Can eBay Make You Rich?

adamlazz writes "For 11 years, eBay has been a great resource to buy or sell goods without leaving your computer. And with many stories of people getting rich exclusively from doing business on eBay, NewsFactor has decided to go in depth with these stories, and explore what it takes to really make your million on eBay. From the article: 'A tiered system designed to reward qualified sellers, the PowerSeller program is by invitation only, and has a number of criteria that must be maintained to keep the designation. At the lowest level, Bronze, a PowerSeller must average at least $1,000 in sales per month for three consecutive months; have an account in good standing; and get an overall feedback rating of 100, with at least 98 percent of the comments marked as positive.'"

Comments

Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[0racle]

If you have enough of something people want at the right price then why couldn't you get rich selling things on EBay? It's not really any different then selling things in a shop or through your own website.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[TWX]

It's like anything else. It's a little bit of creativity, a little bit of business savvy, work, and time. For those of us who are too lazy to go through this route to make our way there are 9-5 jobs. There are those whose job is solely to buy wholesale and sell retail, and they've been there since the day of the trader with his horse-drawn cart rolling into town. eBay just tweaks the rules a bit.

I don't personally want to use something that could leave me high-and-dry if something goes awry, and I'm too lazy to research aspects that mitigate the risks. So, I don't eBay. I work a state-level IT job. Not a lot of reward, but not a lot of risk either, and I don't have to worry about stability.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[devjj]

When the profit margin on the products you're selling is constant and eBay constantly raises the fees, then no, you can't.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[ronanbear]

eBay allows someone to reach a very large market very quickly. If someone can find the right product cheaply and sell it on at a large margin to customers who normally pay higher margins to specialist retailers then eBay is an easy, fast and low risk (think of the bank loans you'd need to set up a high street store) way to start buying and selling.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[Dawsons]

Perfect comment to sum the whole article up really... ebay is no different to selling items in a physical shop where the stock is on demand... what more can be said?

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[1iar_parad0x]

If you're bringing in $100,000+ per month in sales, you probably should get your own site. EBay is great for the 'small-time' or 'early-stage' seller. It's a robust engine that can handle heavy traffic and activity and is reasonably secure. However, if you've got sales as high as mentioned in the article, I can't imagine how EBay could provide an adequate solution for you. If you sell big ticket items, you probably want some binding contractual arrangement. On the other hand, if you have an incredibly high volume of sales, you probably want to better cater the shopper's experience and would have an E-commerce site of your own. Not to mention the fact that you'd need some internal system (even an Access database) to track all of your sales and shipping data. Maybe EBay's API allows you to do some of these things. I'd certainly be happy to hear about anyone experiences with it.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[pthor1231]

It seems to me that some of these people that do have a high volume of sales do have e-commerce sites, but use eBay as really cheap advertisement. Most regular people look to eBay as one of the first sources when they buy stuff. If the actual sale amount is cheap, then the percentage cut eBay takes isn't much, and the listing fees are constant if you do a high enough volume, which amounts to have much reduced cost of hosting, advertising, developing, and you reach a huge audience.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[pimpin apollo]

Ebay bids are binding contractual agreements. There's nothing unique about a computer transaction that somehow removes it from being legally binding.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[1iar_parad0x]

A contract is only as good as your ability to enforce it in court. While legally you are correct in saying that a computer transaction can be made into a legally binding agreement, producing evidence that joe sixpack @ 111.111.111.111 is really who he says he is and collecting on that contract may be more difficult. Do I really want to bring a computer forensics expert or my sysadmin to court? Plus, tying a face, identification, and a 'physical presence' to a legal contract only adds to the legitimacy.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Companies like IBM and Sun have $billions in sales, yet they still put stuff on eBay. For certain items (eg used or referb computers), eBay is the primary marketplace.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[squoozer]

I was running my own business up until early this year and I can confirm it is possible to make (some) money on eBay. I have come to see eBay as the business equivalent of a hidden reef for shipping. At first glance it appears to be a good way to get to customers and make some money but once you have taken into account all the factors the profit margin is tiny. I worked out that if I did nothing but pack boxes all day I could just about turn a profit over all.

The problem is that every company is trying to grab their portion of the market and they all do it by having the lowest price. There were times when I would look at items for sale and consider bidding on them myself because they were going for less than I could get them from my supplier (and I felt I had a good deal from my supplier). Six months or a year after first appearing most companies have vanished, presumably because they have burnt through their seed money trying to grab a portion of the market.

I'm not saying this situation is wrong, it's capitalism in action and it's great for the shoppers. It is, however, causing a lot of businesses to go to the wall and using up a lot of people life savings on route.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[billcopc]

A big eBay seller opening their own independent site could be the death of them. eBay is like the super mall, it brings in a whackload of potential customers and everyone's marketing efforts sort-of cooperate in that environment. i.e. if your competitor's ad brings in people to the mall, they will also see your store and maybe you'll get a sale too, for "free". Just as if someone's looking at one eBayer's item list, then glances down at the "related items" table they might come across one of your sales.

The prime difference when it comes to eBay, and the one that makes it horribly dangerous, is that very same easy access to other shops. There is ZERO customer loyalty on eBay, people just check your feedback once they have already found what they want. You could be selling some doodad at the same price as a competitor, but that other fellow may charge a dollar less for shipping and you've just lost the sale. People come to the real mall with a specific store in mind, then walk around the rest to see if there's anything else they want. People come to ebay with a specific product in mind, and they will compare everyone's offerings to get the best deal. It's the Walmart effect, automated and unsupervised.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[1u3hr]

If you have enough of something people want at the right price then why couldn't you get rich selling things on EBay? It's not really any different then selling things in a shop or through your own website.

Because once you start to make money, people will notice and undercut your price. Some will sell below cost, because they just want to move stuff. So unless you have something unique, with a lock on the supply, you can't keep a fat profit margin. That's the difference with shops; you're competing with the entire planet, not just your neighbours or a small group that can form a cabal.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[MrNougat]

When the profit margin on the products you're selling is constant and eBay constantly raises the fees, then no, you can't.

If your profit margin was constant while eBay was raising fees, you would have to be raising your selling price (so that the increased fees were not cutting into the profit margin).

In other words, yes, you can. If eBay raises its fees, then you raise your price (or reserve). If you are still unable to compete in the marketplace, then you need to figure out how to spend less capital on something else (because, if you're unable to compete, then someone is succeeding, and you need to do what they're doing).

More generally, when the market changes, businesses must change to keep up. Unless you're the RIAA/MPAA, in which case you can wave your arms around and sue people a lot.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been using ebay for years. Its a good way to make money however it is along the same lines as being a salesman, you have to have some kind of "drive" and "desire" to actually get the money out of it.

Too many people just think that you buy some magic book, start selling, and thats it. Problem is it actually takes time to really get the thousands and thousands that people talk about.

The best advise I can give is to watch. Read. Look. Have a gander at what others are doing, what products are selling, how they are sold, the prices etc then find a product and sell like stonk!

There is plenty of software to help.

I moved away from ebay in recent months and now make my money using adwords etc. I keep a diary about how I am making money online at http://blog.brightonvibes.com/ if any of you are interested.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Many companies have an Ebay presense and thier own site. I don't think the volume of sales plays a factor. I bought replacement headlight assemblies for one of my cars (both were severly scratched and yellowed). A found a seller with a decent price but also went directly to thier web site and found the same exact thing even cheaper.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[Destoo]

As far as I can see, the money is in the shipping.

Companies like UPS and probably others can "markup" your shipping cost.
So even if you see the UPS invoice, which will show what the send wants to see as "shipping cost", the real cost could be lower and the sender will get his cut at the end of the month/quarter/year.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[HarmlessScenery]

Some sellers on ebay actually sell 'shipping' because of the bulk discounts they get. Company A ships a hell of a lot of stuff and gets a nice discount for it. You pay Company A slightly less than it would cost you as a private citizen to have UPS/DHL/who ever collect your parcel and deliver it - and Company A gets them (UPS/DHL/who ever) to pick it up from your place. You get cheaper delivery and Company A gets even bigger discounts as they 'ship' even more goods that month.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[stuartkahler]

The problem with ebay is that most sellers don't make their own product. So if you find something that sells at even a $5 profit after all expenses, you either kill your own sales by flooding your own market, or someone else undercuts you at a $4 profit. Any way you slice it, there is usually someone else willing to sell the same item for a smaller profit; eventually, everyone reaches a profit margin of zero or less.

I've told the following to many, many people who wanted to sell on ebay as a primary source of income:
1. Find alternate sources of cheap product (e.g. buy used cars locally and sell them on ebay) or deal in unique/collectible items (e.g. movie props from the studio you work at or jewlery from your pawn shop). You can't make money buying at wholesale because your competitors are doing the same thing. Before you know it, you'll be listing at $1 over cost and spending 12 hours a day packing items and wondering if McDonalds is hiring.
2. Have a secondary revenue stream with reasonably profitable addons. e.g. If you sell electronics, have model specific batteries, memory cards, cables, etc. that you offer at 50% over your wholesale cost.
3. If you're doing enough sales to reach powerseller (even bronze) status, you should quit ebay and sell directly through your own website.
4. Your reputation is your only valuable asset. Even 98% is a terrible feedback score. Buyers only leave negatives when they've been badly screwed or to be jerks (these can be removed). If you lose 10% on your selling prices because of your feedback, that's probably your entire profit margin. BTW, don't overcharge on shipping, it just pisses people off and reduces your final selling price by an equal amount.
5. Don't openly connect your local store to your ebay ID. People will expect you to take returns at the shop, and your shop customers will expect you to sell to them at your ebay prices. This assumes that you're selling regular inventory rather than closeouts.
6. Be overly descriptive in your item descriptions and check your spelling. I once sold a used soundtrack CD for an obscure Anime title for 3X the going price (reg $15, new) because I listed the composer. People searching to expand their collections will pay top dollar. Typos will cost you a ton of money because prospective buyers won't see your item. Ur l331 $p33|{ |$ @ L1@b1L1TY.
7. Even after all of the above, you'll quickly realize that ebay is only good for two things: liquidating excess product at cost or building your customer base.

I used to sell on ebay a LOT. I built my feedback score up to over 1000 100% positive with bronze power-seller status, and eventually quit ebay alltogether. I quickly realized that between paypal and ebay, my fees on a $10 item were about $1.50 for a no-frills listing. I was then adding about $0.20 for a service to streamline my auction listings. All this for the privelage of selling at rock bottom prices. I now consider ebay useful only as a glorified garage sale (it's original intent).

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[elrous0]

Well, for one reason, when you have a shop, you probably don't have 100 other sellers on the same block selling the exact same product (some of them based in areas with a lower cost of living that allows them to undercut you on overhead). You have do do more than offer a product that people WANT, you have to offer something UNIQUE that people want (something that not everyone else can easily sell too).

-Eric

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Should those business changes include:
    Employing slave labour?
    Stealing what you sell?
    Losing money just to undercut the other guy?

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[penguinrenegade]

Two words:

Yahoo! Auctions.

Yahoo! does not charge ANYTHING to list, sell or buy. When enough people start switching to Yahoo! auctions, it will put eBay out of business. Yahoo! ought to actually start a new site, use the same software to run it, and advertise it on television the way eBay does with their site. eBay also actually has a contest with the US Postal Service - there are actually ads in the Post Office to get people to enter an eBay contest.

Add to that the fact that PayPal (owned by eBay) charges you a fee on the TOTAL price (including shipping & handling) - you end up paying eBay TWICE.

It's time to stop paying eBay and start using services that actually make sense for the seller.

Hopefully Yahoo! will purchase StormPay or any of the other online payment services, keep the fees low there and take down the eBay behemoth.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[siriuskase]

It's like anything else. It's a little bit of creativity, a little bit of business savvy, work, and time.

People have been going into business for themselves since prehistory. eBay is just a variation on a theme, it's very similar to opening up retail shop in a strip mall. It has a few advantages that make it more convenient/less risky than the shop at the mall - you don't need to lease the space, there's more driveby traffic that might actually be looking for your product, you can expand without leasing more space or franchising, can go from small to equivalent of bigbox without ever relocating.

