Is eBay the Promised Land?

johnny.shz asks: "Even the politicians were claiming: millions of people are making a living off eBay. eBay does have millions of people selling at any given time, but how many are actually making a living? I've sold many things on eBay, mostly junk. My feeling is that I'm making eBay richer (all fees plus PayPal account about 10%), but certainly not myself. Despite all the hoopla of the new promised land, I don't see the promise on eBay. How many of you are making a living off eBay? How many of you actually know someone who does?"

Comments

Yes, but usually not the individual.

[Rolan]

There are certainly people making a living off of eBay. They aren't your general user (like you). I'm curious where you read the politicians claiming "millions."

The people making a living off eBay are the small business owners that may (or may not) have a storefront in some town with limited exposure. They setup an eBay store, or list a most of their items on eBay for sale and make additional sales from stock they already had. They adjust their prices to compensate for the fees of doing business (which may very well be cheaper). They're generally able to avoid dealing with taxes (unless you're in their state), they don't have to deal with the overhead of store rent, electricity, etc that a physical store incurs.

If I were so inclined, I'm sure I could setup a business in my house that sells purely online/through eBay and be able to make a better profit than a standard storefront, simply due to the considerable difference in overhead. However, I'm not interested in owning that kind of business.

Re:Yes, but usually not the individual.

[Naikrovek]

I know of a guy that does this in Dallas, selling billiard supplies. Pool cues, billiard balls, tables, all kinds of stuff.

According to him, he works about 10 hours a day, seven days a week. That amount of time pays for his house, feeds everyone in it (wife and two kids, none of whom work) and drives three Hummer H2s all different colors.

Its possible if you know how to do it.

Re:Yes, but usually not the individual.

[Anonymous Coward]

By definition, anyone who drives a Hummer* is a jackass.







*A Hummer that isn't owned by the military.

Re:Yes, but usually not the individual.

[Bingo Foo]

And his kids know never to touch the black one.

Re:Yes, but usually not the individual.

[SteeldrivingJon]

Maybe that asshat should have stopped at one H2, and then he wouldn't have to work 70 hours a week and could spend some time with his family.

Of course, the H2 is a girlie truck anyway. I swear I only ever see fat middle-aged broads driving those things.

It's not even a real Hummer. It's a pickup in quasi-military drag.

Re:Yes, but usually not the individual.

[SteeldrivingJon]

" I'm curious where you read the politicians claiming "millions.""

Dunno about millions, but Cheney, in a campaign appearance, definitely implied that lots of people were making loads of money on EBay.

The context was talking about "new jobs" that replace the ones that have gone away forever.

He might well have said millions.

Re:Yes, but usually not the individual.

[MoralHazard]

If I were so inclined, I'm sure I could setup a business in my house that sells purely online/through eBay and be able to make a better profit than a standard storefront, simply due to the considerable difference in overhead. However, I'm not interested in owning that kind of business.

Didn't stop to think about the realities of running a business, did you? If it were like you describe, wouldn't everybody be running a business online instead of "deal[ing] with the overhead of running a store"? Consider the realities of the situation:

1) If you're REALLY running your whole business out of your house, there's a limit on the size of your business. If you're in a shipped-goods industry (like these Ebay merchants), how much inventory can you actually fit in your house? Even if your wife is very understanding, the house is only so big, right?

2) But let's say you get a warehouse, which is cheaper than storefront commercial space, or you keep your volume of business low enough to keep it in your house. You're STILL not necessarily better off, because a storefront can be a route to a hell of a lot more incoming customers. People will walk in off-the-street from having seen your place (hopefully!), leading to more potential sales opportunities. And this isn't an either/or situation with the web (Ebay)--you can always do both, and pick up sales from both sources. As long as the storefront brings in more business than it costs in rent/other costs, it's adding profits to your bottom line, and you'd be poorer not to have it.

3) A storefront shop will see a whole category of very lucrative customers that mail-order, WWW, and Ebay-based stores cannot: people who need something RIGHT NOW and can't wait. Forgot a birthday gift, and the party's tonight? Can't wait for Ebay, can you? Or when your boss's laptop fritzes and he's leaving for Europe in a couple of hours? If you don't have a spare, you're going to be running down the Best Buy, aren't you? And these kinds of customers are wonderful because they generally don't care about price as much as regular shoppers--they'll pay whatever they can afford in order to get what they need, instead of trying to shop around and save.

4) Would you rather make %50 profit from your gross revenues, or %5 profit? That's a trick question. If you have the option of making %50 profit, but your revenues are only $100,000 a year, you make $50,000 in profits. If an alternative option is to make only %5 profit on gross revenues of $100,000,000, though, you'd lose $4,950,000 a year if you went with the %50 profit choice (0.05 x 100,000,000 = 5,000,000). It's not about how much profit you're making in comparison to your revenues--it's about how much absolute profit you can make given all your available options.

5) There are perfectly good reasons for staying on Ebay without having a regular storefront. You may not want to get involved in the possibly cutthroat business of ordinary retail because you don't know as much about it as the web, or because your customers tend to inhabit the web only. Or maybe you just don't want to have a big business, and so you decide to keep it small and low-cost.

Re:Yes, but usually not the individual.

[CarrionBird]

ELaborate.

Re:Yes, but usually not the individual.

[Rolan]

Didn't stop to think about the realities of running a business, did you? If it were like you describe, wouldn't everybody be running a business online instead of "deal[ing] with the overhead of running a store"? Consider the realities of the situation:

Actually, I did.

