Can you get rich or make money doing this?

[mintman2]

yes, i forgot to mention (really i did) i have secured a source where i can consistently get my product for $1.00 each if i chose this item to sell. so ive already verified with my source that i can get the item for $1.00 each and checking ebay completed listings they are selling very consistent at $2-3 each with $2.00 shipping the norm in that particular niche. so getting the item for $1.00 is not a problem for me. to me it just seems to easy to buy an item for $1.00 and "double" your money for $2.00. just by listing. maybe it is that easy.

I say give it a shot then. But start small so if there is something you missed it won't hurt you too badly.

 

[Hawaiian BamBam]

i think i will. because i know for sure i can get this item for $1.00 each and they will sell (by looking at ebay completed listings) for $2.00 and i think i might have even found a source to get them as low as .25 to .35 cents each. i checked and 99.9% of the sellers in this particular niche are charging $2.00 for shipping in a PWE(and its acceptable to the buyers to charge that an ship PWE) so i figure the listing fee and FVF and shipping can all be covered by the $2.00 charge. the only problem is ill have to list hundreds and maybe even thousands of items (which i do need to start small because i just dont have that much time) but by looking at the big sellers of this item, they are doing pretty high sales. my thought is if i can "double" or even "triple" my money all day long, and my costs are covered i was thinking i should stand to make a little money. i was thinking its like if you go to a cashier cage at a casino and give them $1 and they give you back $2, if you do that all day long, my thinking is, you can get rich or at least make ALOT of money by doing that!

 

[Dilferules]

If you can sell a thousand of them a week without flooding the market and thus lowering your sales price below $2, go for it! It seems crazy that your source that is selling them to you for possibly as low as 25 cents each isn't just cutting out the middleman and selling directly on eBay for $2 a pop. Take advantage of the deal!
Richard

 

[Hawaiian BamBam]

hey richard, no my source is a large retailer, so they wont be selling on EBAY. i think im going to give it a shot on a small scale. even if i start with a few i still double my money. it just all seems to easy to sell an item and double or triple your money AND have all your ebay fees paid for! ill let you guys know how it goes.

 

[BoomerSooner]

You seem to assume you will sell every single card you list....those that don't sell, you procure a loss.

I would think a prudent move would to ask someone who has a large volume Ebay store their thoughts on it- ask them how many cards they sell in an average month versus how many sit unsold for months & months. Every day a card sits unsold, your loss magnifies.

 

[Hawaiian BamBam]

true, but it isnt my full time job, so whatever i sell i sell, whatever i dont i dont. my bills still get paid. whatever i do sell, i will make double what i paid for it. i think if it was my sole income i would be more hesitant, but since it is just for extra money to buy more cards. i think i would be fine with making double my money on whatever does sell. its just a very part time thing for me to make a little extra money.

 

[mindbinge]

if you do this, the only thing you will do is rack up the feedback. To do any sort of volume business on ebay and come out ahead, you need to be clearing about $5 on whatever it is you are selling.

 

[Hawaiian BamBam]

thanks for your response, i appreciate it. thats interesting because there is a guy on ebay that have over 11,000 positive feedbacks and had i belive something like 35,000 cards listed and sells them all for $1.00 each and says that he is a full time seller on ebay selling $1.00 items and makes a very nice living selling commons. He is well known on ebay as someone that is very successful at selling $1.00 cards and i think he might even be a member here. I always wonders how he did it.

 

[Steveumd]

my 2 cents

It takes a little more than simply "keystoning" or doubling your money to make a profit.

To begin, ebay and paypal fees account for + or - 20% off the top.

You will need supplies and the cheapest I ever got padded envelopes, labels, etc averaged out from quantity, case lots, to .50 ea.

Postage I found to be around $.85 - $2.25 ea on average

Now with the ebay discount structure you want to build up to, requirements include fast shipping and a serious push for free shipping, all of which eats away profit.

You need seller discounts, plain and simple. Once you work up to getting the discount, you have to earn good feedback and ratings to keep them. You no longer need just negative feedback, simply a few 1 or 2 stars ratings from your buyers will eliminate your top seller discount. Again, have just a few of your buyers think you should ship free, and they hit you with 1 star, youcould be done.

So you are either going to offer free shipping and make up for the costs with higher quantity sales or offer cards that buyers don't mind paying a shipping fee for.


There is also a huge push from ebay to offer returns. Death for the card dealer with the number of people who will buy your centered MINT card only to return a NRMT off-centered card for full refund.


I know this sounds rather bleak, I am just being realistic, sadly from experience of over 12 years on the Bay. ebay is an unloading and buyers market. A place in my opinion to dump what you don't want for short money and buy what you need at a discount. I do see hot hot items being bid up, but that is generally rare, not the norm.

Hope this helps and best of luck what ever you decide.