The risk/reward ratio is higher than working for an established business (the government being one of the most firmly entrenched businesses there is. Many small businesses go bust, others stay small, but some make their owners extremely wealthy.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[kenpachi101]

In a way, ebay creates the same issue as wall mart and other big shopping chains, having the ability to take smaller buisnesses out of the picture comepletely. After all, if people can just type in what they want, there is no need to go to the trouble of looking around through the variety of different stores when you can just get your stuff mailed to you at home. Give it a couple decades, and you will be only shopping online, getting stuff sent to you, and never seeing a single shop on the street,having all property given over to appartments and dwellings, which may be a good thing considering the population increase.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[monteneg]

Yahoo auctions has been around since the early days of EBay and has always been free (I think). If they haven't managed to hurt EBay in the last 5 years then what's changed that makes them more effective today?

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[Breakfast Pants]

I don't buy it. There is no advantage to 'gaining marketshare' by going below cost, because on ebay there is like 0 loyalty. People log in and buy the cheapest thing available and log out, unless the cheapest thing available is sold by someone with horrible feedback. This isn't Microsoft pushing the xbox to make room in the market for the 360.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Buyers only leave negatives when they've been badly screwed or to be jerks (these can be removed).

No, they cannot be removed if the buyer is a "jerk". They can only be removed if they violate the ToS, which is pretty much just revealing personal information.

While I never made it to PowerSeller, I was using eBay heavily to get by when I was out of work. I've found that buyers mostly would threaten to leave negatives because they're absolute idiots. Generally they don't read the description or don't comprehend what they're buying and take their ignorant rage out on others. I ate a lot of costs making morons happy, and so did other people I know. I finally gave up when I refused to cave in to one mouth breather in particular who complained about the size of the item when the auction picture included a ruler next to the item. They left a negative and eBay refused to remove it because it was the "buyer's opinion" and they can only remove specific things. Sure I could leave a rebuttal comment, but who cares about those? Not the other morons.

Fuck eBay.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[phreakincool]

One word: TRAFFIC As popular as Yahoo was and is now, their auctions site doesn't come close to the amount of traffic that eBay generates.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[temojen]

If you were actually producing (or finding) the stuff yourself, you might have done better.

Discount stores and mail-order retailers are flooding the market, but (some) independent artists, antique dealers, rare-book dealers, etc are doing quite well.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[loucura!]

Employing slave labour?

Slavery is a crime in every civilized nation.

Stealing what you sell?

Theft is a crime in every civilized nation.

Losing money just to undercut the other guy?

Depending on your market position, this may be a crime. If you're not a monopoly within the market, there is nothing illegal about artificially deflating your prices to drive customers to your business.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[bynary]

Not necessarily. I have seen auctions close at prices far above retail prices. Why? Because people think they're getting a deal because it's eBay. A friend of mine bought a $500 camcorder on eBay for $800 and was bragging about it. Why? Because she won an auction on eBay. Now, this may not be the norm (I've never studied eBay statistics), but the thought of winning something as opposed to simply walking into a store and grabbing it off the shelf has to bring some increased level of appeal to the item being sold. Another friend of mine sells specialty athletic gear on eBay on a semi-regular basis. His profit margins are between 50 and 100%. This is brand new stuff that he buys locally and resells on eBay...and, like I said, he does this fairly regularly. So, eBay is different than a brick and mortar store.

Most of the successful online stores have a brick and mortar chain to back them up (think Wal-Mart, REI, Target, Barnes & Noble, and etc.). Now, that may be changing, but it is doing so very slowly. The exceptions of course are Amazon, Netflix (arguably not retail although their competition have both an online and offline presence, but most of us know how that's going for Blockbuster), and others that I can't think of off the top of my head. However, for the most part large retail companies cannot exist either exclusively online or exclusively offline.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

That's my beef with eBay. Listing fees, final value fees, PayPal fees. :| I'd rather sell privately in the for sale / for trade sections of most tech forums.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[squoozer]

I quite agree. It became apparent quite quickly that there was little money to be made as a reseller. I'm not at all surprised - it is what I expected the Internet to do. Manufacturers needed distributers and resellers before the Internet because they couldn't hope to reach all their customers any other way. That's not so much the case anymore. I imagine we will see more and more manufacturers selling their own products direct to customers via the web.

My next venture will actually involve me manufacturing something. I just have to decide what :o)

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[Dun Malg]

Discount stores and mail-order retailers are flooding the market, but (some) independent artists, antique dealers, rare-book dealers, etc are doing quite well.

Yeah, the key is to find large quantities of stuff that's cheap because the seller has no market. A friend of mine trolls yard sales and library sales for books. Hit a sale at the end of the day and they'll sell you whatever is left for a dollar a grocery bag full just to get rid of 'em. Given a large enough pile of obscure books, all listed for $5-$10 on half.com, you can make a non-trivial amount of cash just dropping books in the mail. He'd surely make a lot more if he worked harder, but he's stoned all the time. Pays for his pot habit, at least.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[Dun Malg]

6. Be overly descriptive in your item descriptions and check your spelling.

As an adjunct to this rule, I would suggest the following:

The title should be carefully crafted and contain terse, properly spelled descriptive terms that people are likely to search for, as most people search by title first. "WOW!", "RARE!", and "L@@K!" in the title just make you look like an idiot.

I occasionally search for the terms "WOW!", "RARE!", and "L@@K!", but only for entertainment at the seller's expense.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[antek9]

Please do us a favor, go to wikipedia.com, look up 'sarcasm' and re-read GP's post. Something starting to become clear? Fine so. ;)

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[1u3hr]

There is no advantage to 'gaining marketshare' by going below cost,

If course not, but some people do it, maybe because they don't know their true costs and overheads.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[Imsdal]

Give it a couple decades, and you will be only shopping online, getting stuff sent to you, and never seeing a single shop on the street,having all property given over to appartments and dwellings, which may be a good thing considering the population increase.

Nope, aint gonna happen, for the same reason cinemas didn't disappear with the advent of TV or newspapers and books didn't disappear with the advent of the internet. There will be changes, defiitely, and some shops will go bust. In fact, some shops have gone bust already. But it's not like all of them will. Not now, not in a hundred years.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a subtle difference in the subject:

Can eBay Make You Rich?

Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

You can make yourself rich with eBay, but it doesnt mean eBay is not going make you rich as if it were a lottery.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[deadweight]

This is actually false. Certain industries attract a series of dreamers who burn up their cash and exit, only to be replaced by another. Prices are always too low for long-term survival. Good for the buyer though! What you need to do is find what is selling on EBay for *higher* than rational prices, not lower. Example: Used ham radio gear, sometimes well used, going for MORE than new gear. Or there is the ever popular Mother-Mary-on-a-piece-of-burnt-toast.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[MrNougat]

Mother-Mary-on-a-piece-of-burnt-toast

eBay is the perfect place for unique, must-have items. For example, my wife is trying to find an extra baby blanket to match the one my daughter uses, just to have an extra one. The price gouging is insane; people are asking $50 for these blankets that sold new for far less. Of course, since they're not produced new anymore, Random People On The Intarweb are the only place to get them. And said People know full well that a desperate parent will shell out the cash in a pinch.

1) What about the children?
2) ???
3) Profit!

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[macdaddy]

Yahoo Auctions has been around for a long time. I used them religously before I finally bit the bullet and switched to eBay. I could find more of my gear for less on eBay than I ever could on Yahoo. It simply wasn't worth using Yahoo. This was at least 9 years ago. eBay is still going strong while Yahoo Auction still sucks. You do the math.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[lowrydr310]

4. Your reputation is your only valuable asset. Even 98% is a terrible feedback score. Buyers only leave negatives when they've been badly screwed or to be jerks (these can be removed).

No, those comments can't be removed. Ebay claims they can, however they really don't do much about it. I had excellent feedback for the longest time, then I bought an item from one of the mega-sellers. I followed the sellers instructions after winning the auction, paying promptly. The seller claimed he would email me a confirmation when he received payment and would provide me with a UPS tracking number. I waited a week, then emailed the seller requesting the status of my item, to which I didn't receive a response. A few days later I sent another email, and again received no response. Finally about six weeks later (still without receiving any response from the seller, and after sending him numerous additional emails) I received the item I purchased. The item arrived fine, exactly as described and packaged well, however I decided to leave negative feedback because of the seller's failure to respond to my inquiries.

The seller then left me a negative feedback saying "ship next day after receiving pmt buyer leaves neg what a jerk!!!" Ebay calls this retalitory feedback, and after several inquiries (to which I received form-letter responses) eBay told me there was nothing they could do to remove it.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[greed]

I have added "rare" when it was an apt part of the description of the item, as in: "Rare WORKING SyQuest SyJet 1.5GB removable cartridge drive". (The "working" part is what made it rare, there were massive QC problems with SyQuest's last two drive models.)

OK, I really put "rare" on just to be silly.

I think the bidding went almost to $20--I just use eBay as that glorified garage sale a grandparent post mentioned.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[cayenne8]

"Nope, aint gonna happen, for the same reason cinemas didn't disappear with the advent of TV or newspapers..."

I dunno...maybe not disappear entirely, but, fade away a good deal possibly. While there will always be the 'need' to have something immediately, I and others I know like myself, rarely if ever buy anything of merit from B&M stores. I may go out to them to physically look at the product (if expensive or comparing gadgets), but, I almost always research and order online. You often get free shipping and no sales tax.

In southern LA, down here the taxes are about 9%, and that starts racking up on large purchases.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[jargoone]

You often get free shipping and no sales tax.

In southern LA, down here the taxes are about 9%, and that starts racking up on large purchases.

No collected sales tax, but there is use tax, which is equivalent. My state, and every other one for which I've researched this matter, has use tax. You're supposed to pay it on out-of-state purchases. I can't imagine that anyone does, but it is the law. Unfortunately, I bet it'll be mandated to collect it on all purchases eventually.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[stuartkahler]

By 'can', I don't mean 'will'. I've had 3 negative feedbacks and gotten them all removed. I had one that left me negative within minutes of the auction ending. I had similar one who was bidding on lots of items and leaving negs a few days later for everyone. I had another person buy the same item from another seller for less a few days later; he hadn't paid me yet and left me a neg as soon as the other auction ended.

You have to lay out ALL the problems with the transaction, not just the biggest one. Present a timetable detailing every action you and the other party took. You should have focused on how he lied about the shipping time as well as not answering your e-mails. Make it clear that his only replies to you were the very late shipped item and the retaliatory neg feedback. Anyone who has time to reply to feedbacks, but not e-mail, is dropping the ball.

Also, as the buyer, you have much less leverage room than you do as a seller. You're not the one paying the bills for them.

Re:Why couldn't you get rich via EBay?

[jesser]

Yahoo! used to run a service called PayDirect (along with HSBC Bank). In 2000 or 2001, it had no fees and was better than PayPal in several ways. They shut it down in November 2004.

Better question

[Umbral Blot]

A better question than "can you get rich on ebay?" is "is getting rich on ebay worth the time, boredom, and effort?". I think the answer is no, at least for me, as there are more interesting things I would rather be doing (see sig.).

Re:Better question

[snailly]

Yes more interesting things, like rehashing multiple century old thought in a blog.

Re:Better question

[Umbral Blot]

How you spend your time is your own choice. Its not like I'm forcing you to like philosophy. Get a grip.

Re:Better question

[bumptehjambox]

"Philosophy is a state of fermentation, a process without final outcome." -Esa Saarinen

Damn the internet for reviving an art from its respected and peaceful death.

is getting rich on ebay worth the time, boredom, and effort?

It keeps some of us from working in hell, the worth of that is goddamn immeasurable.

-Time can be widdled down to minutes per week with a well-planned system and some automated action.
-Boredom isn't too much of an issue unless you've nothing to do but pace around your desk while you check your stats, but thats not eBay's fault.
-Effort is fairly low, like I said; plan it all out, get a UPS account for pick-up and you can work it out to minutes per week.