1) If you're REALLY running your whole business out of your house, there's a limit on the size of your business. If you're in a shipped-goods industry (like these Ebay merchants), how much inventory can you actually fit in your house? Even if your wife is very understanding, the house is only so big, right?

My house is fairly good sized and I have two rooms that I don't use at all. That gives me, say, 250 sq. ft. just inside the house, not counting room for any sort of outbuilding. Depending on what I choose to sell, that could be more than enough inventory room.

2) But let's say you get a warehouse, which is cheaper than storefront commercial space, or you keep your volume of business low enough to keep it in your house. You're STILL not necessarily better off, because a storefront can be a route to a hell of a lot more incoming customers.

That depends on where you are. Like the storefronts I was describing. Say you live in Powell City, Wyoming. I don't, but almost did. Population 5,000. If my business is something that is something of rather specific interest, that storefront potential isn't going to cover the cost of the storefront.

3) A storefront shop will see a whole category of very lucrative customers that mail-order, WWW, and Ebay-based stores cannot: people who need something RIGHT NOW and can't wait.

Again, that very much depends on where you're located.

4) Would you rather make %50 profit from your gross revenues, or %5 profit?

I think you assume way too much when you imply the difference between having and not having a storefront is 1000x. I don't think you'll find an example of that anywhere in the small business realm that I was talking about.

Even assuming I can make more money from a storefront, that doesn't mean the storefront profits (in this case being sale price - cost of item) would cover the storefront itself.

5) There are perfectly good reasons for staying on Ebay without having a regular storefront.

Yep. All those. Along with the fact that location is everything. If you live in a town where your product doesn't appeal, then there's no point in having a storefront.

I'm not saying is possible with EVERY standard storefront store, but there's a lot of cases where it is easily posssible.

Re:Yes, but usually not the individual.

[Grishnakh]

Beyond all this, I think the web and ebay are really a much better way of running a small business than a traditional storefront.

Personally, I think a storefront is a terrible idea for a business, unless you're selling something that people really want to get locally for some reason (like groceries). First, the rent is horribly expensive, if you're located someplace where there's customers (obviously not Wyoming). Second, you have to pay for employees, unless you really want to man the store 12 or more hours per day, with no vacations ever. Employees are a huge expense and hassle. Just the paperwork for one employee will waste a lot of your time.

As a consumer, I'd much rather buy something online if I can.

1) I don't have to worry about operating hours. I can buy things online at any hour, like in the evening after work, or even from my computer at work. Most small shops have terrible operating hours; they seem to think none of their customers have regular jobs. If you're a shopkeeper in this modern economy, and you want to be successful, you need to have very long operating hours, perhaps from 8AM to 8PM, so everyone can get there at their convenience. This means hiring employees, and it all adds up to a huge overhead expense.

2) I don't have to go anywhere to buy stuff online. I can do it from home, or even from my computer at work. I don't have to make a special trip to drive someplace, waste fuel, take time off from work, try to get there before they close, etc.

3) The prices are best online, and I can shop around quickly. I can pull up 6 windows simultaneously for 6 different online shops, and compare prices in minutes. I can't do that easily by driving around. And invariably, the prices online are much lower than any small shop, where they charge huge markups to cover their exorbitant overhead expenses that I've already discussed. Why should I pay more so I can talk to some pimply-faced teenage cashier?

4) I don't have to pay sales tax. While this advantage may disappear in the future (I hope not), it's very significant if your purchase is over $100 or so, and usually more than makes up for the shipping cost. I do hate ebay sellers that charge astronomical shipping prices for tiny items though.

5) There's a much better selection online. At a small storefront, you're limited to the products that retailer decided he had space for, and would be profitable enough. Usually, stores only deal in certain brands. Internet stores aren't usually so limited, and if you're preferred brand isn't at one site, it only takes a few seconds to find a site that has it.

Now, with all the benefits that shopping on the internet gets me, I very rarely buy stuff at storefronts, except for 1) groceries, 2) home improvement/hardware stuff, 3) items from certain specialty shops that really are worth visiting in person (like used book stores) and 4) hot deals from big-box stores that I've learned about on the internet. If it's at all specialized, it's probably worth buying online. If I as a consumer am basically avoiding most small storefronts, why would I as a potential business owner want to operate a storefront? Unless my primary market is people too backwards to be shopping on the internet, I wouldn't. Over time, more and more consumers are going to be me; mom-n-pop stores are not doing well now, and are not going to make a comeback, so trying to start up a business with a storefront is a pretty stupid idea if you ask me.

Re:Yes, but usually not the individual.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a new one. A mac programmer talking about manliness.

Re:Yes, but usually not the individual.

[Tingler]

It's not even a real Hummer. It's a pickup in quasi-military drag.

Actually, it is a Suburban. They share the same chassis.

http://www.intellichoice.com/reports/vehicleReport /vehicle_nmb/11571/section/reviews

A dot com as the promised land? ...

[Bin_jammin]

Uhm no... everyone got rich that way 6 years ago, thanks.

Depends how you do it.

[ForestGrump]

I know someone who makes about $600 per month in sales, which is enough for a college student to live on (if you have fin aid/loans/mom to pay for school).

How he does it.
Deal sites.
Rebate whore
Price match.
invest all your free time on ebay sales.
prompt shipping.

Grump

Re:Depends how you do it.

[Profane MuthaFucka]

By deal sites, you mean he buys stock from deal websites?

And is "rebate whore" the reason why it's common to find hard drives for sale on EBay in the original box, but missing the UPC code?

Re:Depends how you do it.

[ForestGrump]

by "Deal sites", i mean he lives on fatwallet.com

and yea, rebate whore as in do the rebate, sell the box, sans upc.

