Anyone running a succesful Ebay business?

[squeeze87]

Have been contemplating trying to sell a few items and see how it goes. Is it possible to make a living doing this? Where do you come by the things that you sell? I'm not talking about just car parts. I mean DVD's old toys, and other collectables. Any insight or advice is welcome. I'm just curious at this point. Thanks

Steve

 

[gn1220]

There was a show on TV a few weeks ago all about e-bay and it's sellers. They featured one family, a mother and two daughters, I believe, that sold used clothing. The women stated they make $30-40,000 a month!!! E-bay also started a health insurance program, including dental, for it's power sellers.

 

[lyonsd]

I've been selling stuff. See link below.

Sometimes I buy a chitload of CDs and turn around and sell them on eBay. Most of the time I break even, but sometimes I make a buck or two or three or more profit. Every now and then somebody will bid as much as 2 or even 3 times the value for a CD. And I don't lie and say it's out of print or anything. The initial bid is my break even point. If I only get one bid, I make no money. But if they don't sell and I've had to relist them a couple times, then I lower the price. There are some I have listed right now that I'm going to lose money on if they sell at the current price ($5 - I paid $7 for them), but I gotta get rid of them.

I'm hoping that Nantucket CD does well. It just came out on CD for the first time ever, and sometimes those old forgotten classic rockers so prety well when they're first released on CD. Jay Ferguson's Thunder Island brought in some high bids when it first came out on CD. So did Joe Vitale's Plantation Harbor.

Other stuff is crap that I just want to get rid of but don't necessariily want to throw away. I made a couple hundred or more on some old Mustang parts.

I had an old REO Speedwagon guitar tab book laying around in a box that I found when I was cleaning chit out and I decided to list it on eBay. It sold for over $70!

A while ago I bought 4 Goodyear tires and they hada promo that if you bought 4 you get a free G-Tech. Since I already have a G-Tech, I listed it on eBay. It sold to some cat in Poland for $100.

Last year I had more comic books than you can shake a stick at. I got rid of almost all of them on eBay. I got as much as $10 for some of them.

I've got old music cassettes that I'm selling. I don't get much for them.

I've got books that I list too. I don't get much for them either.

And I've sold some old car magazines that I didn't get much for.

I want to incorporate and get accounts with wholesale distributors and sell more stuff on eBay. It seems that the only way to make money is to sell a chitload of stuff, and that can be a full time job in itself. I spend quite a bit of time just with the few items I sell. But if you sell popular things I guess you can make more money with less effort. The trick is predicting what's hot at the time. It's about a predictable as the stock market. You never know who needs what and when. I studied it for a while to see what CDs were selling for good prices. Then when I tried selling them, I didn't make much.

Some people can and do make a living selling on eBay. I'm just looking for supplemental income, but I'd like to step it up a bit to try to get my debts paid off faster.

 

[Kid with a toy]

I sell blank CDs on EBay with good results. One of my childhood amigos was born in Hong Kong and was educated in the U.S., and then later, went back to Asia to run the family business...plastics and magnetics. So he is MY hookup.

Every once in a blue moon I'll buy out an auction from a government website and sell it on EBay. But it's almost always crazy $hit that has no true use to one idividual...like an 18 wheeler loaded with 350 bench seats and 700 glove boxes. That was one of my bigger goof ups. The problem with these auctions isn't the price (the seat/blove box fubar cost me $500 total) it's finding a place to store all the crap. And finding a trucking company willing to go where ever with a rig and a trailer and HELP load all the $hit up. That's right, you buy it, you load it, you haul it off.

The 10,000 ball cap auction was another one I'll never forget. I bought all 10,000 caps for $50 but had a hell of a time trying to keep everything organized. It only took me 2 months to sell them off.

The other thing that people don't tell you is the hell of going back and forth to the post office or UPS station. The best thing to do if you are serious, is to open a UPS account from home and go from there. They fail to mention the tax issues involved with a home auction business. Get a good CPA that knows the laws. And get incorporated as soon as possible. The list goes on.....................................