Re:Better question

[asimplevictory]

I find a lot of these posts are from people who do not use/enjoy eBay and there for do not understand it as well as say...me. I manage a company (currently) that sells vintage Asian motorcycle parts. We only sell/advertise our parts on ebay. Why? Because there is no other way we can reach such a huge customer base (hell, we went global :) ). If you want to sell your ipod on ebay your right, yours is not going to sell unless its the cheepest. However, if you have a clutch cover for a Honda C110, you might be surprised what people will pay... Why do we do so make so much money? Because we have what people can't find anymore, old, vintage, NOS, parts. It's the same with anything. If I open an electronics store in downtown detroit, im not going to make any money becuase Best Buy is going to under sell me, but if I supply something that has a high demand that no one else is selling, I win. Yes, the fees can be painful if you use upgrades (bigger descriptions/more pictures/blinking crap...), buy why would you? The ebay descriptions will take html code. So what do you do? For $30 a year you buy hosting from Dreamhost and then host everything there and then just link everything to your auctions. Want 10 pictures in your listing, $3.50. Linking them? Free... Yes you have to pay for the hosting, but we list enough auctions a day to save the $30 every day. It's all how you push your items. You just have to know "the tricks." Shipping supplies? All free from usps. We ship everything priority through paypal. That allows us to track all of your shipmest (for free through ebay/paypal). We are very minimal. Warehouse, computers, shipping supplies. Seller status? That's all crap as far as im concerned. Yes we are on a pretty high teir of "Power Seller" but that does not really mean much to us. We do not get anything for it except a pretty little logo next to our feedback. It does not cost anything, and if we lose it, it doesnt cost anything. It's more of a way for ebay to make more money, you can get health insurance and stuff through it, for less...more stuff...blah...but, if you do not want it, you don't have to pay. EBay can be a great place to make money, done correctly. If you do not think people can make good money on eBay you should see our debt/profit ratio...

The answer is yes...

[pookemon]

I'm sure the creator(s) of ebay are probably fairly well off.

Re:The answer is yes...

[cwalk]

Not to mention Elizabeth Millard from newsfactor.com, she is a perfect example of people getting rich just by writing about getting rich on ebay.

Well

[thealsir]

There are a bunch of spammers selling tons of things in various uncontextually related categories so they get the most bid. They have polluted ebay with noise, and it seems little is being done to stop them. It makes searching for some products (especially specialized ones) such a pain.

"Getting rich on ebay" is akin to "keyword spamming with listings."

There is a group that makes money legitimately. However, that group is not insanely rich.

Re:Well

[Bing Tsher E]

What eBay needs is a 'killfile' feature. When you've had your fill of page after page of mousepads and t-shirts in the "Sun Hardware" area, you should be able to bump the spammer right off your search/browses.

Re:Well

[temojen]

What? You mean a holga camera isn't a lens for a large format camera?

Re:Well

[xycadium]

"What eBay needs is a 'killfile' feature. When you've had your fill of page after page of mousepads and t-shirts in the "Sun Hardware" area, you should be able to bump the spammer right off your search/browses."

Ebay would never go for it. The spamming t-shirt/mousepad listers are paying ebay to list. Why would ebay want to give customers a way to put a stop to viewing the paying listers? This would eventually stop those listers from listing as much causing ebay to lose money.

Re:Well

[Bing Tsher E]

I know, and the practical alternative, and it's not that difficult, is learning what to seed your searches with to 'killfile' the spammers yourself. They're usually saying at least one thing consistently unique in their ad copy that you can keep track of.

one thing I'm sure is

[sixpacker]

we are making eBay rich. Peroid.

Re:one thing I'm sure is

[jt2377]

if you read the article, it depend on how much do you want to make on ebay. selling on ebay will not make you rich like Bill Gates or million dolloar rich but it's a good stream of income if you reach certain status.

Re:one thing I'm sure is

[Ireneo Funes]

Can RTFA but can't RTFP?

As a buyer it costs money if anything goes wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

If anything goes wrong for an Ebay transaction and you can't settle it with the seller, you may be out of pocket for at least the cost of providing 3rd party "impartial" proof on a company letterhead that there is indeed something wrong with the item you received, and if you're outside the US, you may to have to fax it at your expense to the US. On a low value transaction, it just isn't worth it and you're not going to get your money back...and this is if you pay by Paypal. One thing though. If you pay by credit card and you return the item if its not as described (again at your own cost) you might be able to get your credit card company to issue a chargeback.

Now, the only reason that a seller can't sell 100 low value items, then ship turnips instead is that it'd affect their feedback score.

I use to buy lots on Ebay until I had a problem with a low value transaction. I'm not planning to use Ebay again.

I'm posting anonymously because even though what I am saying is true, I wouldn't want Ebay or Paypal to initiate legal action as prooving that I hadn't slandered them would cost a mint.

YES!

[jlarocco]

Haven't you seen the infomercial? That guy's made millions! And it couldn't be on an infomercial if it weren't true, right?

Re:YES!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to get rich selling "Get rich quick selling guides on how to make 'get rich quick selling on eBay' infomercials" on eBay.

Get rich anywhere.

[theaddkid.com]

It really is nothing more then supply and demand if you can get a large enough quantity of something that a lot of people want you can get rich with ebay or just selling it on your own website unless you have like 10,000 stolen ipods then you can get rich anywhere.

Re:Get rich anywhere.

[Anonymous Coward]

"than" you ignorant $*(^%&#$ NOT "then" and stop using idiotic nonsense terms such as "supply and demand" that dont mean anything

Re:Get rich anywhere.

[RobertLTux]

Memo
Re: kettle and lack of reflectivity between 420 and 700 nanometers
to: Pot
Regarding your previous statement "supply and demand" is at the core of 99.999999944% of economics 101 courses (ie a course you might want to take to have info on the main post)

                      Cluemaster 45j7pw

A system open for abuse?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Gimme $2000 or I drop your posative feedback below 98%!"

What's to stop someone from using cheap chinese labour from making thousands of bogus accounts just for blackmailing ebayers?

Re:A system open for abuse?

[loraksus]

Nothing, really. Although ebay wants the name of your unborn first child in addition to a ton of other related financial information. If someone in organized crime wanted to do it, it would be almost trivial.
Problem is that for the rest of us - IIRC, only one feedback counts per account (per time period?) - this was different in the begining, until people started boosting their feedback with false purchases (a week? ;)

That all said, I hate the vultures on ebay who charge bullshit shipping prices and I've bid on some products with the sole intention of ruining their 100% feedback ratings with a negative feedback in the past few years. In exchange, I get a NPB or 3 on a throwaway account - something that leaves me crying at night.
I know, I know, it is ultimately a small thing, but I get a teensy weensy sense of satisfaction by knowing, no matter what they do, they will never get that 100% again.

Before the apologists chime in saying "OMG GAS IS SOO MUCH AND I HAVE TO PAY FOR PACKING MATERIAL AND THAT IS WHY SHIPPING IS $12 FOR SOMETHING THAT WEIGHS 1 POUND" - no assholes, USPS will provide (and even deliver) free boxes, packing material, tape (ok, no tape anymore, people sort of abused it, but then again, they did send you 24 rolls at a time) and will pick up your packages from your doorstep if you ship priority mail, so die in a fire. I really have no fucking patience for people who blatantly and openly commit fraud.

Besides, ebay loves the power sellers because they make tons of money on them (which is also the reason why ebay puts up with clearly fraudulent - and, may I add, quite illegal under several laws - auctions such as $12 prada handbags from Hong Kong with unlisted shipping fees. And look, the seller is a power seller!
Ebay (and paypal) makes a killing on each and every single sale, regardless of whether it is fraudulent - although they don't make any money on shipping fees. I'm actually surprised that ebay hasn't started going after sellers who inflate the shipping fees to avoid paying ebay their cut. I suppose that with the paypal fees (which are basically pure profit, it isn't like their buyer protection is worth a half damn to the defrauded purchaser, it all works out for ebay quite nicely.
Sadly, because of the obvious conflict of interest, fenceBay won't be the ones who put an end to this sort of behaviour.

Re:A system open for abuse?

[HarmlessScenery]

I know, I know, it is ultimately a small thing, but I get a teensy weensy sense of satisfaction by knowing, no matter what they do, they will never get that 100% again.

Actually, ebay feedback rounds to the nearest 0.1%, so you just need to get 2000 positives to wipe out any one negative and get 100% again.

Re:A system open for abuse?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know, I know, it is ultimately a small thing, but I get a teensy weensy sense of satisfaction by knowing, no matter what they do, they will never get that 100% again.

Nice try jackoff, but that won't/doesn't work. When your NPB account gets closed, the feedback left from that account no longer counts towards anybody's score... and back to 100% they go.

Re:A system open for abuse?

[swjslj]

Thanks for suggesting a way for me to get rich on Ebay! I've been looking for an angle...

Re:A system open for abuse?

[loraksus]

Who says the accounts are closed? I'm sorry, did I hurt your feelings?

Re:A system open for abuse?

[hawfizzle]

uh, how about server logs. "gee, the last 200 negative ratings on this account were from 200 accounts that had been registered for less than 2 days..."

Re:A system open for abuse?

[lowrydr310]

Although ebay wants the name of your unborn first child in addition to a ton of other related financial information.

I like how eBay wants your credit card information if you're using a hotmail/yahoo/gmail address. I ONLY use gmail and yahoo mail for all of my email access because it's more convenient than my ISP's email service, and it doesn't change if I switch ISPs. When I tried to switch my eBay account preferences to use my gmail address, eBay was bugging me to enter my credit card for 'security purposes'. It seemed too phishy to me, but I triple checked everything and confirmed that ebay really wants credit card info if you're using a free email service such as gmail, hotmail, yahoo, etc.

uhh

[Anonymous Coward]

First, a little insider information. On eBay, to realize an enormous profit, you almost always need to become a Titanium PowerSeller.

This article is kind of backwards and pointless - well of course you're making money on Ebay if you're a Titanium PowerSeller ($150,000 per month in sales)!

Re:uhh

[larry bagina]

$150,000/month in sales won't make you rich if you have $200,000 a month in expenses.

Re:uhh

[domc]

I'd take 50k a month. That's rich enough for me.

Re:uhh

[Unknown_monkey]

You're math is exactly what the OP thought it would be. It's a $50k a month LOSS. Meaning you take in $50K a month less than you spent. Did you happen to work for Pets.com or floos?

And the answer is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because we vastly overestimate the intelligence of people. Some idiot sold a million pixels on his website for a million dollars, but we sit here thinking people expect something that's, well, worth something ...

Instead, all they want is pointless, worthless crap, or space on a giant banner ad site no sane person would ever visit save out of morbid curiousity after seeing an article carried by the AP. And no, I'm not about to link to the wretched thing.

Thus, the formula appears to be:
1. Invent completely something idiotic, yet popular[*]
2. ???
3. Profit

[*] These traits are entirely too compatible. For example, take Adam Sandler or Jim Carrey...

Re:And the answer is...

[mjh]

Instead, all they want is pointless, worthless crap, or space on a giant banner ad site no sane person would ever visit save out of morbid curiousity after seeing an article carried by the AP.

Why do you care? If the thing that I want seems pointless to you, what do you care? I'd bet that you purchase some things that seem pointless to me. But the advantage of me earning my money and you earning your money is that we each get to decide what to do with it, even if it seems pointless to someone else.

Just out of curiosity, how would you propose that purchasing be done? Are you suggesting that we prevent people from purchasing what you think of as pointless crap? How would you implement that? What if that enforcement agency looked at slashdot, saw all of the -1 rated posts and concluded that this was a pointless purchase? Don't you think that you'd feel your freedom was impinged upon? Don't you think that if you enforce purchasing controls, that ALL people who aren't allowed to purchase something they want (even if it's "pointless crap") will also feel that their freedom was impinged upon?

Personally, I don't see any way of solving the pointless crap problem without dramatically curtailing individual freedom. IMHO, I'm happy to live with the problem of folks buying "pointless crap" if it means we get to keep individual freedom.

Re:And the answer is...

[Anonymous Coward]

We could tax it.

Re:And the answer is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just out of curiosity, how would you propose that purchasing be done? Are you suggesting that we prevent people from purchasing what you think of as pointless crap? How would you implement that?

I think you might need to tone down the meds and relax a little. I read nothing in the post implying or stating that anybody should be preventing anybody else from buying "pointless crap." The author was saying that it is difficult to make money on ebay because people don't always buy the things that would seem worth purchasing, but people often do spend their money on popular but useless things. It is difficult to predict which useless things will become the popular ones to buy, therefore it is difficult to make money.

Personally, I don't see any way of solving the pointless crap problem without dramatically curtailing individual freedom. IMHO, I'm happy to live with the problem of folks buying "pointless crap" if it means we get to keep individual freedom.

Again, it seems that you are inferring ideas that are not there. I didn't see anything in the post indicating that there is or should be a 'solution' to the "pointless crap problem." The author was answering a "why" question with a "here's why" answer. There is nothing saying "if only we could solve the 'pointless crap problem' then we could all get rich selling on ebay."