I do the upc rebate game, but i make a little cash on the side by doing cable/dsl home installs for people I know (like my manager at work, family friends, etc). I tend to ask for a price of 75-100 dollars, including hardware. works out for me, and they're happy because going to worst buy and buying the router would have cost them 30-50 and nobody to setup for them.

Grump

bustin butt

[Anonymous Coward]

I know someone that works full time and makes about $2000 a month. But he is looking to get a regular job and stop working for a living...

Check out this guy

[Anonymous Coward]

well, here is one way to make money off eBay.

"eBay consignment shop"

[vasqzr]

A local businessman has set up an 'eBay Consignment' shop, you drop off an item, and he sells it on eBay for a fee. He takes pictures, does the description, lists the item...

21st century pawn shop

Re:"eBay consignment shop"

[Anonymous Coward]

Auction Drop does the same. You can drop off at any mailboxes etc/UPS store.

Re:"eBay consignment shop"

[polaughlin]

Or you could use AuctionDrop and drop an item off at most UPS Stores®.

Re:"eBay consignment shop"

[RobertB-DC]

21st century pawn shop

Funny you should mention that. While driving around in Dallas, we passed by a pawn shop that had a help wanted sign for an "eBay Consultant", or some such. Looks like they're still online: Home > eBay Stores > Uncle Dan's Pawn Shop, but they don't have much listed. I suspect they wanted someone to work for little of nothing, in return for 'net access or something like that.

Re:"eBay consignment shop"

[Bluetrust25]

They were pretty popular here in Los Angeles for a while. In the past month though I've noticed that the three in my neighborhood have gone out of business.

eBay does a good job of convincing people that they can do it themselves. The consignment shop idea is a bad one.

Re:"eBay consignment shop"

[Grishnakh]

I disagree. As an occassional ebay seller, putting stuff up there, taking pictures, writing descriptions, shipping items, and (worst of all) dealing with customer questions and complaints takes a lot of time and energy. It's a pain in the ass, quite frankly. I can certainly see how people would rather let someone else do that work.

The problem, however, is that people are cheap. If your shop is going to charge some huge percentage to sell the item, it probably isn't worth it. And any shop that's operating a storefront would have to in order to pay their overhead.

IMO, the only way to do a consignment business would be to keep it online; let people ship you the items, and you deal with it from there. Also, this is probably only worth it for people that have a lot of stuff to unload, not a guy who just wants to sell one thing.

i thought ebay was for...

[enrico_suave]

finding a new in box trackball for an atari 2600 or a hubcap for a VW bus =)

*shrug*

Good 'ole tiny NZ

[rgbe]

And on the other side of the equatorial line, NZ has 1000 new businesses created from online auctions.

If Ebay is the Promised Land

[toygeek]

Then Google is the Messiah.

Re:If Ebay is the Promised Land

[numbski]

Forgive him, oh lord, for he knows not what he says! :P

Re:If Ebay is the Promised Land

[Excen]

Does that mean MSN is Hell?

Hell, if EBay is the Promised Land, Slashdot is Shiva, destroyer of worlds!

Re:If Ebay is the Promised Land

[dabigpaybackski]

And "Trusted Computing" must be Judas Iscariot, then.

Monopoly

[BrookHarty]

I know lots of people who make a living off Ebay, most own a home business and sell some of their products on Ebay. A couple at work had to quit their job to work full time on the ebay selling, so you can make money buying and reselling. A few buy wholesale from overseas

The problem I have with Ebay and Paypal, is the monopoly aspect. They start to morally judge what you can and cant sell, who you can/cant take money from with paypal. This is suppose to be a free market, but if you sell something some corporation doesnt want you to sell, they just have to write a letter to ebay to end your auction. Paypal doesnt have the same regulations as a bank, they dont want you transfering money across borders. (Try to donate money overseas with paypal, little problems, but it can be done.)

Too bad everyone is cornering themselves into 1 company for most products, your choice is disappearing. Finally you end up with a company that can do what it wants, and you have no options to go else where.

While the fees and prices go up...

Re:Monopoly

[lysander]

They start to morally judge what you can and cant sell, who you can/cant take money from with paypal.

It's a combination of them covering their asses (for all sorts of reasons, e.g. liability), protecting their consumers, and making sure they aren't being abused to do black market transactions.

Too bad everyone is cornering themselves into 1 company for most products... you end up with a company that can do what it wants, and you have no options to go else where.

Here you're making the leap from auctions to products, as if you can't buy things at other sites, and you end with the imagined possibility that if ebay/paypal get bad enough, no one will come up with a competing service.

I just can't imagine this. There's always amazon, and craigslist, or even making your own website for auctioning, and I think the credit card companies, if they got their act together, could make a killing providing paypal-like services.

Re:Monopoly

[tverbeek]

There's always amazon, and craigslist, or even making your own website for auctioning

The problem with that is that eBay still has the near-monopoly on customers (who generally won't even be aware of what eBay isn't letting sellers list, so they don't have the motivation to look elsewhere). The net is littered with the corpses of "eBay competitors" that never stood a chance because they didn't have the eyeballs needed to make them viable. If you want to run a business doing online auctions, you pretty much have to go to eBay because that's where the customers are.

Nobody

[Ratbert42]

I don't know anyone making a living off of eBay, but I don't know anyone doing it fulltime. It's just not that much fun. I do know a guy that makes some significant money through eBay, enough for a car payment or maybe his rent. His primary eBay income comes from bidding on large lots, like say 8 printers or 5 Pocket PCs, then reselling them individually on eBay. The best deal for me on eBay is parting out old laptops that my company gives away or sells for scrap, but I have a limited supply of those.

