a banana, and it can make the selling and buying experience very painful....

[thekitchendesigner]

I've been put off putting my usual listings on ebay recently. I sold flip down TV's on there from December to June, made some good dosh and really enjoyed it. Then people started to copy my listing, pictures etc, and sell the same product stupidly cheap, probably only making a few £ tops!

My suppliers in the Uk, who once listed them on ebay before i agreed to take over, started noticing and has requested some of their new products not to be sold on ebay, which i think was a sensible move.

Turned out that the person selling the stupidly cheap appeared to be buying the stuff "out of the back door" of the factory abroad making them!! So he'd have them cheaper than anyone ever could get them!

I think thats now killed this area of sales off, which is a shame because i enjoyed it and my customers were very pleased.

Its just getting silly now, stolen goods, removed listings, copied listings, stupid prices, why bother listing? Its more hassle it seems than its worth!

How many people think Ebay will be a victim of its own success and go downhill? Or is it too big to care?

[computerfaq]

I've just started out, using ebay very tentantively, at the moment i'm still using my personal account, and not listing many items. I'm struggling to buy things in that even match the prices of the people on eBay. I think that within a few months they'll start losing customers in droves as they realise that this is not benefitting anyone anymore.

[Page]

It may change but it will not even begin to vanish.

It will hit a level where people find it worth their time to list items on the site.

That is what a marketplace is all about.

If some people are selling items at cost etc - then somewhere along the line they will lose interest and do something else. Or start putting their prices up until it does pay them at a level they find worthwhile.

This is how business always works.

[Comspec]

I will admit it is bad at the moment. Ebay fees and all the things previously mentioned on other posts is making life very difficult for sellers. The clowns who are willing to accept £1 profit on a £100 item are wrecking the more legitimate traders who are in for the long haul.

I also think that ebays customer service has fell apart - they make some strange decisions about listings and seem to ignore other blatant things when they want to.

It will not go away, but I hope eventually that there will be some decent competition for it. That is what they need to give them the boot up the rear they have been crying out for this past while.

[atlascs]

As an aside am I the only one who thinks that the eBay interface is not only outdated (naff colours and layout) but also lacks in terms of usability? I hate using the eBay site for anything but the most simplest of tasks.

[KPautomotive]

I've heard lots of people made a living on eBay by finding products that had not been listed properly (i.e. misspelled titles and naff descriptions) and purchased them for less than the going value. They then re-listed the items and made a healthy profit.


We've done that a few times now.. seen something badly listed or in our area but won't post so bought considerably cheaper and later sold on making quite a bit ... not enough to make living though :(

[kimmrunner]

Hey

I've always though eBay was much better for buyers than seller, yet you see people making businesses from it. I think tonight i confirmed that.

I saw an offer online, selling a weight/mass gain sport product for about £5 a kilo when you buy in bulk. I know from my own experience that that's very cheap, usually its about £15+ a kilo in shops. I thought I was on to a winner, until i did the maths. Sending 25KG of the stuff to my house would on cost £5 in postage, they must have had a nice contract with parcelforce. Add to that the cost of individual tubs and other stuff and it was more about £8 a kilo. Not bad still. Checked out postage costs, thats were it stumped me. To send 5KG in weight to somewhere else in the UK would cost about £8/9.

Checked out the competetion. I planned to sell in 1KG portions, but found nobody was bothering with them. Then saw people were keener buying 5KG portions. The competetion claimed to offer free postage and were selling at about £41 for 5KG, free postage. Thats what I'd need to sell at just to break even, plus the expensive postage.

See what I mean? Like where are these people getting their products from? £5 a kilo is dirt cheap, i was convinced I'd make a profit.

Sorry for my bit of a rant, just very disappointed :/

Thanks

PS. Does it really cost £9 to send 5KG? How do these guys get it so cheap?


I think you have missed the point and purpose of ebay for professional marketers.

Ebay is not an auction site or sales machine it is a traffic machine and lead generation site.

The money is made from direct marketing the list of customers gained from ebay.

So that is how it is possible to loss lead.

IN the example you quote, body builders are serial users of supplements and other stuff related to their hobby.

To advertise in the press may cost thousands, and not necessarily produce customers So why not give away £10 as a loss lead per customers to generate 100 actual customers, whose lifetime value will be tens of thousands of pounds?

That is how savvy marketers use ebay in crowded markets.
It is hte same principle used by these book clubs that send you four books for a £ as an introductory offer. They know their conversion percentages.

[.Spiralling.]

I sell my CDs wholesale as well as retail, but I don't supply people who trade on Ebay. The reason for this is that I already have the range listed on Ebay and I don't want to see the price reduced - the RRP is excellent value and I can see no benefit to anyone to reduce it. I sell to shops etc because they are more specialist.