Steve

thanks guys for your responses. im not sure what i am missing(i know, i know im not the sharpest tool in the shed!) but if you buy an item for $1.00 and sell it for $2.00 to me you doubled your money. if you buy an item for $20.00 and sell it for $40.00 you doubles your money. If all my fees are covered by the shipping and handling charges and im NOT factoring into this, the cost of supplies, envelopes, etc..and you "double" your money consistently, how can you NOT make alot of money quickly? just wondering what im missing or if my thinking is off on this again, im not the sharpest person here on the bench, thats why im asking you guys for your opinions/thoughts.thanks guys

 

[Bronxbombers7]

Yes, in theory your correct obviously if you can buy and sell an item for a 100% profit it would be easy to make money, but your over simplifying it there is so many factors that everyone thought of that you have to take into consideration and how realistic is it that you would be able to buy items on a steady basis and enough of those items to make a living on, that all some how you can sell for twice what you paid? It would not happen and at these small prices it would be a legistical nightmare to keep track of

 

[mrmopar]

The hardest part will be to consistently have something someone wants at more than double your cost and be able to continue selling them. Really, if you can buy it for $1 (for example) and sell it for $2, why wouldn't others buy the same item for a buck? If your supplier is not sharp enough to figure out that you are doubling your money on their product, them maybe you are fine, but what if they figure it out. Instead of selling to you for $1, they sell to you or others for $2.

It's like that thread about the uncles shop. He had a box of 1980 Topps. The bid online sellers are offering $250 or something like that. It sound great, low hassle. But if you check ebay, they are going for $350ish. Why would anyone sell to the middleman if they could make that much more and sell to the end user?

Here is a story I like to share about an ebay selling experience I had years back. I wandered into the old Pacific Trading Cards retail store, that was blowing out old stock. The store had been closed for some time and it was attached to the factory. Pacific Trading Cards had gotten big enough to sell Nationally, so the store must not have been worth their time, perhaps? Well, I believe a couple of Mike Cramers kids or a kid and friends...whoever they were, they were selling piles of old shop stock he never sold.

I ended up buying a large box of 3" sports buttons/pins and included in this box was a bunch of USFL pins. I'd say there were probably 150 or more of these pins. There were duplicates and I probably had 7-10 different teams in bulk, some in more quantity than others. I put one of each up and they went crazy. I think I must have made over $100 on the first round of pins. Several sold for $20-30 or more! I waited a week or so and then listed another round. Again, they caught fire, but not quite as hot as the previous round. I continued selling these one at a time per team I had available and as the supply dwindled, I dropped the number of different pins until I was at about 4. Eventually they were either not selling or selling for the opening bid, which I think I had set at $3. At that point, I stopped selling them and boxed up what was left and forgot about them. The box is still sitting in my garage years later and I have never really thought about them much. I'll have to see if there are any on the bay now. Anyway, I think my timing was everything on this deal as much as anything and in the end I sold $100s worth of these pins, but my initial investment was also a huge factor.

I spent $5 for the entire box! Now that was the kind of deal that you could get rich with!!

 

[mrmopar]

Just checked. They won't make me rich now, but I could probably make some more money offering them at $3-5 each!!

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw...t=&LH_SALE_CURRENCY=0&_sop=10&_dmd=1&_ipg=200

 

[thedarkbrown]

Don't forget to factor in gas to get to the post office, and the time it takes for you to organize, list, package, and ship stuff.

When it comes to ebay, you lose A LOT of money in fees (ebay + paypal), so you have to have a very high profit margin just to ensure that you make any profit. Also remember, that the more expensive something is, the more fees you get charged.

If it were an easy way to make good money everybody would be doing it.

 

[valediction]

thank you so much, so far for the items im looking at selling (not sports cards, even though im looking at those too) the only supplies i would need is PWE which i can get a box of 100 at the .99 cents store.

How are you going to address the envelopes?

So you've got a source for a product you can buy for .25-$1, THEY aren't going to sell them for the $2-3 each you'll get, other people are already selling it, THEY won't cut their prices to cut you out, people don't ask for bulk discounts, they buy time after time, at $2 s/h each time, and they'll pay you the same price they'll pay someone they've been buying from since they started buying said product, and you won't flood the market? I say go ahead, give it a shot! Sounds like you're not the one in that equation that doesn't know much about business.

 

[markmulder20]

A couple months ago someone on another trade board bought every single R.A. Dickey Bowman and Bowman Chrome rookie card listed in the Beckett Marketplace. I think he said it ended up costing him about $45 delivered (from several different dealers) for the entire lot, which was like 50 cards. Right after Dickey threw back-to-back one-hitters he listed them on eBay and ended up selling those 50 cards for something like $275. Now that's how you make a profit!

The keys are doing your homework/research, buying low, selling high, good timing, and good luck. Of course, easier said than done.



.

 

[markmulder20]

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[brewerfan34]

From time to time The Bench gets people with a great spirit for trying new things to make money and that is great.

However I'd rather keep my current job than package 1,000 sales on ebay each week. By the way $50,000 a year may seem like a lot of money but that is FAR from being rich.

Good luck with what you try to do.

 

[mm1sub]

No

 

[mrmopar]

Ain't that the truth!

By the way $50,000 a year may seem like a lot of money but that is FAR from being rich.

 

[Dilferules]

I remember when I was a kid me and my sisters used to play the board game Life. In the beginning of the game you get a job...at the time the two best jobs were doctor and lawyer, each with a salary of $50,000 a year. When I was a kid I thought that was just unfathomably rich! Now I make quite a bit more than that and don't feel rich at all. I have a good amount to "waste" on cards, but back when I was a kid I would have thought at 50K I'd be driving around in Magnum PI's Ferrari. Not the case!
Richard