Look , idiot, two important things

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Write a coherent ask slashdot next time (or not, guess it doesn't really matter).

2) Nobody makes a living off Ebay, they make a living using Ebay to sell things. Ebay will not magically provide you with an income, it provides you a means to make that income.

Ready for the kicker?

You have to work for that income. Whether it involves restoring stuff, searching out rare books at estate sales, custom building stuff, or whatever, you have to provide something people are willing to pay for.

So no, nobody is making a living off Ebay (except Ebay employees / ownership, but I doubt that is what you are asking). they are making a living selling stuff on Ebay.

Easy

[one9nine]

"How many of you are making a living off eBay?"

Once I learned how to burn grilled cheese sandwiches a certian way, it was a snap.

Re:Easy

[Anonymous Coward]

That's nothin'. I'm auctioning off a Jesus-shaped birthmark that miraculously appeared on my forehead.

Re:Easy

[Derek]

You made me spray my drink. Thanks a lot!!

Craigslist

[winthrop]

The real promised land is Craigslist.

If you live in a city with lots of rich people, they just throw good stuff away. I've got a washer/dryer, clothes, guitar, rugs, furniture, most free, some low-cost. A penny saved is a penny earned.

Re:Craigslist

[Anonymous Coward]

> A penny saved is a penny earned.
Hi grandpa, glad you arent dead after all :)

Re:Craigslist

[superpulpsicle]

Yeah that site rulez. Except sometimes I wonder the validity of the posts. Pick up free Blah Blah here. But what if the joke's on you, and there is nothing there.

Re:Craigslist

[sootman]

CL rules. I just got an old SGI O2 for $50. I had to drive a half-hour to get it but I didn't have to pay shipping and I got to see it before handing over my money. And very much unlike ebay, it's free to list things. I (heart) U Craig!

Re:Craigslist

[LuSiDe]

Excuse me, but thats about what an old O2 is worth these days. I would actually give $50 for an O2 (R5000). Unless it has a QED, that is, but its still freakin' slow.

Anything special you are gonna do with it btw?

Re:Craigslist

[vinh]

eBay bought Craigslist last year.

Re:Craigslist

[sootman]

Yes, that's right about what they're worth. The main point was the no shipping and getting to see it in person before paying. I just bought it to learn a little IRIX. Great entry-level SGI what with the PS/2 and VGA ports.

15 years from creation time, war has turned to ' '

[Lord Omlette]

Here's the problem: I have to pay the listing fee, right? Then I have to pay a percentage of the final sale, right? Then I have to pay a percentage of the money that was transfered to me by paypal, right? Then I have to dig through the nearest dumpster to find a box of suitable size and strength to house the item. Then I have to carry it to the post office. No matter how high I jack up the shipping fee, every damn time the absolute cheapest shipping fee is always a few dollars over what I charged the bidder. Always. By this time, I'm lucky to have recovered half of the money that I wasted when I acquired the item.

It gets worse though: there's no other place to sell your stuff. You're lucky to get 1/10th @ amazon what you get @ eBay.

In olden times, using internet chronology

[alexjohns]

There were people who used to do this. Back in '98 or so, there were quite a few people who would haunt flea markets and yard/garage sales, buy anything and everything they thought they could resell and hawk it on ebay. I know I read more than one story about these 'entrepeneurs'.

Eventually, the masses figured out they could do the same thing and supplement their income. All of a sudden, things were a lot scarcer at the junk sales. There were all kinds of articles about the lot of the poor ebay entrepeneur.

I'm sure there are still a few people making a living off of ebay, but I seriously doubt it's 'millions'.

Re:In olden times, using internet chronology

[dabigpaybackski]

There were people who used to do this. Back in '98 or so, there were quite a few people who would haunt flea markets and yard/garage sales, buy anything and everything they thought they could resell and hawk it on ebay. I know I read more than one story about these 'entrepeneurs'.

In my neighborhood, if we don't want to bother hawking something in the classifieds or on eBay (because of that little bugbear called "personal time,") we just put the old crap out in front of the house/apartment. And by God, it matters not how shoddy that chair/mirror/table/wristwatch is, the stuff just disappears.

Then it shows up a week later in front of a house down the street, at their weekly yard sale. Clever. To my reckoning, it kind of violates the spirit of the deed, but it is clever.

Got one

[Captain Splendid]

A friend of a relative of mine supposedly buys and sells vintage clothing via eBay.

I couldn't say how well a living she makes, but she hasn't worked a regular job for a while now and has a relatively comfortable lifestyle.

I suspect that, like just about everything else, making a good living solely via eBay requires a lot of time and hard work, so that even if there were millions doing this it would still hardly be revolutionary.

How about THIS GUY....

[AtariDatacenter]

"* - Allegedly"

He appears to be collecting video tapes of rock videos, performances and interviews. And by video tapes, I do mean low quality VHS. Then he'd just sequentually burn them to DVD-Rs and sell them for full retail price.

He's got to have the fat wallet from this operation. And, of course, if you buy one thing, he'll offer you several other items after the purchase.

I see that other people's negative feedbacks don't do any good, so I'll report him to eBay for violating the CR-R/DVD-R policy, and for selling video he recorded that he does not own.

johnnymadness

*-Thown in only to avoid legal hassle of an angry person getting caught.