Re:And the answer is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thus, the formula appears to be:
1. Invent completely something idiotic, yet popular[*]
2. ???
3. Profit

[*] These traits are entirely too compatible. For example, take Adam Sandler or Jim Carrey... you forgot slashdot, i could have said microsoft

okay -1 troll now

Re:And the answer is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Too true.

Re:And the answer is...

[monteneg]

Yes, Adam Sandler is completely idiotic, but occasionally funny. However, Jim Carrey's movies are not so idiotic anymore. In terms of internet business, I think the completely idiotic grabs customers sometimes, but to hold on to them you'll likely need to adapt.

Re:And the answer is...

[thebigbadme]

Dude, chill.
The parent poster never said anything about stopping people from making said purchase of said space on said famous banner ad.
S/H/e just said S/H/e wasn't going to link to it after blasting the idea. I'm almost positive that even S/H/e would have liked to profit on some as easy as that, so long as all parties concerned were informed and consented, and it didn't fall outside the bounds of H/e/i/r/S morals or what-have-you.

-----
Stay off the slippery slope, unless you like falling on your @ss

Ebay made me rich in experience!

[mano_k]

Realy, I learned a lot about the value of things by selling on Ebay!

Sell something realy good and expensive - nobody will bid.

Sell the contents of your wastebasket - undreamed of profit!

Re:Ebay made me rich in experience!

[thomasj]

I know, I know. It is humourous. And I laughed too.

... But there is a grain of serious truth in this: If you value a good you are selling, chances are that it is rated too high. If you sell what you consider junk, chances are that you provide more value to somebody else than the good provides you.

This the marginal law. If I have a thousand coconuts, the last coconut provides me very little value. On the other hand somebody without coconuts at all would want to give you good money for the first coconut, less for the next ones, and very little for the 100th coconut. But as economy works, there will only be one price: The price at which the seller would think the price of the last sold coconut is still fine, and the buyer thinks the same of the last bought coconut. And that is the marginal principle. If you try to sell something where the marginal value of the (one piece of) good you are selling is higher than any buyer would have of buying it, there is no provision for a trade.

So, yes, funny but more than that.

Re:Ebay made me rich in experience!

[gbobeck]

Sell the contents of your wastebasket - undreamed of profit!

Not quite... but maybe you can make $1 selling a box of crap.

Re:Ebay made me rich in experience!

[hotdiggitydawg]

Why not take it to the next level? All you need is a toast grill and an ample supply of cheese...

Re:Ebay made me rich in experience!

[Vandilizer]

Don't Under estimate the waste basket!

Do you know how much good junk that goes in there.... Just think about what kind of paper most people though away.

- Say it was you average home wastebasket...
We are looking at the possibility of bank statements, utility bills, credit card statement, personal letters, and maybe even some interesting notes or other pieces of projects you are working on for outside companies or just person stuff.
This could be vary useful for numerous illicit activities and I expect could get the buyer upwards of a few thousand dollars in return.
(one must remember that most people are not that careful with there or others private information)

- Now say that was a corporate wastebasket.
Un realest financial statements, password, internal document, possible designs, and who know what else in untapped goodies.
(On the most part people in corporation are a bit more careful with their waste but in general I account this more to luck.)
Possible financial reward for some one, unknown but could be millions.

- And last but not lest a bag of shredded paper
Add in a scanner, a computer, a small algorithm and some patients.
Lets not even go there....

Re:Ebay made me rich in experience!

[aliasptr]

I suppose the patients are there to cough on you the whole time?

Re:Ebay made me rich in experience!

[aliasptr]

Sorry, I am being a dick. Just couldn't help but comment on it... damn homophones strike at any time and any place. And I admit I had to look up homophone vs. homonym vs. homograph so I'll climb off my high horse and bury my face in poop. Just poking fun not trying to be irritating- too late.

Re:Ebay made me rich in experience!

[Anonymous Coward]

-Realy, I learned a lot about the value of things by selling on Ebay!

-Sell something realy good and expensive - nobody will bid.

-Sell the contents of your wastebasket - undreamed of profit!

Especially if the face or the virgin mary and jesus are popping up on all your refuse!

Re:Ebay made me rich in experience!

[Chr0n0]

Like the saying goes, One man's treasure is another's trash and vice versa :D

Why does this sound like Amway?

[Nefarious Wheel]

Why does this sound like Amway?

Tiered sales .... um, hint #1. Invitation only, hint #2. Minimum sell to achieve "privileged" status ...hm.

Can't I just buy the box of soap and go home?

Re:Why does this sound like Amway?

[Duncan3]

It's more of a cult really, where the leaders take 10% in ebay and paypal fees.

They show their "conventions" on CNBC sometimes. 1000's of middle aged, overweight women (and some men). Sadly, the thought that poped into my head was "wow, that crowd makes a Star Trek convention look like 90210."

If any other organization was taking 10% of your income, they'd be called the mob, and arrested for shaking down merchants :)

Re:Why does this sound like Amway?

[Frightening]

Sounds like any average club party. Privileged status is equivalent to girls & cocaine on the second floor.

*reviews parent*

Or maybe you mean a whites only party?

*reviews again*

No wait I get it. You're anti-communist(TM).

*reviews again*

You're killing me here. Have mercy. What do you mean? Western politics? Oriental fairy tales? You ruined my day.

Re:Why does this sound like Amway?

[arivanov]

Amway, Herbalife, Rainbow Vacuum cleaners, the list is endless. What is interesting is that some of these "bronse/silver/gold recruit a marketeer" schemes are banned in large parts of the world. While I am not familiar with the actual variety used by eBay it will be interesting if it will stand to the scrutiny of European consumer law. It is quite vicious on the subject in some of the member states.

Re:Why does this sound like Amway?

[Megane]

Tiered sales ....

Well, you've just shot your argument down right there with the first two words. Recruiting new members to sell stuff is not part of PowerSelling. The invitation only comes after you've already sold stuff on your own, with nobody else in the program making money off of you on your way there.

Re:Why does this sound like Amway?

[Ced_Ex]

If any other organization was taking 10% of your income, they'd be called the mob, and arrested for shaking down merchants :)

There's an organization here that takes about 30% of my income, and there's nothing I can do about it. The locals call this organization, "the government". Instead of calling it a fee, they call it "taxes".

Unfortunately we can't arrest them, they hold all the arresting powers and they aren't likely to use it against themselves.

Help us...

Re:Why does this sound like Amway?

[kz45]

There's an organization here that takes about 30% of my income, and there's nothing I can do about it. The locals call this organization, "the government". Instead of calling it a fee, they call it "taxes".

Unfortunately we can't arrest them, they hold all the arresting powers and they aren't likely to use it against themselves.

there are these things called roads and we need this other thing called money to repair them on an annual basis. We can get rid of taxes if you can find an easy way to pay for roads and other expensis that would otherwise have $0 funding.

Top ten ways to get rich

[Skythe]

My friends mum does quite well for herself on ebay. She buys clothing from op shops and sells them on ebay for higher prices, usually ironing/washing and restoring the clothes herself if needed. She makes at least a few hundred a month, cant really remember how much, but she does very good for herself for a mother of 5 kids.

Re:Top ten ways to get rich

[nacturation]

A few hundred a month is doing quite well? I suppose it's better than nothing, but with five kids that probably only pays for groceries for a week. Factor in the time and expense it takes to acquire and repair the clothing plus fulfill orders and you have to wonder if it's even working out to minimum wage.

Re:Top ten ways to get rich

[Osty]

She makes at least a few hundred a month, cant really remember how much, but she does very good for herself for a mother of 5 kids.

I hope she has some other form of (non-government-provided) income! A couple hundred a month is nowhere near enough to provide for five children (Assumption 1: She lives in the US or an equivalent country, not a third-world country where a few hundred a month is insanely rich. Assumption 2: When you say "a few hundred", I assume that means "a few hundred dollars". Since you probably really mean "a few hundred pounds", given your usage of the word "mum", adjust the following numbers appropriately for the currency.)

US Federal minimum wage is $5.15/hr (many states have a higher minimum wage than the federal standard). A full-time (40 hours per week) worker at minimum wage makes $206/week before taxes, or $824/mo (4 weeks in a month). While the minimum wage is supposed to be a "living wage", that full-time minimum wage worker earns $10,712 per year (again, before taxes -- while she'll get that money back come tax time, her normal take-home pay will be much less). That's just barely above the poverty line for a single-person household. For the lady in question, her household consists of at least six (possibly seven, as you made no mention of a father/husband). The poverty threshold for a six person family is $26,800/year, which is more than twice what can be made holding two 40hour/week minimum wage paying jobs. And since "a few hundred per month" is generally assumed to be smaller than $824/mo (I'd equate "a few hundred" with "less than or equal to $500"), she's even worse off than a minimum wage worker. She's certainly not getting rich by any definition of the word.

Assuming your friend's mom's kids are grown and she has no large bills or debts (owns her own home or has a rent-controlled apartment, lives within her means, etc), then I guess it may be possible to live comfortably off of a few hundred pounds a month. If she's still actively raising her children, that doesn't sound like nearly enough to survive.

Re:Top ten ways to get rich

[Anonymous Coward]

It is quite possible, that she lives somewhere, where living is not so expensive. Where I am, for instance, $200 a month, while not enough to call yourself "rich", is far from poor.

Re:Top ten ways to get rich

[Anonymous Coward]

Though I guess it allows her to keep an eye on her kids while working. For must other minimum wage jobs she'd have to arrange some sort of child-care which would greatly cut into that income.

Re:Top ten ways to get rich

[Bishop]

It is a mistake to call a few hunderd a month "doing well." Certainly that is not a living wage in most (all ??) of the western world.

My cousin does the same (buying used locally, and selling on ebay for a small profit). While he makes a couple hundred a month, he could easily make more money for less work. He considers it a hobby that pays money. It can be argued that the auctions are a form of gambling with a small risk and reward. There is a thrill when a bidding war starts. There is a risk that a buyer won't pay. He finds it fun. I suspect that there are many other ebay sellers just like him and your friends mother.

I mean no disrespect. This form of money making has a few advantages for a stay at home parent. There are few obligations and the work schedule is very flexible. And while the small profit is not much extra money is never a bad thing.

Re:Top ten ways to get rich

[mi11house]

I hope she has some other form of (non-government-provided) income! A couple hundred a month is nowhere near enough to provide for five children (Assumption 1: She lives in the US or an equivalent country, not a third-world country where a few hundred a month is insanely rich. Assumption 2: When you say "a few hundred", I assume that means "a few hundred dollars". Since you probably really mean "a few hundred pounds", given your usage of the word "mum", adjust the following numbers appropriately for the currency.)

Actually, given the poster's use of the term op-shop plus mum I suspect they are Australian, like me. So adjusting for the relatively low cost-of-living here, plus the Australian manner of speaking, the poster probably meant:

"Considering she is at home looking after 5 kids and hence doesn't have a lot of time on her hands, she's doing a lot better than she would if she did nothing at all with that time. A few hundred really helps. "

Re:Top ten ways to get rich

[Skythe]

Look i honestly have no idea how much she makes. But as someone said, its a bit of extra money on the side. I don't know where this assumption came that it was the only income owning and all this math, but in Australia it would certainly pay a few bills :p

Obligatory nitpick

[Anonymous Coward]

Written defamation is libel, and ebay probably doesnt care anyway.

Re:No.

[360fusion]

Bitter much?

eBay is a flea market

[Bing Tsher E]

As is the case with any flea market, there are going to be people who think like 'businesspeople' and make loads of money from the operation. But for the rest of us it's a good place to exchange cool stuff with each other easily and with less hassle than in many other markets or forums.

The trick is to figure out who the 'hustlers' are so they can be avoided like pariahs. eBay can and is a peer-to-peer environment for many of us. I get cool older/odd/unobtainable tech there and don't regret participating in the least.

Anyway, most of the 'hustle' people are similar to the same sort of people at the flea market. Their 'booths' suck.

Re:eBay is a flea market

[Anonymous Coward]

Forgive me if I read your post wrong (maybe I did) but since when was setting out to make money a bad thing? Some people live off of it and have to eat too if they make it their profession and thus think like business people and since a lot of these people depend on repeat business, they'd be stupid to bite the hand that feeds it. Not that there aren't any stupid businessmen...

But I know I've been screwed out of more money by so called "buddies" trading with me than by dealers. There are dishonest people on all sides of the aisle.

Re:eBay is a flea market

[Bing Tsher E]

Nothing wrong with making money. I set out to make money on many transactions on eBay.

