Making money selling items on eBay is nothing new. It’s known as a website where you can get rid of unwanted items and declutter, but thousands of people use it to do much more than that every day.
eBay is a great place to test the market when you want to start an online store, for example, and aren’t sure if your product will be of interest to the market.
If you can get it right, eBay is a great way to work from home buying and selling products.Thousands of people use eBay is their primary source of products and their primary outlet for products. This is how to work from home on eBay, buying and selling products.
How to buy on eBay
Buying on eBay is simple. Find a product you like andbid on it. If you are looking for products to sell, an ideal place to look is the wholesale lots category, where you can find great deals.
A word of caution, though – wholesale lots are usually large quantities of products and if you are just starting out, make sure you know exactly waht you are buying so you’re not left with products you can’t sell.
Once you have bought your items on eBay, you can sell it to friends and family, on an online store, at car boot sales, trade fairs etc.
If you are new to buying on eBay, keep these things in mind before deciding to make a purchase:
1. know what the items are selling individually on eBay. Do a search to find this out.
2. keep your price per item at 1/3 the current sellingprice.
3. you will be paying shipping charges so look at that as well and figure it into the total cost.
4. once you have your costs figured out make your bid.
Many people wait until the last few seconds before placing their bid. You may want to watch your item carefully and try to get it at the last minute or two so that you don’t bid too high too early, or lose an item you really want.
Buy to get a good rating
Another reason to use eBay to buy your products whenyou’re new to eBay is to build up your rating so that when you start selling, buyers can see a high enough rating that they feel comfortable buying from you.
Every transaction on eBay gives you a rating – the fewer ratings you have, the less inclined buyers will be to purchase from you.
Buying products on eBay will quickly add to your ratings. Once you reach about 25 positive ratings, your chances of attracting buyers increases significantly.
The best way to receive great ratings is to pay for the auction quickly and to leave feedback as soon as you receive the item. Most eBay transactions are paid for using Paypal because it is the fastest method of payment, so if you haven’t set up a Paypal account, you should do this before you start buying – it’s free to set up.
How to sell items on eBay
Selling on eBay is also simple. Once you have your product you need to list your item – basically put it up for sale, with a title, description, a picture of the item, a start price (unless you want to sell it for a fixed price) and postage costs.
Keep the auction simple – every service you add to your listing costs you money. So, if you are just selling an old book that may sell for a couple of pounds at best, don’t choose a large gallery picture because that will probaly take half of your earning after eBay has taken it’s commission (if not more!).
If you want to use several pictures, remember that only the first one is free, so you might want to use Photoshop or the free equivalent, Gimp, to create a montage of the images, so you don’t have to pay more for showing more pictures.
Decide on your shipping policies, return and refund policies, and whether you want to ship internationally or not.
If you have a website that sells your items already, then make sure you put in the packaging a flyer that has your website address and showcases the products that the buyer can find if they visit your website. You may even want to offer a discount for your buyers to encourage them to buy more, and to use your website when they make their next purchase instead of eBay.
Overall it is not difficult to set up a home based business buying and selling products on eBay. The great thing about it is that you can start slow and keep you current job.
As you learn more about eBay, you can increase what you buy and sell and look for wholesalers as well.
For a complete guide on buying and selling on eBay, visit our YouTube channel and watch our 24-part videos which will take you from start to finish.