Possible - yes ; Easy - no

[Port1080]

Starting selling on eBay is just like starting any other small retail business. It requires a lot of hard work and effort, but it's certainly possible. The bonus of selling on eBay is that the world is your market - the downside is that you have a ton of competition. I do about $54,000 a year gross sales on eBay (net profit is, of course, much less than that). It's enough to keep me going while I take some time off between undergrad and grad school, but I wouldn't want to be doing this my whole life. There are, however, plenty of people out there who are making a lot of money on eBay. The keys are:

1. Find a reliable supplier where you can get items at wholesale

1a. Find about 20 items that sell well from that supplier and list them over and over again! Nothing sucks more than having to write new listings every week.

2. Spend a lot of time initititally working out your shipping system to minimize cost and time effort.

3. Profit!

Not a living, but making Earth more livable

[computersareevil]

I'm certainly not making any real money on eBay, but I can't tell you how much better it feels to ship some piece of junk to somebody who want it, rather than dumping it in the trash can.

eBay may not be the "promised land", but it certainly is improving the land by being the best recycling tool ever invented.

Re:Not a living, but making Earth more livable

[hughk]

I think that you probably have it there. Whatever else eBay does, it helps keep stuff out of landfill. Disposing of electronic goods has actuually started costing money now in some parts of Europe. This can help save it.

Re:Not a living, but making Earth more livable

[ted_the_canuck]

Something that may be junk to use may be perfectly usable (or parts of it may be usable) to someone else, so that's a good point. I know I loathe tossing things that are functional, so ebay provides a way to sell things other people might use. Larger houshold items are too heavy to ship without charging an excessive shipping fee, so they get donated to shelters or service organizations.

I suspect it is possible to make some money through ebay, but your chances of making money would be improved by shipping from the continental US. You would be able to ship to a large ebay bidder population cheaply and without brokerage costs associated with shipping across the border.

Selling stuff on Ebay is too much like work, you would have to have some very successful auctions and a lot of stuff to sell in order to make a decent living at it.

Re:Not a living, but making Earth more livable

[Anonymous Coward]

A better recycling tool if you don't want to hassle with getting $$ for something, paying fees, shipping, etc:

http://www.freecycle.org/

Lots of charities hang out there, too. It's the same good feeling but with a lot less hassle and no money involved :-)

Re:15 years from creation time, war has turned to

[mopslik]

I have to pay the listing fee ... a percentage of the final sale ... a percentage of the money that was transfered to me by paypal ... a box ... [and] the shipping fee.

Don't you factor these things into the cost of your auction?

If you charge somebody $2 for a CD, and it costs $3 to mail it, and $1 in administration fees, don't be surprised when you end up $2 out of pocket. If you want a higher profit, set the opening bid to something more reasonable, like $3, and specify that the buyer will pay the actual postage rate according to $CARRIER_OF_CHOICE. That's what starting bids and reserve prices are for -- ensuring that you make a profit within your acceptable range.

Re:15 years from creation time, war has turned to

[Anonymous Coward]

> No matter how high I jack up the shipping fee

You're the reason why I hate eBay. A guaranteed way of having me *not* bid on your auction is to list a DVD for $0.01, and a shipping fee of $10, carefully hidden in small print on the auction page. I'd rather pay somebody $9 item + $3 S&H = $12 total than your arbitrary inflated surcharge.

My father

[Don Giannullo]

My father is a trained professional drug and alcohol counselor and has been for the last ten years. However, the past 4 years or so he has spent and increasing amount of time on ebay, growing a military collectibles hobby/business he has. He is at the point where he is making nearly as much money due to his ebay transactions as he is by his legitimate job.

Lots of people losing though. ..

[stevey]

I've got a lot of friends who seem to be losing money on Ebay, regularly.

I honestly don't understand it, the first place they visit is Ebay no matter what kind of purchase they're interested in.

To start with it might seem like a good deal, but I've seen lots of them pay way over retail prices in the "heat" of the auction because they don't know how to stop.

I've used ebay a few times, (only a few - my positive feedback has me listed at 4), but I've always known what my limit was.

I don't understand how somebody can be pleased they won an auction for a book at $10 when it's available from a store, or amazon, at retail for $5.99!

There must be a ton of people losing money like this ..

Re:Lots of people losing though. ..

[temojen]

How I avoid it:

Before bidding, I ask myself:

1. Do I really want the item?
2. How much am I willing to pay for it (including shipping)? If the bidding goes over this amount, I stop.

I think a lot of it boils down to "collectors" having an echo chamber effect on the price. If it's bid high, it must be valuable, and therefore I should pay a high price. It really sucks if you're looking to use something that the "collectors" are fixated on. Right now I'm looking for a TLR camera, but they keep getting bid up to silly prices.

Of course, take this with a grain of salt... my feedback score is 1 (100% positive).

Re:Lots of people losing though. ..

[xgamer04]

This is where people really make money on ebay. All you need is two idiots with credit cards, and you can get 4x the price of something that may not even be hard to find.

Re:Lots of people losing though. ..

[geminidomino]

I submit the "Ebay Paradox" of available goods:

The masses will flock to ebay to find merchandise at a discount. (Joe Random wants an Xbox for $99)

The sellers will flock to ebay to attempt to make more on their sales than they are worth. (eBayStud013413 has an xbox, new in box, listed with a reserve price of $239)

Re:Lots of people losing though. ..

[dabigpaybackski]

Aside from the possibility of paying more than you would from a retailer, there's the time consideration. How much is your time worth? Spending hours haggling and agonizing over the purchase of some trivial item is a waste of time, as well as being an affront to human dignity. There are too many good online retailers with good prices and cheap/free shipping to bother with eBay-related nonsense, unless the item can't be found elsewhere.