But the 'powerseller' mentality on eBay is about 'moving product.' To bring it back to my original point, haven't you seen those shitty booths at a flea market where everything for sale is new second-rate merchadise? And the guy running the booth is a typical sales type? Us tech geeks revile sales types ya know...

A big slice of eBay is a peer-to-peer network, and those of us who make up that part of eBay don't pretend that we're the 'carney' out looking for 'marks.' That was my point.

People who aim to 'make their business' with a 'storefront' at the 'eBay mall'... C'mon. It's a flea market. Is a card table a business??

Not what it is cracked up to be....

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to sell on ebay, as a full time business. In antiques, collectibles, and later on, pick ups at auctions.

While this article alerts the viewer to the hard work necessary to get a profit, I feel the title alone makes people think it's more promising than other ventures. I say no.

For me, ebay was booming goldmine from 1997-2001 for items in the mainly sub-$500 range. Back then, I generally got the prices I wanted for many items and once in a while something skyrocketed in price beyond my dreams. In fact, many items I could not sell locally for years found an interest buyer on ebay. About 75-85% of what I listed sold. Better yet, people emailed me after auctions to make offers and I often sold another 5-10% on the remaining 15-25% or so. Ebay fees were also reasonable. The one downside was the shipping. Many people don't realize it the time it takes to package 5-10 items and ship them off (my items were fragile) including filling out insurance/delivery confirmation tags by hand. It take a good chunk out of your day. Also, as paypal was not the norm back then, cashing checks or money orders took quite a bit of time. Remember, I was a mom and pop operation, I could not automate these processes beyond a certain point.

To make a long story short, what happened?

1. After this period, ebay has clamped down. Every single fee has been raised, doubled, tripled, or more in price. Items that used to cost 50 cents to simply list now cost over $2.00 to list in some cases. More and more pay-for "options" were added, which wouldn't be so bad but they had the effect of making competition stand out more - so on one level with seller's it became a cold-war style game on who could outspend each other. The "gallery option" of a small thumbnail (which is almost ubiquitous in some categories) added (now) $.35 cents PER auction.

2. This all sounds like chumpchange, but my ratio of auctions sold went down, over time, to 25-40% selling rate. Worse yet, I hardly get after auction offers, as ebay clamped down on emailing members outside the control of their system a few years back. Also, the prices I had to accept were declining and going below what I actually could get locally for them. The fees started killing me. The profit margin was killing me. The shipping was killing me (if you ever see a guy with cheap prices on ebay but expensive shipping, that's because shipping is his profit margin, ebay doesn't collect fees/shipping off of that besides Paypal).

3. Everybody pays now with paypal. It is great and convenient but another expense.

4. The downswing in sales had several causes. One of which is because of ebay's success as a marketplace, every started selling there. While the amount of sellers went up exponentially by my estimate since 2000, the amount of buyers went up only linearly, creating a glut in that market. By looking at certain listings, it also is apparent to me that many must be or take sellers that work under minimum wage of the US. Some of that is because they are foreign sellers. It's fine that they sell, but I can't compete at their undercut prices - just a fact of life. They don't have the expenses I do. It's ebay's form of outsourcing.

I know other companies that had an ebay branch that have been losing money for years by creating too many listings, dazzled by revenue, but not checking all the expenses or just hoping to "build an audience" until they become profitable (customer loyalty is not strong here if prices differ more than a few percent). One such colleague just stopped after posting over 200 auctions daily for the last 7 years in addition to his regular business (he has workers, not that he sat there posting himself). After all this time, he ran the numbers and just noticed it did not make sense. After paying his workers, he was actually losing money. (The reason he never caught this was that the workers were considered as a expense on the whole company before, not that branch - he didn't seperate expenses). He just quit

Re:Not what it is cracked up to be....

[bronney]

Worse yet, I hardly get after auction offers, as ebay clamped down on emailing members outside the control of their system a few years back.

I am sorry to hear your story it seems you worked for what you've got today. If you ever sell on eBay again, stick a piece of contact information in the package you ship so the buyers can contact you directly and bypass eBay. Just a thought.

Re:Not what it is cracked up to be....

[squoozer]

Well said, I too ran a mainly eBay business and found exactly the same problems. The nickle and dime death is the biggest problem. The fees are at the level where there is virtually no profit. I gave what I feel was very good service and I had people coming back on a fairly regular basis. Even so I would often be making £30 sale. By profit I mean what's left after shipping and fees. That £1 then had to pay for premises and other business expenses and provide me with a wage. I struggle to see how any business can make money on eBay anymore. It's great for getting rid of one off items that would probably end up in the bin but thats about it.

Re:Not what it is cracked up to be....

[thenickboy]

One reason I never really wanted to start my own business on eBay is some of the things you stated.

It seems like you need to really work hard in order to make any real money off the profits.

The biggest kicker is that after all is said and done and you want out, you work so hard to build up a company that you can't sell. I know some people who's whole business model revolves around their future sale of their business that they worked so hard to build.

There never really seemed to have an end in eBay.

Maybe i'm just short sighted.

Re:Not what it is cracked up to be....

[dave1g]

Have you tried selling locally through craigslist? I dont run a business but I have been very pleased wiht selling old junk on craigslist vs ebay. no fees and no shipping!

An easier way to get rich on eBay

[Zog The Undeniable]

Advertise non-existent laptop computers or high-end bicycles on eBay. Ask for payment by Western Union money transfer, then scram. It seems to have worked for a number of people in the past, anyway ;-)

Re:An easier way to get rich on eBay

[bheckel]

Or don't even bother scramming. I lost $$ to a seller who never shipped the product but politely replied to each email I sent him saying he's really busy, etc. He dragged it out long enough to avoid letting me give negative feedback or any assistance from ebay. Very effective since he priced items low enough to make it not worth pursuing him.

Ebay's rules need some rethinking.

Re:An easier way to get rich on eBay

[barcodeplane]

My mother works for Western Union and has had to go to court multiple times for those idiots.

Re:As a buyer it costs money if anything goes wron

[Bing Tsher E]

What were you primarily buying on eBay? The big rolls of astroturf you're now peddling here?

It feels good to be an eBay Powerseller!

[Anonymous Coward]

I once became a Powerseller by adding that Powerseller logo to my html code. But the eBay-police wouldn't let me :-(

Ebay is getting rich, not you

[Britz]

Prices are very low on ebay. For someone selling stuff on an auction site you never know how much you are going to make on an item. But you can be sure of one thing. Ebay will make more on that sale than you will.

Re:Ebay is getting rich, not you

[loraksus]

Prices are very low on ebay

That is because they are often stolen goods.
fenceBay is the greatest thing for theives since the invention of the crowbar. It's like a pawnshop that doesn't care and finds you buyers across the country to avoid those pesky "hey, Bill, that laptop you just bought looks an awful lot like my stolen one" moments.
All for the low, low, price of about 10% of purchase price (which is actually quite good, dishonest pawnshops will charge you far more and will give you up if the 50 come looking for you)

Now, granted, some people troll fatwallet and slickdeals looking for bargains, buy up all the stock and list it before it is even delivered, but you really can't say with a straight face that ebay isn't used by a good number of theives.

Re:Ebay is getting rich, not you

[midicase]

dishonest pawnshops will charge you far more and will give you up if the 50 come looking for you

Not really, in the US anyway. A purchase from a pawn shop comes with good "title". When you buy it, it is yours, permanently. Up until that point of sale, it is subject to confiscation by the authorities at the shop's expense.

A "smart" shop will steeply discount a suspicious item to get it off the floor after the mandatory holding period.

Re:As a buyer it costs money if anything goes wron

[davetv]

I ordered a 2 gig "SD" flash memory card from a Hong Kong vendor. The price for the card was $47.95 (au) ... the transaction appeared to me as $49.95 INCLUDING postage. I clicked "buy". It became apparent after accepting the transaction that the card was $47.95 and the POSTAGE was $49.95 on top. A total of $97.90. The postage was excessive considering the price of the article and I questioned the vendor by email. The only response that I received (multiple times) was "You bid - now you must pay - thanks" repeatedly. I advised Ebay about the vendor and the fact that they were breaking Ebay rules by using "Excessive Postage".

I even advised the vendor that i would engage DHL worldwide couriers and pay for shipping costs myself. The vendor responded as per above "You bid - now you must pay - thanks".

No resolution was reached.

however, death & taxes catch up

[rapiddescent]

Here in the UK, the HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs) have automated programs running on eBay to see if individuals are running businesses and not declaring the VAT (Value Added Tax, 17.5%) from the revenue. They target everyone, but chase up on anyone selling more than about £60,000 (US$110,000) worth of new goods, or more than £60,000 of profit on second hand goods. Also, they are keeping an eagle eye out for those not declaring the income from ebay activities on their tax forms.

See an explanation here.

Also, eBay makes UK users fill out an anti-money-laundering form and performs an additional verification once a paypal account receives £4500 (US$8300). This probably goes into the UK Gov anti money laundering and terrorist profiling systems.

Most IT folks who run home businesses should structure them carefully, because they could be subject to higher rate tax of 40% on profits plus 17.5% VAT. If you setup your ebay/paypal account as a limited company then you will only pay 25% tax and VAT can be paid as an offset percentage (agree with tax man) between 9 and 17.5%.

rd

Re:however, death & taxes catch up

[Anonymous Coward]

Mostly right, although the following caveats apply:

1: VAT is not payable unless you're a: VAT registered, b: charging a separate VAT element in your listings. Of course if you're making more than £61,000 a year from sales then you'll be required to be registered for VAT.
2: 40% tax would only be applicable if you're already qualified to be paying the higher rate, in which case you'd be unlikely to bother selling tat on ebay. Corporation tax for a limited company is 20%.

Ebay can make you rich...

[Tavor]

In the same way the Lottery can make you rich.
It's possible, albiet HIGHLY unlikely.

Making a living on eBay

[XNormal]

Why this focus on a few people getting rich? In general, the economic benefit of the internet is spread across many people. Customers that have a slightly cheaper alternative one click away. Suppliers that gain access to markets that they could not access effectively otherwise. The overall effect on the economy is enourmous but only a few people are getting really rich.

How many are making a decent living off eBay sales? How many people's lives have been transformed by the ability to give up their day job and do what they like while getting paid for it?

For example this artist who left her job as a web designer nad is now making lampwork glass beads and selling them on eBat.

Disclaimer: I know her personally and this is a bit of promotion - but I think it's a valid example because it would be difficult for someone living in a remote place to have this kind of access to the markets that appreciate her art without eBay.

Re:Making a living on eBay

[loraksus]

Why this focus on a few people getting rich?

So that more people sell stuff on ebay (greed, you see). eBay would love to get more people listing stuff because they take about 10% of the purchase price.

Re:Making a living on eBay

[XNormal]

So that more people sell stuff on ebay (greed, you see). eBay would love to get more people listing stuff because they take about 10% of the purchase price.

If you don't want eBay's services you are welcome to hold an auction directly on your personal web site.

Re:Making a living on eBay

[AudioEfex]

Making millions? Hard. Making enough to live on? Not so hard if you have a mind for business and something to sell that isn't your moldy used clothes from the basement.

I do it just about every week (make a living off of eBay). I left a shitty office job with a decent chunk of savings in my bank account, deciding to live off of my savings until I needed to find another shitty office job to subsidize my writing and art ambitions.

It's a couple of months later, and with the exception of one week where I had to take a few bucks out of savings, eBay has paid for my gas, groceries, cable, etc. And the week after I had to dip in I was able to replace the money with an eBay surplus.

People complain about eBay and PayPal fees, but don't seem to get that eBay is providing the world's stage for you; it's the best damn advertising you can get. Yes, eBay has some ridiculous policies, but there are ways to work with them, and around them. For example, when I send out a package I include an enclosure with my name and website and an invitation for a future order. As previously stated by other /. posters, eBay doesn't like this because they loose out on a later fee. However, there isn't a tinker's damn they can do about a piece of paper in the package I send out saying, "Thanks so much for being a customer, if you need anything else..."

In fact, that's how the lion's share of my large orders come from. Someone buys one off of eBay, then comes back and spends a couple of hundred bucks with me, off eBay. I guess someone would say that that wasn't really making money off of eBay, but I disagree; I would never have found that customer otherwise.