Erik

 

[GN One Day...]

Originally posted by Kid with a toy
They fail to mention the tax issues involved with a home auction business. Get a good CPA that knows the laws.

That's what I wonder about the big sellers on there. Easily traceable and I bet a lot of people don't report the income. Does Ebay keep up and mail you a 1099 or something?

 

[Little6pack]

I have sold some stuff on ebay.
It all started because I was sitting around some saturday during my YARD SALE watching people offer you 25 cents for everything.
(They are all cheapskates)

So I closed the garage sale at noon. Took some photos of the stuff that did not sell & placed them on ebay.

I made over $100 selling the stuff on Ebay, when I made $20 in four hours of my yard sale.

If you are selling only a few items I would not worry about UNCLE TAX.
But if you decide to go BALLS to the wall then you can set it up like a real buisness & write off the expensies & trips to the post office.

 

[Rogue Leader]

I sell EVERYTHING on ebay... Any time Im low on cash I search the house... take some pictures and put the stuff up on ebay. Eveyrhing from toys to car parts and more... I sell stuff for friends, and more.. EBAY RULES! No Im not corporate, and some stuff i just about break even on, but its a good way to make room and earn some extra cash

 

[Kid with a toy]

Ebay has never sent me a 1099 form to date. And I don't know of anyone that has gotten one from them.
The way to stay out of Uncle Sam's hair is to make sure that any account that you have doesn't earn interest and never amounts to over 10k. I receive several payments via PayPal...it does not earn interest nor does the checking account that it's linked to. I'm not trying to avoid taxes...I pay mine...I just wanted to keep things simple; but that's how most of the non-payers do it. Add to the fact that most of them keep over seas accounts open and you get the bigger picture, Money Orders, and other electronic transfers are other ways. The bottom line is, all money transfers and sales CAN be monitored and tracted down if the Government wanted to. I know of a couple of Power Sellers that don't pay taxes and have over 2,000 auctions a year. Those are the guys that change the seller name every couple of months to avoid any trace, plus they change the linking e-mail, credit card number, checking account, and often use someone else to open it...and then they come back several days later to be put on the sig card; only need a driver's license, no SS#.

You can always run, but it's hard to hide.

Erik

 

[BlackBuick84]

Originally posted by Rogue Leader
I sell EVERYTHING on ebay... Any time Im low on cash I search the house... take some pictures and put the stuff up on ebay. Eveyrhing from toys to car parts and more... I sell stuff for friends, and more.. EBAY RULES! No Im not corporate, and some stuff i just about break even on, but its a good way to make room and earn some extra cash

Thats what I do, sell whatever I dont want...i sorta sell 3rd gen f-body parts too. I got one locally for free...sold the seats & taillights....then sold the rest of the car on ebay, nice profit on that one. I found another one on ebay that was like 10 mins from my house. So i went over an offered the guy 300 an he agreed. I get it home, its got a new hood an a bunch of other cool stuff. So I'll make some $$ on that one too. Then put whats left on ebay. I just sold my moms van too, Ebay's alright w/ me.

 

[GNSCOTT]

I go to local live auctions and buy specific pieces of furniture and make some good scratch. Examples: chair paid $75 sold for $199 6 chairs i bought for $350 sold for $650, dining room set paid $800 sold for $1300, nightstand i bought for $99 sold for $249, mirror i paid $50, sold for $149.

These are not my best deals, these are average deals. If the average is any less, its not worth it to me. I search local auctions on the net looking for specific brands, and pieces. I know what they sell for on ebay and i bid. It sucks when i travel 45 minutes to an auction and have someone outbid me and i wasted my evening, also you can wait hours for your piect to come up for sale. Name brands always sell better because people search them out. If you just have a bedroom set for sale it will be mixed in with every bedroom set there (thousands) but if you have a name brand it will come up for people looking for just that brand and in the general listing. I think this applies to everything on there.