Re:Lots of people losing though. ..

[Quill_28]

That's funny. Someone recently gave me a used computer game. I found it on amazon used for $15. I sold it on ebay for $20???

I was shocked.

I second the store front statement

[sevinkey]

Last time I talked to my dad, it sounds like he makes more off ebay now than he does off his store front. He runs a small-town hobby shop. He was almost giving away some of his more rare merchandise that had been occupying his shelves for a few years. As soon as he got on ebay, some of his goods (particularly playmobil) were selling for $50 instead of 75 cents (NOT KIDDING).

I know business must be good, he's paying my sister to handle the ebay business... a job she took over taking a job as a teacher, something she just finished college for a couple of years back.

Ebay really takes the a lot of the cost out of trying new merchandise out, since if it doesn't fly off the shelves, the typical worst case scenerio is you get most of your money back online.

Be very careful on eBay due to shill bidding

[rider_prider]

Everyone one I know (except me of course) practices shill bidding when they sell on eBay. This is a very common practice that you need to watch for at real auctions, but there is really no way to check on eBay. I would be suprise that anything has ever been sold without the seller bumping the price by shill bidding, or maybe everyone in the world is honest.

Re:Be very careful on eBay due to shill bidding

[winkydink]

If you're doing a high volume of transactions, the costs associated with "selling" to all those winning shill bidders will take a significant bite out of your margins.

I've been selling casually on eBay since '98 and have never engaged in shill bidding. Only once have I been disappointed with the final selling price of a "big-ticket" item.

Re:Be very careful on eBay due to shill bidding

[log0n]

To be honest, I'd never even heard of shill bidding until this post. I've got a decent ebay rep (~ 180ish feedback, roughly 50/50 buying and selling). I've never practiced that for any of my auctions and I've always gotten pretty much what I wanted when the item sold. I also only have 1 ebay account.

I've also never had a bad experience with eBay (bum sellers, nonpaying bidders...). I also don't get caught up in the head of the moment with auctions ending though, and I know legitimate bargains when I see one.

YMMV.

UPS, FEDEX, and USPS are the only winners,

[human bean]

Along with Ebay and PayPal, of course.

The key to Ebay's success is not the pricing or the auction model, but the advertising. All the goods of a particular sort that you might be looking for, readily available in one spot, and deliverable regardless of where you are located.

Ebay cuts down the work you would normally have to do to find items to purchase on the net, and provides a "standard framework" for same.

The "standard framework" could, of course, exist without Ebay...

Re:15 years from creation time, war has turned to

[HeyLaughingBoy]

the absolute cheapest shipping fee is always a few dollars over what I charged

You do realize that you can go to usps.gov and find out what it will cost to mail it before writing up the eBay listing, don't you?

And if you're going to do this a lot, boxes are cheap (if you buy in bulk), or free if you ask the local grocery (or just about any) store.

Re:15 years from creation time, war has turned to

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm, those are all business expenses dude...

I sell regularly on eBay and my expenses are about 30%-40% of gross per year, including shipping, boxes, eBay fees (including $20 "featured" stuff for many items), PayPal fees, digital camera.

It costs money to make money. Sure it hurts if they raise their fees, but as long as my margins are above 50%, I'm happy to make money just sitting on my ass at home (not exactly true since I have another job but you get the point.. it's easy money).

I know somebody

[itwerx]

She just "has an eye for what will sell" - mostly little figurines and other dust collectors. She cruises garage sales and eBays whatever she finds. She considers it a full-time job and clears about $50k a year. ('Course she lives down on Florida where there's tons of estate sales with collectible stuff from all the retirees croaking... :)

I know of a guy that...

[genrader]

I know of one guy who buys cheap stuff at closeout sales and cheap things online, then resells them on ebay for .5 to as much as 10 times what he got it for. He isn't extremely wealthy, but he does this and makes a pretty good amount of money off of it.

Keep Our Treasures Priceless

[cyberkeyz]

You know I've had alot of dealings with E-Bay. I've met people all over the world who have used the Massive Electronic Auctioning Web Site Called E-Bay. But you want to know one thing? I myselph, a advid computer buff never once even clicked on the URL http://www.E-BAY.com . Why you ask? Well first off I've had no reason to. I Like to keep the things I find Interesting. Most of the things I think are of value or have sentimential attachments, I treasure and Keep on display inside my house. OK, Ok, ok, I can hear you now, E-Bay was made for suckers just like me, or, If people want things redily available why not give it to them right? Well yeah sure I understand that, but if you are going to keep Artifacts,Antiques, Memoribila, ext. at the keepsake value there at now, you have to make sure that there not redily available to the consumer in hole.

Re:Keep Our Treasures Priceless

[Anonymous Coward]

I myselph, a advid computer buff never once even clicked on the URL http://www.E-BAY.com

Good, because it doesn't go anywhere. http://www.ebay.com is pretty sweet though.

Re:Keep Our Treasures Priceless

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear you can buy a dictionary for 0.99$ starting bid and 5$ shipping anywhere in the continental US. It's spelled 'myself' and 'avid'. And for a computer buff, you should know it's written eBay. Writing "E-Bay" makes me seriously doubt your computer savvy, are you the kind of person that talks about their fast Petnium at home? Yeah, Petnium. I heard someone call it that once. That's how I feel about "E-Bay".

Re:Keep Our Treasures Priceless

[g0bshiTe]

I know someone who calls bandwidth bandwitch.

So now if I'm at someones house and they have spyware slowing them down, I tell 'em "something is eating your bandwitch". It gets a chuckle.