As to PayPal, you just have to be careful with them. They are HEAVILY slanted toward the buyer, and their fees can be noticable. However, it is so convenient it is worth it for me. I have a PayPal debit card that I use for everything (and get 1% cash back instantly with each purchase, which helps ease the pain) and I never have to bother with money orders and checks and waiting and all that B.S. For orders under twenty bucks I don't worry about it, but I get delivery confirmation on anything above that to protect myself as much as possible.

Now, I completely realize that this could dry up tomorrow, that eBay sales and the follow-up sales won't last forever, but right now it sure is nice to be working no more than 90 minutes a day and making enough to live off of. I get great pleasure in making nice packages for people to recieve as well, and I have time to live my life instead of living in a cubicle. What it takes to make it on eBay is to understand how it works, and to know what will give you the best profits. Selling old clothes for .50 cents each from your basement is going to be more trouble than it's worth (though, somehow, you see people doing this all the time), but if you actually have a product to sell you can really make a go of it.

I guess the moral is don't quit your day job...unless you have the savings to back it up in case it doesn't work out and you have a decent mind for business and a good product to sell.

AE

Re:Making a living on eBay

[BadassJesus]

Internet/eBay market place is another form of globalisation, if you are Joe Average, then you only get more competition. Only "market makers" get really rich here.

Re:Making a living on eBay

[gatesvp]

Wow, thanks for the link, I've just found a birthday gift for my mother!

Want the short answer or the long answer?

[SilentOneNCW]

Short Answer: No
Long Answer: No, it can't make you rich.

Presell duke nukem forever

[Anonymous Coward]

Presell 100,000 copies of duke nukem forever at $15 each = $1,000,000! Profit

What could go wrong?

ebay WAS good for me..

[DirtyFly]

I Live in Portugal and used ebay as a seller from ~2000 until 2002 give or take a year.
It was a good business and a good extra income, I sold old items and collectibles that I managed to buy in Portugal for what I believe the stuff ws 'really' worth and then sold it on ebay where I coud get a good profit. The main things that made me quit Ebay were :

1) The raise of Euro - When the US Dollar was high it was VERY profitable to sell stuff on the US not only did I made some profit from the Item but the dollar value was good for me.

2) The raise of fees by Ebay.

3) PayPal - more and more peolple want to pay with paypal, and that eats profits BAD.

4) The decline of the market.

I do believe you can get rich by using ebay but, if you live in acountry where the 'money is cheap compare to USD' youll get much better quicker

Worth the effort?

[Savage-Rabbit]

A better question than "can you get rich on ebay?" is "is getting rich on ebay worth the time, boredom, and effort?". I think the answer is no, at least for me, as there are more interesting things I would rather be doing (see sig.).

It depends on what your goal is. I don't think you can get as rich as Bill Gates is by dealing on Ebay but you I know a few people who earn a living selling merchandize on sites like Ebay. If you happen to have a small corner shop that sells, say sports goods, photographers supples, new or used books etc.. you can supplement the income from your store, especially if you specialize in a niche market and cater to hobbyists or people who practice sports that are not quite as massively popular as foot ball or basketball and for which you cannot get supplies in your neighborhood sports outlet. Another new fad is used car dealers who make use of favorable exchange rates to buy used cars via Ebay but that is something you have to be very careful with since it is easy to get burned. Dealing on via an intermediary like Ebay or Amazon helps because they get a lot of traffic and because there is greater trust than if you are selling your merchandize through a badly designed homecooked website. Even so, Ebay wouldn't always be my first choice if I had to make my living selling stuff online.

Re:Worth the effort?

[Umbral Blot]

Well if you are already committed to physically selling and buying items as a way to make money then you are certainly right, there is no reason not to use ebay. What I was pointing out is that there is no "free" way to make money. Beyond ebay's transaction fees you must also commit a decent amount of time and energy making it work and moving enough inventory to support yourself. I think that in the eyes of many doing this kind of job is so boring that it isn't worth the money, and that we would rather be doing something else even if it pays less.

Re:Worth the effort?

[Savage-Rabbit]

What I was pointing out is that there is no "free" way to make money.

I agree completely it's a bit like this whole daytrading fad, it's the couchpotatoe's dream, making money whilst sitting on your arse and despite the fact that you have only basic education and no specialist knowledge of economics. There are certainly day traders, professional bank or investment firms employees and some savvy amateur traders, that know what they are doing but one gets the feeling that for alot of the amateur day traders who have a limted knowledge of what they are doing day trading is really just a substitute for gambling and what keeps them going are the 'fish stories' about some garage mechanic who walked in off the street into a Daytraders Café and made 1.000.000 dollars in 60 seconds. Ebay on the other hand can be described as being: A few Intelligent people (Ebay's owners) making a ton of money off of ordinary traders of various goods (who are either supplementing their income or just making a living). The traders in turn make money firstly off of the ordinary customers who come there for bargains and tend to bid rather conservatively and secondly the people with alot more money than sense (ie. the fools/addicts bidding $500 for a PDA they can get for $300 elsewhere).

Re:Worth the effort?

[tek.net-ium]

it's the couchpotatoe's dream

So, that's what you've been up to, former VP Dan Quayle.

Make a Million profit on ebay 2006? No way.

[mrshowtime]

I used to be on ebay as a powerseller in the heydays of 1997-2001 and made a lot of money. Now, I would not touch ebay with a 12 foot clown pole. The only way you can make a profit now is if you have something that is a true collectable or very valuable or very hot. For instance, if you got your hands on 20 PS3's you could stand to make about $20,000 if you sell the day the PS3 is released. There are rich people out there for whom money is no object and you can profit off of them. The downside on ebay today is actually paypal BUYER fraud. Let's say you do manage to get your hands on 20 PS3's and put them up for $1,500 each. You will get buyers who are legitimate and very rich. You will also get a lot of scam artists who will use paypal to try and defraud you. All the buyer has to do is say "not as described" and paypal will hold the money till they investigate fully (read actually do nothing till YOU send them proof--guilty until proven innocent). Catch 22, if you don't accept paypal, then you can't protect yourself from dummy bids (someone using a zero or low fb id, bidding a rediculous amount or just simply "buy it now"-ing all of your auctions. Also, since you don't accept paypal it actually makes you look shady! Plus the public has gotten used to paying for everything immediately and if anything the people on ebay have gotten worse and worse over the years. Make a million on ebay? Sure, no problem. Take home a million profit? No way.

Re:Make a Million profit on ebay 2006? No way.

[loraksus]

And if the seller has a fraudulent auction, the buyer basically has no chance of ever seeing their money again, regardless of what eBay claims.

I think I see a pattern emerging here...

Re:Make a Million profit on ebay 2006? No way.

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget the fraudulent sellers - PayPal is a boon to the buyer from that perspective. I've had a number of auctions where the seller never shipped, delayed me for weeks, and shipped items the were not as described in the auction.

In EVERY case, I attempted to rectify the situation (sometimes successfully) with the seller. When all of my attempts failed a simple claim to PayPal rectified the situation. Say what you want about taking the buyer's side, but when you've been on the receiving end of the screwing, PayPal is your friend. *THAT'S* why buyers demand PayPal, and usually why seller's don't wish to accept it...

Yeah, I've played the "it's less than $50, screw it" game. I'm tired now, if you as a seller don't deliver what's promised, I'll spend $2000 making your life miserable. PayPal was established for a reason and it wasn't to screw sellers...

Re:Make a Million profit on ebay 2006? No way.

[whoop]

As a buyer, I've had the Paypal problem resolution thing go against me as well. After returning an item to the seller, he invented some sort of listing fee amount to include in the non-refundable fees (including the ridiculous shipping of about 30% the item's value). I went through ebay's fee listings, calculated exactly what it cost to list the item, sale fees, etc. I tried to get him to explain why a $150 purchase yielded about $80 refunded. I spent about a month working with the seller there.

After taking it up with Paypal, a number of back and forth games providing proof I returned the item, they received it, etc (which was never disputed between us), useless queries having nothing to do with the argument at hand, they just send an email saying they side with the seller. No explanation why or how they come to the decision, I just have to deal with it.

I don't let the bad apples sour me on ebay as a whole though. I just don't spend very large amounts with ebay sellers as a result. If I need computer parts, it's Newegg. If I want some Nintendo DS game I can't find in stores, I'll go to ebay.

Re:Make a Million profit on ebay 2006? No way.

[Anonymous Coward]

I used Ebay/Paypal for years and finally had goods shipped to me that were described as new but arrived obviously broken, obviously used and obviously shrink wrapped after the fact. I bought this from someone who had a perfect feedback score but chose to be a donkey's behind instead of refunding my money when I provided proof. Paypal requires that the buyer provide proof by a 3rd party on a company letterhead and fax it to the US within 10 days. Yes they suspended the funds for a total of 10 days. It would have cost more than the cost of the item to do this and they were very clear that this was a cost I'd have to incur. I provided alternate proof via email which they refused to accept. Long story short I stopped using Ebay/Paypal and if I ever use Ebay again I'll consider it a gamble unless its cash on delivery. Ebay/Paypal are definitely geared towards protecting the seller, not the buyer, since the buyer has to proove something went wrong. I'm very thankful I learnt this on a low value item.

The multi-informative post

[abscissa]

1. Best way to make profit off eBay: sell short :-)

2. First of all... I think "profit" is meant and not "sales". I could sell $5000 worth of cash for $1000 and easily make more than $1000 in sales per month.

3. Why do people love to collect Mammy cookie jars?

4. What in the goddamn fuck is with those stupid, stupid "Mystery auctions"... where people auction off things saying "OMG OMG!! THIS BOX COULD BE FILLED WITH UP TO $10,000 in CASH!! AND YOU ARE BIDDING ON THE BOX, ANYTHING THAT COMES INSIDE IS MY GIFT TO YOU........" Did you know there is a seperate category on ebay for these? Why do people bid on that shit....

Re:The multi-informative post

[TrueWest175]

Ebay is all about margin and volume. I sell yarn, minimum bid $16, average sale price is $19. Package cost is $8 for the goods, then about $2 to ebay and $1 to paypal. My average net/ship is $8. If I run more than 5 auctions per day, I start to get no-sells. So - I have a very healthy margin and potentially could get rich, but I can't generate enough volume. It's a trickle of money, not a flood. Still, 150 shipments/month at $8 each isn't bad. USPS provides free shipping supplies and picks up at my door. College kids will pack hundreds of envelopes for $50. It's a good deal. The weird thing is - I link to my own web site with big photos of the yarn. ON that site, I offer to sell directly for less than eBay. I have had people contact me wanting to bid on more yarn...when I direct them to the "buy direct" site, they almost never use it, even tho it's cheaper. They like the bidding process.

Re:The multi-informative post

[tehcyder]

I could sell $5000 worth of cash for $1000

I bid $1000.01

Re:The multi-informative post

[Unknown_monkey]

You know, before I saw this post, I was going to clean out the garage today and throw away the junk. Now I will get some boxes and ebay them as "Mystery boxes".
This may actually be the way to become a millionaire on ebay.

Re:The multi-informative post

[abscissa]

The real mystery is why anyone would bid on boxes like this one. What is a $3,000,000 mystery box? Does it contain $3,000,000 worth of gold and jewelery? To get just some idea of how this particular seller is profiting, just take the $50,000 cash back you get just for making a $500,000 bid. How is this person a power seller?

The question is... who has the mental disorder... the people creating these auctions or the people gullible enough to participate?

Re:The multi-informative post

[Anonymous Coward]

No its not the bidding process they like - it's a matter of trust and buying via e-bay offers protections (whether they are effective or not is another story).

Buying direct from your web site has a bit more risk involved.

Where do i bid on the box !!!!

[bxbaser]

Hurry hurry I wanna bid on the box you could be selling 10,000 dollars in a box for $45 bucks.

Please please send a link to the box.

Re:Where do i bid on the box !!!!

[Capt James McCarthy]

I think it is sent from some place in Kenya.

I want to know more! Where do I send my money ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to know more! Where do I send my money ? I have an pay pal account tied directly to my bank account, and I just got paid ! Here's my account name at pay pal, dumb@slashdot.org. If you need my other logon name (I think it's a passname)it's, dumber.

eBay is the perfect retail environment

[Rogerborg]

It's getting harder and harder to find a genuine used bargain on eBay, because of all the rich idiots competing against each other to give the seller more and more money. Time after time, I see people getting sucked into paying more for a used item than its new price. Just last week, I bid £5 on a "used" item, only to watch the price rise to £68 by the close of auction - for an item that can be purchased new with a full warranty and returns service from an online retailer for £11. Astonishing, but common.