[BusinessIdeas]

I have been selling and buying on ebay for years now. I started selling new guitars, and I was making more for my goods on ebay than I could get in my shop. Suddenly lots of other people were selling and undercutting prices so I switched to other products. Digital pianos did very well for quite a while and I was buying 30 at a time to gain an exclusivity advantage. Eventually my supplier increased their import quantities and other people started selling the same product. The price dropped to a level that made it impossible to make a reasonable profit. This happens repeatedly across the board, so any new product that you source will suffer the same fate eventually. I now sell my own produced information products (not the generally available e-books that you see) and a very easy to use profit and loss database. I am gradually increasing the number of products by writing guides. This is a long winded process, but the beauty of this is that once produced, my info products make profits for years to come, and because I write them myself, they are not so easily copied by other people. Add to that the fact that there are no ongoing costs for stock, and that the product is delivered by email incurring no postal charges and you can see the advantages of this strategy. In short you need a guaranteed exclusive product with low delivery charges to make a go of ebay.

[ken_uk]

Unfortunately a lot of the people who are pro sellers on ebay are shooting themselves in the foot with the dodgy listing practices.

I make a point to visit any shop linked to in a auction, *especially* if its one of those auctions that sucks (ie pictures of a 'similar' item, item may be different from as described, rip of shipping costs, etc) and making a mental note never to shop from them online.

Its a good way to sort out the sellers who are scum, from the good online stores who are genuine, and honest.

Dodgy listings seem to be increasing fast, not helped by the fact that ebay refuses to ever (well pretty much ever in my experience) do anything to a powerseller, or these days, pretty much any seller if you report a fraudulent/misleading/against site rules etc auction to them.

Im tempted to write a guide on ebay detailing all the rip off things ebay is quite happy for you to do in your auction, ones where I have reported examples of it, and ebay did nothing at all.

But ebay will probably tell me to remove it, or to edit it, they did that once before when I had a guide that gave an example of how some unscrupulous sellers were using ebays site to inject certain harmless (but still worrying it could be done) data into a users my ebay sub page.

Lots of other sellers are now resorting to the same tactics (over marketing, dodgy terms etc) to try to compete with the other sellers, whereas some realise that they cant compete without bending / breaking the rules so dont bother.

I reckon its only a matter of time before a documentary is done on TV that exposes ebay, lets face it, they wont have to try hard to find dodgy sellers, nor try hard to prove how ebay aids and abets criminals by not actiing on information received.

[Steve2507]

Im tempted to write a guide on ebay detailing all the rip off things ebay is quite happy for you to do in your auction, ones where I have reported examples of it, and ebay did nothing at all.

I would love to see that, you'd probably be able to sell it (and make a nice profit) through clickbank.

Its a good way to sort out the sellers who are scum, from the good online stores who are genuine, and honest.

What amazes me are the sellers that honestly believe they are building a long term business by doing the dodgy practises. Don't they realise that they are ruining any reputation they may have?

We use ebay to sell discontinued lines and yes the idea is to drive people to our main site (as well as getting rid of old lines). But we make sure that the prices we offer on Ebay (for buy it now) are the same prices we are offering on our main site and the postage charges are always fair based on the item we are selling.

We want to get customers and keep them, doing anything dodgy on ebay may get you a customer but are you really going to keep them?

[.Spiralling.]

Adding to what Ken has said about rule breaking on ebay..

This is example is small in the scale of things, but still. I was looking for small organza gift bags for something, and found some wholesale lots which were really cheap (about £1.50 or something). Bearing in mind that 100 tiny organza bags weigh about as much as a feather, the shipping costs were about £10, within the UK. A potential buyer had asked why they were so high, and the seller had answered (and chosen to have the question posted on the listed) that the P&P costs were so high because they included some of the costs of the item in the shipping costs to avoid fees.

Ebay never took any action over this seller, who seemed to have done this with every listing.

[Basicproduction]

As an aside am I the only one who thinks that the eBay interface is not only outdated (naff colours and layout) but also lacks in terms of usability? I hate using the eBay site for anything but the most simplest of tasks.

I agree, this is one of the reasons that i never use eBay. i think I've used it twice and been disappointed. It has its moments but is till prefer other methods and I'm not an eBay hater or anything. :p

[sheffieldhitman]

Does any one feel that ebay is an expensive way for a business to advertise its products?

when you add up what it costs to advertise a single listing on ebay then x that by the number of product lines you supply x by the number of listings you need to be seen = A HELL OF A LOT

Iv seen certain people listing 500/600+ items on ebay at any one time if you say at the very low end a listing costs you 50p thats £250.00!

May be its me but there must be a better and cost effective way to sell products with shop facility's to the general public!

[Steve2507]

I agree it can be expensive, thats why we only sell a few items on Ebay.

May be its me but there must be a better and cost effective way to sell products with shop facility's to the general public!

The problem is Ebay has got a good reach that you would need years to catch up with if you set up from scratch.