Re:Keep Our Treasures Priceless

[Rudeboy777]

Well, this is a new champion for strangest Slashdot post as far as I'm concerned.

Well, it depends.

[man_ls]

I've had a mixed experience with eBay.

Things I've picked up for free but didn't need, I can generally resell quite easily. Cases in point: an industrial label printer, SS7 motherboards (sold these for $50 each, got em for $1 each) and a plethora of other random things.

Things I've paid money for, generally didn't sell quite as well.

Then there was the esoteric, when I tried to sell a matched pair of StorageTek 3060 Fibre Channel array cabinets. You know, the kind that sell for $25,000+, weigh the better part of a ton each, and are 8 feet tall and 6 feet wide? Yeah, those. Well, I picked two of them up working-surplus for the low, low price of (gasp) $100 for both units, with all documentation, all manuals, all cables, etc. Tried selling them, no takers even with a $0+Shipping opening bid...Eventually ended up scrapping them and selling the 122 hard drives contained therein for about $2 each back to IBM Storage Technologies via eBay.

I enjoy selling on eBay, and have slightly-better-than-broken-even in the long run, but I'd need to be doing a lot more volume to really make any money at it.

Re:Well, it depends.

[Anonymous Coward]

I had exactly the same thing with an UKP80,000 IBM AS/400, with expansion rack, and a 6' high rack of RAID. I couldn't even give it away on ebay, and was hounded by kids thinking is was a weeny office x86 server!

In the end I sold a number of the HDs separately, gave away some of the materials to a robot wars project, and scrapped the rest. Such a waste!

Millions, eh?

[SeaFox]

Even the politicians were claiming: millions of people are making a living off eBay.

How would politicians have figures like this? Most eBay transactions are not taxed and you can believe the people runnng eBay businesses are not giving acurate figures, if any, for how much they supplement their income with eBay to the IRS.

I reckon the politicians claiming figures like these are the same ones trying to institute sales tax on all internet transactions. Why? With state budgets shrinking and more demand being put on them (increased enforcement of the ADA on civic buildings, the No Child Left Behind Act and other school funding issues, ect) sales taxes collected would strengthen the state budgets and allow them to avoid what they should be doing in the first place (raising taxes). Hence, another generation of greasy politicans gets through term without having to make any unpopular decisions, passing on growing budgetary problems to the next guy in line.

Am I just following a trail of bread crumbs, or publishing a conspiracy theory?

Re:Millions, eh?

[SteeldrivingJon]

"I reckon the politicians claiming figures like these are the same ones trying to institute sales tax on all internet transactions."

No, it was Cheney responding to questions about job losses in the US, suggesting EBay sales as a rising new industry that would replace lost manufacturing jobs or some such bullshit.

From September '04:

"Indicators measure the nation's unemployment rate, consumer spending and other economic milestones, but Vice President Dick Cheney says they miss the hundreds of thousands who make money selling on eBay.

``That's a source that didn't even exist 10 years ago,'' Cheney told an audience in Cincinnati on Thursday. ``Four hundred thousand people make some money trading on eBay.''"

Re:Millions, eh?

[SeaFox]

Ah, so the figures are probably not backed up with any hard data, just speculation.

Thanx for the source, though. I'd mod you as informative, but you're replying to me so I'm kinda powerless.

Re:Millions, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, so the figures are probably not backed up with any hard data, just speculation.

You'd expect better from Dick Cheney?

Definitely individuals!

[alexo]

In fact, a friend of mine does make a living off ebay.

A couple of hours a day of doing what she likes (well, probably a bit more now as she's painting two pictures a day) leaves her enough time for her family and brings enough money for their needs.

It is actually quite simple.
All you need is talent, energy, determination and an acute business sense.

Way to go, Osnat!

Is eBay the Promised Land?

[lsmeg]

Well, it is the land of milk and honey...

Re:Is eBay the Promised Land?

[`Sean]

Well, it is the land of milk and honey...

I thought it was the land of Rape and Honey...

Making a living is a transient phenomenon

[Linuxathome]

Perhaps millions have made a living for a small period of time over the last 10 years, but I gather few have been doing it consistently for over 2 or 3 years. Hell, selling ad space on my forehead or selling an image of a woman's face on my grilled cheese would have been sufficient for me to "make a living" for a year.

Yes, eBay IS the Promised Land

[Motherfucking Shit]

Over the past year, I've made more than $10,000,000 via eBay. That's net, not gross! My strategy is: set a very high "Buy it Now" price, and make that the same as your "Reserve" price. For someone to actually win, they have to capitulate to exactly the amount you were hoping for. If you locate evildoers who are selling similar products at a lower price, just have the Attorney General send a VeRO dispute to eBay. Easy!

The media has criticized me for running what they call "no-bid" auctions, but it's sure been profitable on my end, so what's their problem?

Regards,

R. Cheney
HalliBay, Inc.

Promised Land

[turgid]

It's where they promised to send me something, and it never turned up.

50% of my ebay transactions have resulted in the loss of my time and money. I don't use ebay any more.

Sure.. heaps

[cuteseal]

Just look in the digital camera, PC and gadget sections in ebay and you find numerous of powersellers making it big on ebay. Most of the stuff comes from Taiwan or that sort of region and the sellers themselves reside in other countries (e.g. Australia).

They make the buyers pay for the tax as it enters their country, which helps them sell at a greatly reduced price. Plus, they don't maintain a storefront and thus can reduce their prices even more because their costs are less.

Personally, when shopping for digital cameras, I found ebay to be the cheapest by far. Even online stores (based in the country) can't compete. The only drawback is the risk, and the lack of warranty when something breaks.