There are demonstrably people out there who can't or won't google for items before bidding silly money on them, which means that they're unlikely to check your selling history either to see that you've sold a hundred identical "used but unopened, unwanted presents". That seems to be the trick; pitch your "used" item as a bargain, then watch the idiots spend more than they would on a "new" item, apparently convinced that all the other idiots bidding against them must know what they're doing.

The only thing that keeps me coming back to eBay now is the opportunity to message the winning bidders in these auctions with links to where they can buy the same item new for less, often much, much less. Curiously, I've yet to receive a response to these helpful messages that's not a variant on "FCUK OFFF!!!!!!!eleven!!!!"

Re:eBay is the perfect retail environment

[Anonymous Coward]

The response you're getting is quite understandable. Why should these people trust you and what you have to say? To them, you're just another lowlife spammer or, worse, trying to scam them into giving money to a fake retailer.

Re:eBay is the perfect retail environment

[Anonymous Coward]

You might also have stumbled into a ratings fraud ring. They may not give a damn about the item, so much as 'winning' the auction and getting reciprocal feedback.

Can eBay Make You Rich?

[loraksus]

Maybe if you buy stock in UPS or FEDEX, because they look like they are making a killing.
$19 to ship a saw blade? Are you fucking kidding me? (and yup, that's from a power seller)

Before the apologists chime in saying "OMG GAS IS SOO MUCH AND I HAVE TO PAY FOR PACKING MATERIAL AND THAT IS WHY SHIPPING IS $12 FOR SOMETHING THAT WEIGHS 1 POUND" - USPS will provide (and even deliver) free boxes, packing material, tape (ok, no tape anymore, people sort of abused it, but then again, they did send you 24 rolls at a time) and will pick up your packages from your doorstep if you ship priority mail. A one rate envelope ships cross country for under 4 bucks.
You can't defend abusive shipping or handling costs. I'm surprised that ebay hasn't made a serious effort to get rid of these sellers, but that's probably because they make enough on paypal fees to make up for what they don't get in listing and closing fees.

Re:Can eBay Make You Rich?

[shintaro]

> SHIPPING IS $12 FOR SOMETHING THAT WEIGHS 1 POUND

That's small change. Try $134.97 to ship a Golf Pouch which costs less than $20 to Singapore.

Re:Can eBay Make You Rich?

[tnk1]

The shipping is their actual profit margin. Ebay doesn't slap their fees on shipping and handling, so the seller takes most of the price and lists it as shipping. This isn't really a problem for you, if they actually state up front what the shipping charges will be (like in the description), or they respond to your inquiries about shipping costs. You just have to look at it and do some addition to get the actual price. If they don't, then yes, they are being shady.

Re:Can eBay Make You Rich?

[sholden]

It's just a simple way to shift a portion of the price into the part that ebay doen't charge commission on. Ebay certainly doesn't like it, since it reduces their revenue from the item. As an added bonus I guess there are some people who don't check the shipping charge before bidding and hence end up paying way more than they wanted to.

And of course do you want to buy something from someone who treats the places they buy things from like that? Doing business with people who have shown they are dishonest in business is a tad riskier.

Re:Can eBay Make You Rich?

[Anonymous Coward]

it's funny because I actually get mad when the lister doesn't slam me with shipping charges, cause the honest ones are the ones who list the actual cost of the item on the shipping info, then Canadian Customs slams me with rediculous tax charges.

Re:Can eBay Make You Rich?

[whoop]

As others have mentioned, the excessive shipping is partially to avoid ebay's fees, but also watch out for the seller's non-refundable fees. Often that same ridiculous shipping is included. So if the item is crap, you get your 5 cents back and are out $49.99 in shipping.

No

[permaculture]

Can Ebay make you rich?

Well they won't supply items for you to sell, they take a percentage of each sale, and you have to do all the actual work yourself.

So, "No".

Unless you own Paypal.

Re:No

[Andrewkov]

Ebay owns Paypal.

Um... Isnt that the very definition of trading?

[Colin Smith]

Sell stuff you don't want/need/like and buy stuff you do want/need/like.

Re:As a buyer it costs money if anything goes wron

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a very simple rule for buying things on ebay. Don't buy them from Hong Kong!

I do find it quite annoying how some sellers manage to enter their address as Hong Kong, United Kingdom. But doing the search for items within a given distance and putting 2000 miles in seems to solve that.

make a million accepting money orders

[sl4shd0rk]

You can get ripped off very easily with them, they are nearly impossible to track, and the best the banks can usually do is tell the remitter when they've been cashed. That's it.

Re:As a buyer it costs money if anything goes wron

[JonathanR]

I recently purchased from a Hong Kong based vendor, and was suspicious of their credibility, so I contacted several of the recent and not-so-recent buyers to get more detailed feedback. It was only after I received that feedback, that I was willing to put my moolah on the line (about AUD 160.00)

Actually...

[way2trivial]

in the real 'beginning' feedback was not transactional.

I have a collection hobby, and I actively pursued ebay for more items of my hobby

when I saw weak or less than informative listings in their infancy I'd write the sellers, correct the name or spelling or whatever I knew about the piece to help the seller do a little better.. I have two feedbacks in my history that have no item #-- just sellers who bounced a thank you...

'course, my motivation was- folks who wanted the same series of toys would have less cash for the ones where I didn't help the sellers out....

Re:As a buyer it costs money if anything goes wron

[Tomfrh]

Sometimes you politely have to tell people to F off. That's the problem with ebay, everyone's so wussy about protecting their precious 100% that they won't neg people or tell em to get stuffed if things go bad.

In other news...

[Comboman]

I work a state-level IT job. Not a lot of reward, but not a lot of risk either, and I don't have to worry about stability.

In other news, massive layoff of state-level IT workers due to outsourcing. Film at 11.

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

As a state level IT contractor, I welcome our surly, complacent state government IT underlords.

Re:In other news...

[jrockway]

> In other news, massive layoff of state-level IT workers due to outsourcing. Film at 11.

Um, the government tends not to outsource jobs.

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell that to the 50 Indian programmers in my building.

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen tons of foreigners working government jobs. I have had state and county "workers", like inspectors or clerks, with accents so thick you honestly couldn't understand them-yet, they get jobs, jobs with full benefits, vacation time, pensions, the whole nine yards. why is this again?? We have hundreds of thousands of born-here people out of work or working very low scale no benefits jobs, shouldn't they go to them first? Maybe that doesn't exactly classify as outsourcing, but it is close enough. and our military is full of aliens who get to become "citizens" after serving their mercenary work, and the US doesn'
t seem to care how many ex-death squad jerks they hirte on, who then come back to the US. such *dandy* citizens, trained torturers and murderers.

    I don't know what the government is really thinking, but if they don't get a handle on legal and illegal immigration soon there is gonna be a lot of stinky stuff happen, to put it politely. Imperial freekin rome comes to mind handily.. It sucks when bigbro tells you to do something stupid, it double sucks when the doofus telling you that isn't even a well broken in yet normal merkun. I say we've run out of free land and wide open spaces to take in the entire planets "yearning masses", we shoud slap a ten year moratorium on all immigration until the jobs and social/cultural aspects of what we have *now* settle out a bit better.

Re:In other news...

[geoffspear]

I have a better idea. Let's strip the citizenship of anyone who's already here who's not of Native American descent who complains about there being too many immigrants, and deport them back to wherever their family came from. That should open up plenty of wide open spaces.

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

And how far back do we go? Go back far enough and even the "Native" Americans would get the boot. What do we do with mixed origin folks? Send a piece of them here and there? I have a better idea. Let's strip the citizenship of anyone who thinks flooding the job market with skilled and unskilled labor is a good idea and deport them to wherever they or their family comes from. We can start with you.

Uh, PowerSeller is a title

[Anonymous Coward]

The article makes it sound like you get noticed, invited into the exclusive PowerSeller club, then you're able to make lots of money.

Actually, it's the reverse. You make lots of money, then you qualify for the PowerSeller title. There's no application, invitation, club votes, secret initiation, or secret PowerSeller handbook. Hit the numbers, and you're a PowerSeller.

PowerSellers do not get a discount on eBay fees, special deals from wholesalers, special shipping rates, or any other benefits that have any real financial value.

There are many huge profitable sellers on eBay who are not PowerSellers -- the people in the article kill themselves to give great customer services, but there are other success stories built on it's a big world, it's going to take a long time to run out of suckers who don't read the fine print and don't read the feedback.

rating system

[shieldfire]

I don't understand the rating system on eBay. But I now understand why it works the way it works. You can't really give other than positive feedback. If you try you risk getting slammed by sellers. I saw someone complaining that he got the things he bought in a flimsy envelope that just barely kept together during transport. So the poor sod gave a neutral feedback - to be slammed with a negative by the seller backed by the community when complaining. If one can't give anything but positive feedback without risking one's reputation on eBay - the system is flawed. But now I understand the mechanisms.

Re:rating system

[vux984]

So? Keep a separate account for buying. You get the odd bad "retaliation" feed back, big fucking deal.

Sellers aren't going to blink at selling to someone with a 90%+ positive rating, especially if looking at the feedback makes it clear the negative feedback is all retaliatory.

And if a seller does get all freaky and won't deal with you because you've been hit with some revenge feedback, he's probably not someone you want to deal with anyway. His loss.

Re:rating system

[Anonymous Coward]

The feedback should be private until both parties have posted feedback, or X days have passed and feedback can no longer be left. It's not hard to do and it completely eliminates the possibility of direct retaliation.

Not anymore ...

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

I can deal with the ebay and paypal fees, but the shipping costs are what's killing me and scaring off bidders. Postal rates have really soared in the last couple of years and with oil continuing to rise I don't expect a break anytime soon.

People will buy anything

[VlartBlart]

I was down the pub (in England) one night and thought I could sell a pint glass on eBay - I took the glass home - took some photos - did a nice write up (without lieing) and put it on eBay.com (thought the Americans would like it). Lo and behold - I got $14 for the glass and $7 for p&p. $21 for a pint glass! The guy even wanted me to insure it! And he left me great feedback!!

Now - If I could just ramp up my thievery...

Re:People will buy anything

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of ramping up your theivery, just ask the pub where they buy their glasses from, and get them in bulk really cheaply. If your scheme fails, you can always haul the inventory that didn't sell down to the pub and trade it for booze.

Can eBay Make You Rich? Sure.

[Zx-man]

It isn't the medium that makes you rich, it's you business talent.
As a matter of fact, my friend has made quite a capital from an arcade in year 2001 (in Ukraine). Good marketing created the demand.
You can profit from nearly anything, but it takes a real talent to see HOW.

Another assumption...

[Dareth]

Another valid assumption is that someone else, father perhaps, is the primary bread winner for the family and making at least minimum wage working. The mother is a "stay at home" mom who watches the children. The small amount of money she makes is extra money, which if not minimum wage is better than nothing if she just watched the children, no small task in of itself.

Re:Hobby

[zysus]

I think the whole article is a very narrow look at what eBay is good for. For your average internet user that can handle a web browser, eBay is a great way to get rid of the extra stuff that is lying around the house.
I just replaced 2 light fixtures, I'm going to eBay the old ones. Why shouldn't I just get whatever I can in money for them?

For Joe Smoe, eBay is probably best as a way to get rid of extra stuff around the house that's not useful to him anymore.

that happened to me..

[fliptout]

But fortunately, the seller sold two laptops at the same time- one to me, and the other to a cop. The cop and I kept in contact as things got shady. After the cop applied some pressure, eventually the seller came to his senses, reimbursed me and gave me a free printer.

Bronze math

[theonetruekeebler]

a PowerSeller must average at least $1,000 in sales per month for three consecutive months

So if I go a month at $3000, then two months at $0, I can be a PowerSeller(TM)? After all, I've averaged at $1000 in monthly sales over three months.

Perhaps you meant a PowerSeller(TM) must have a minimum of $1000 per month for three consecutive months.

I would be ever so happy if editors and submitters understood the math they were taught in the sixth fucking grade.

Re:Bronze math

[orotone]

No, as a person who has often been a gold power seller on eBay, I can tell you that they use the average of your sales. One month with 10K in sales with two at 0, will still give you Power seller status at the 3k per month level. And some things are crazy: I sold my Porsche Boxter on eBay for 29K, eBay only made the $50 selling fee but I got the 10K per month PowerSeller level.

Re:Bronze math

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you going to apologize because the summary is correct and your interpretation was wrong?

Re:Bronze math

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see anything wrong with the summary. Maybe you should brush up on your 6th grade reading comprehension skills?

Re:Bronze math

[theonetruekeebler]

Good to know. Still, there would be some merit in creating a class for those who sustain a level of selling, rather than those who have big ticket bursts. Not to disparage your vehicle sale (and it must be tough to part with such a fun car), but that's somewhat different that averaging $10k/month by having a hundred items for sale at a time.

Re:Bronze math

[A Nun Must Cow Herd]

I think I'd be pretty happy if people in general were a bit more tolerant, and a bit less full of themselves. That last sentence wound up making you look like a fool (since you were incorrect in your assumption) - how hard would it have been to post without it?

For sure - the other way round

[44414e-DE]

Ebay can get rich of you buying and selling on it.

Thieves...

[Life2Short]

A friend's husband sells high-end tires and wheels, just a cottage industry for him. Someone broke into one of his storage lockers and stole some wheels. Fortunately, the thieves were stupid enough to post the merchandise on ebay, complete with photos that included shots of the boxes with the victim's address on them.

But of course nothing beats this story:

And the answer is...Prison for bad shoppers.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Personally, I don't see any way of solving the pointless crap problem without dramatically curtailing individual freedom. IMHO, I'm happy to live with the problem of folks buying "pointless crap" if it means we get to keep individual freedom."

Amen! You'll notice the "pointless crap"* meme is used often here. e.g. movies, music. I suppose we should all ask "I didn't know you cared so much about MY purchasing habits".

*"Because we vastly overestimate the intelligence of people." aka "we're better than you (note the people who use this meme always exclude themselves from the 'norm')...you idiots!" is the other meme. No wonder geeks and nerds are shunned. Who the hell wants to associate with someone who has a superiority complex?

Re:And the answer is...Prison for bad shoppers.

[Anonymous Coward]

"No wonder geeks and nerds are shunned. Who the hell wants to associate with someone who has a superiority complex?"

As opposed to one having a debilitating inferiority complex where one shuns any association with geeks and nerds because of the perceived superiority of others intelligence.

Should do some research

[crossmr]

"eBay has been a great resource to buy or sell goods without leaving your computer"

Ebay is a mediocre resource. It may have been great awhile ago, but it stopped being great a few years ago. Ebay bends to the will of the power seller, and does nothing to enforce their rules and ToS. Trying to report violations (like an asian seller who marks his location as Hong Kong, Canada) and clearly states the item ships from the pacific, gets you a canned response from ebay about how they just snuggled that seller last night and they trust him to say where he's from. Or someone charging $60 to ship a USB dongle via standard USPS post gets you another canned response about how they trust their sellers to set appropriate shipping rates, even though that example is included in their ToS for things that shouldn't happen.

Making a living on Slashdot.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I guess the moral is don't quit your day job...unless you have the savings to back it up in case it doesn't work out and you have a decent mind for business and a good product to sell."

And yet I noticed no mention of this "wonder product", nor even a link to your business in your profile.

Re:Making a living on Slashdot.

[AudioEfex]

"And yet I noticed no mention of this 'wonder product', nor even a link to your business in your profile."

LOL, and I see even less about you than that, since you are Anonymous Coward. :)

No "wonder product" for me, the portion you quoted was simply the distillation of what I've learned, not a singular description of how I'm doing it at the moment. By "a good product to sell", I mean not the modly clothes out of your basement (even if they *DO* still have the tags on them, LOL), no product in particular (at least for me).

As to what products I sell personally, I started with stuff I already had. I've been moving dozens of boxes around since college and finally cleaned them out - from MIB action figures to vintage books, anything I didn't really want any more I got rid of. Then once I started learning how eBay "worked" by exhausting that supply, I looked for products that weren't already deluged with sellers (i.e., don't start trying to sell cell phone accessories...), or that were especially good bargains at retail and resold them.

For instance, I'll go to Ciruit City and find some video game accessory inexplicably marked down to a ridiculous price (like $2.99 for a game shark-type device), and resell it for $20-50 on eBay (many sales like that are reigonal, or when an item is stopping being manufactured, so people in other locations that are already sold out or never had the sale push demand). I go to Circuit City, Best Buy, Staples, stores like that every week or two anyway, so I was already seeing these types of bargains (it's not something I go out intentionally to do).

Lately I've found reselling DVDs, especially to non-US buyers, to be extremely profitable. Multi-standard DVD players and TV's are much more common in other countries, and they have to pay local importer specialty shops tons to get NTSC, or Reigion 1, exclusive titles (especially certain genres of boxed set). They pay huge premiums for the service (sometimes double to triple what they can pay to have it shipped and pay the duties themselves). They'd rather buy off of eBay, especially since places like Amazon won't ship non-reigion local DVDs to them.

Now, if you go to sell a title there are already 36 copies of out there for buy-it-now's of $8.88, then no, you won't make any cash. So it's not fool-proof, you have to actually figure out what is rare, accquire the product here (new or used), and get it up there. And by maintaining a simple list out there via free web hosting, I was able to list the titles available and take direct orders once the eBay contact was made.

That's just one example. One I'm sharing because I've started selling something totally different in the past week or two and I'm winding down with the DVDs for now, I think. That new one I won't share - have to keep some secrets. ;)

It's funny, because I would never define myself as someone who makes a "living" off of eBay, until I read this article and actually realized it's really what is happening. I left my last job expecting to at least take the summer off and wholly live off of my savings, but each week I found myself being able to get by just with eBay. I don't expect it to last forever, and I have no designs of becoming a "power seller", but at the moment it's working for me.

AE

Maybe, but...

[Karl Cocknozzle]

...You will DEFINITELY make eBay rich by trying!

Alternative for sellers and for buyers?

[Rich Klein]

I hear a lot of sellers and buyers saying that eBay isn't what it once was, and that it's too easy to get screwed on either side of the transaction.

So, I ask you former eBay merchants: where have you moved to?

And where are you finding bargains as buyers?

Re:Alternative for sellers and for buyers?

[Anonymous Coward]

EBay is soooooo yesterday's news. I do everything on MySpace now.

Solve? Who said anything about "solving" it?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Why do you care? If the thing that I want seems pointless to you, what do you care? I'd bet that you purchase some things that seem pointless to me. But the advantage of me earning my money and you earning your money is that we each get to decide what to do with it, even if it seems pointless to someone else.

You're completely free to buy that crap if you want to, but I'm equally well entitled to think that selling a million pixels on a giant advertisement of a website is a waste of time and money. I don't propose to "solve" the problem at all, just to mock those people who buy into such things. You don't have to like it.

Captcha = contempt *heh*

Ebay hunting.

[sahim]

Find out the going price of the item. If you can get it for 30-40% less then you will make a profit on ebay. Otherwise its just a hassle.

Re Vindication!

[Anonymous Coward]

this is *exactly* why i thought the internet boom was nutso. the #1 profit margin generator in the world is...

is...

is...

did you guess it?

CONSUMER IGNORANCE!

the net reduces it and will also reduce profit margins.

stock market bubbles over reduced margins?

that's the kind of insane world we live in.

Re:Re Vindication!

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right about consumer ignorance playing a large role in increasing profit margins, but increased profit margins for retail stores doesn't lead to a stronger economy. All retail stores do is make products available from the actual producers to the ultimate consumers, while the internet has managed to reduce the costs of product availability. This is a Good Thing for the economy and stock market, and I hardly consider the world insane because of it.

The real secret is...

[cttforsale]

you make your money on the shipping and "handling"

Ebay made me rich in natural value.

[Anonymous Coward]

"... But there is a grain of serious truth in this: If you value a good you are selling, chances are that it is rated too high. If you sell what you consider junk, chances are that you provide more value to somebody else than the good provides you."

Obviously you're a student of Friedrich von Wieser

I think you are using that Piraha counting system

[wsanders]

A Brizilian tribe composed of refugees from the Biz-Dev departments of imploded dot coms: "Hunter-gatherers from the Pirahã tribe, whose language only contains words for the numbers one and two, were unable to reliably tell the difference between four objects placed in a row and five in the same configuration, revealed the study."

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6303

This is the numbering scheme used to count the people that get rich on EBay.

confessions of a former ebay store owner

[grapeape]

I did the "ebay" business from 2000-2003. I quit my job in 2002 to do it full time. I mainly sold tv and movie related collectables as well as vintage toys from the 50's-80's. Business was brisk and I made what I thought was decent money at the time. Moneyu was constantly flowing and I put as much of it back into inventory as possible. Things got a bit out of hand in 2003 and I was quickly becoming overwhelmed trying to run the business with just my wife and myself. I hired a bookeeper with the hopes of finding some ways to cut corners and find a way to hire help so that the business cold grow. Instead I found that based on the actual hours put in I was barely making minimum wage most of the time, after ebay fee increases, paypal fees, merchant account fees i found it just wasnt worth the effort. I went back into the workforce, but still have a business on the side related to what I was doing earlier. Now I still buy collectables and resell them locally, mostly to others expecting to get rich on Ebay.

I predict that in the next few years Ebay will be the marketplace equivalent of AOL, full of sellers and suckers (Those who prey on the idiots and those who dont know better). With google and others bringing new options online most of the old guard having been burned too many times before are more than ready to abandon ship as soon as an even semi viable option comes along.

Another

[temojen]

Nanaimo, BC, Canada artist Richard Hoedl ( Canadian surreal oil painting landscapes ) makes most of his income from selling his paintings on Ebay.

He (and his web contractor ;-) ) is working on a site to teach artists to make a living from their art. It's not ready to go live yet, but progress is fast.

Low barrier to entry is why you can't

[cshay]

If you can make money off of eBay, why can't someone else, with little effort? This is why you always hear eBay sellers complaining how good it was in the "good old days", whether those days were 2 years ago or 8. As soon as you start making money, someone will immediately begin competing with you until your margins are too slim.

Re:As a buyer it costs money if anything goes wron

[AmberBlackCat]

This guy I spend time with was trying to sell his computer on eBay with my help. We set up the auction, hoping to get $600 for it. He started getting bids and it went all the way up to over $900 with just a few minutes left. Then in the last few seconds, some con artist bid $999 and won the auction. Instead of paying for the item, they had this great idea for us to send it to Nigeria, after which they would pay us using BidPay. Of course we rejected the bid but by then we had lost the legitimate guy who was willing to pay more than $300 above the asking price. I also remember trying to buy a Mis-Teeq CD from a guy who just took my money and didn't send me anything. If I recall correctly, PayPal's resolution for this was to repay me with money from the scammer's PayPal account if he ever puts money in it again. Things like this make it hard for me to understand why anybody would look to eBay to sell a large number of items.

yeah

[etarnkufeicn]

I don't use ebay to make millions, I use it to make enough so I can by a damn Starbucks drink and a bagel....well maybe a million dollars would be faster.

Why you didn't make a profit...

[Trojan35]

The problem isn't what you identified: that everyone is trying to "grab" the market with low prices. The problem is that your prices are competing with Joe Shmoe who just wants to get rid of it, and whether he makes $30 or $35 isn't a huge deal to him. On your end, that $5 difference is your entire profit margin.

Re:Why you didn't make a profit...

[squoozer]

I certainly identified that as an issue but I don't believe it was the primary cause. The area I was in (aquatics equipment) doesn't have much of a second hand market for a number of reasons (many items are one use only, problems with transferring infections, etc) therefore my main competitors were other resellers.

The secret to getting rich through eBay

[Zemran]

Own eBay...

Re:Hobby

[hajibaba]

I used to do that until I got fed up with eBay raising their rates, and having to deal with shipping. Now I post the stuff I need to sell on craigslist. Since I'm in a major metro area, I usually get faster turnaround, and it's free!

I still buy things occasionally on eBay, but I will never sell anything there again.

They should list the ratio charged/actual shipping

[vinn01]

How about charging $15 to ship a camera memory card that weighs less than 1 OZ. - first class mail. Actual shipping cost - $0.39.

The ratio of charged/actual shipping cost is over 38.

No, that is not something that I bought. I bought from a more honest seller.

Re:They should list the ratio charged/actual shipp

[loraksus]

Actually, there has been a rash of fake sandisk cards showing up on ebay in the last few weeks. Google around. Despicable.
Of course, ebay knows about the problem and yet does nothing except continue to take their 10% fee on the sale of counterfeit items...
Doubt Sandisk will sue like tiffany's, although this could be a pr problem for them if it doesn't stop soon.