[rant]Another off-topic point: I personally hate the way ebay is being saturated by these storefronts -- they mass list their items so that one genuinely looking for a 2nd hand bargain has to sift through all the "spam" these guys introduce.[/rant]

I have a friend who...

[Anita Coney]

Makes a pretty good living selling bootleg music CDs on ebay. I'm not sure how he gets away with it. From what I hear they're really cracking down on that type of stuff.

I guess I should define "pretty good living." To him it means not ever having to go to work. I'm guessing he's able to pay his rent, car insurance, buy food, etc, but that's about it.

FreeCycle

[ClioCJS]

http://www.freecycle.org

Index of 4000+ local yahoo freecycle groups. All groups are ways of getting stuff for free, and getting rid of your own stuff easily. I got a 27" TV for my bedroom and a free router.

Re:15 years from creation time, war has turned to

[stanmann]

And people like you are the reason I only use UPS. I don't hide my shipping costs and I charge ($.50-$1.50) over UPS basic cost to cover the **NEW** shipping materials I will use to ship the items.

Re:15 years from creation time, war has turned to

[Tower]

Paper cartons (for slightly larger items) can almost always be had for free from an office or (aha!) a print shop (kinkos, pip, etc). They tend to empty plenty of those every day.

The flat rate boxes for priority mail are free (if it fits in the box, it is one rate). Easy not to mess up the shipping charge on those...

Amazon Marketplace

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon Marketplace is much better to sell CDs. I've tried selling my used CDs to B&M used record stores. I'm lucky to get $3 a copy. I've tried selling on Ebay, and I'm lucky to get a single bid. But since I've started listing on Amazon Marketplace, I've sold dozens of CDs for $5 to $15 each. It seems that, when people are looking for CDs, they're more likely to go to Amazon, than Ebay.

You mean a government-granted monopoly

[tepples]

you end with the imagined possibility that if ebay/paypal get bad enough, no one will come up with a competing service.

Has eBay been up for 20 years? If not, there may still be patents on aspects of eBay's business model.

Re:15 years from creation time, war has turned to

[Grishnakh]

Why the heck do you use UPS? I use Fedex for everything except very lightweight stuff (USPS for that). Fedex is always much cheaper than UPS, plus you can ship from Kinko's, which is open 24 hours. The UPS stores have limited hours.

UPS used to be competitive, but then they went public and the prices went through the roof.

For lightweight packages (under 2 lbs or so), USPS is by far the cheapest way to go.

Re:15 years from creation time, war has turned to

[yamla]

What rate of successful deliveries do you have with UPS? To residential addresses, I get a little under a 33% success rate. UPS sometimes even claims that the address doesn't exist when the truth of the matter is that they just can't navigate the streets properly.

Re:15 years from creation time, war has turned to

[stanmann]

I(as EBAY recommends) ensure and track everything, there is no kinkos or fedex drop in my area. and once you add insurance and tracking USPS FAR outpaces UPS. I do all my shipping at Office Depot. They will be(real soon now for sure) getting a fedex franchise and then I'll be price comparing, but for covering my back, USPS just doesn't stack up.

Re:15 years from creation time, war has turned to

[stanmann]

I've never had that problem. And I always get delivery when they promise. SO I can tell the buyer I sent it today, here's your tracking number it will be there Thursday or Friday.

eBay fee increases

[markwelch]

On Thursday, January 13, 2005, eBay announced that it would increase its "Final Value Fees" by more than 50% (more than a 70% increase for larger transactions). (This really deserves its own thread). The announcement does not really give any idea of the magnitude of the fee increases (which are substantial).

The Final Value Fee for these sale amounts would increase as shown:

High Bid - Old Fee - New Fee - Increase
$10.00 - $0.53 - $0.80 - 51%
$20.00 - $1.05 - $1.60 - 52%
$25.00 - $1.31 - $2.00 - 53%
$50.00 - $2.00 - $3.25 - 63%
$100.00 - $3.38 - $5.75 - 70%
$500.00 - $14.38 - $25.75 - 79%
$1,000.00 - $28.13 - $50.75 - 80%

The total eBay fees (minimum insertion fee + computed final value fee) for these sale amounts would increase as shown:

High Bid - Old Fee - New Fee - Increase
$10.00 - $0.83 - $1.10 - 33%
$20.00 - $1.35 - $1.90 - 41%
$25.00 - $1.61 - $2.30 - 43%
$50.00 - $2.30 - $3.55 - 54%
$100.00 - $3.68 - $6.05 - 64%
$500.00 - $14.68 - $26.05 - 77%
$1,000.00 - $28.43 - $51.05 - 80%

http://www.markwelch.com/perspective/ebay-fees.htm

Re:15 years from creation time, war has turned to

[Grishnakh]

I don't insure or track anything that's cheap. For items that are $20, it's just not worth it, and no buyer would want to pay the additional cost. There's many times I buy something that costs $5, and I'm not about to pay another $2 or so for insurance and tracking.

For expensive items, the story is different, but for those I probably wouldn't use USPS anyway.

What kind of area do you live in that has no Fedex or (even worse) Kinko's?

Re:15 years from creation time, war has turned to

[nothingtodo]

I'm sure some sellers make a small profit not by selling junk, but adding excessive shipping and bogus handling charges to make money. Needless to say, I never bid on anything like that. I always make a point to mention in my auctions that I ship fedex ground which is cheaper than usmail, and I don't add in any bullshit shipping charges.

Timely...

[pen]

Just as eBay is raising their fees while Overstock is getting into the auction business.