Making an ebay business full time.

Quote from turningpoint84 : How are you going to eat? I think you need more then $300 a month profit...... Anyways look for local auctions, i buy stuff all the time through local online auctions and resell them on ebay for 4x the price. It's fun making extra money on the side, i make $70K a year at my salary job, and own a rental property that makes about $1000 a month. Honestly this is a little off-topic, but you should keep your job, and try to get approved for a cheap rental property(2-4 family). Have a renter in the otherunits pay all your bills. Then you have no rent. Assuming you only pay $300 a month, there HAS to be cheap property near you. FHA loans only require 3.5% down, so save up $2000-5000 and boom you're set for life.

Landlording isn't for everyone. It's easier if you live on the same property (ie renting out half of a duplex or an in-law apartment) but it can be a tiresome and frustrating job for something you do on your "off time."

Quote from 1stbuy : What were you selling for $10 that could even be considered as being hazmat?! You couldn't call a human there to discuss with them? Seems unreasonable.

It was a face cream (moisturizer), contained alcohol as one of the ingredients.

There are humans that work for Amazon, only problem is they're all outsourced - not much you can do to reason with them when they're only able to read off a script and follow protocols.

There are Amazon seller forums that I looked at before, there are many complaints about the Amazon fulfillment program... books classified as hazmat, small books charged as oversize shipping, etc...
Which reminds me, I had some makeup powder (< 1oz) that was being classified as 15 lbs when shipping. I ended up paying all the shipping costs, no reimbursement from them either.

Like I said, it's a great program when you ship thousands of items and can afford to take a hit on a few of them. But I wouldn't recommend it if you don't do volume.

Quote from bonkman : Landlording isn't for everyone. It's easier if you live on the same property (ie renting out half of a duplex or an in-law apartment) but it can be a tiresome and frustrating job for something you do on your "off time."

Agreed. Also, it's not that easy to find properties readily available.

Even for those who specifically invest in newer condos for the purpose of rental income ($300k+/condo range), you'd think they would be easy to maintain and not too many issues with tenants since they would be more "flush" to begin with, but there are still plenty of hassles involved.

Quote from mr_rolla : It was a face cream (moisturizer), contained alcohol as one of the ingredients. There are humans that work for Amazon, only problem is they're all outsourced - not much you can do to reason with them when they're only able to read off a script and follow protocols. There are Amazon seller forums that I looked at before, there are many complaints about the Amazon fulfillment program... books classified as hazmat, small books charged as oversize shipping, etc... Which reminds me, I had some makeup powder (< 1oz) that was being classified as 15 lbs when shipping. I ended up paying all the shipping costs, no reimbursement from them either. Like I said, it's a great program when you ship thousands of items and can afford to take a hit on a few of them. But I wouldn't recommend it if you don't do volume.

Oh ok, I should've guessed it was something like that. I'm not planning to enter back into any reselling/retail business, as it was more of a hobby while in school, but it is really interesting to hear how how things are working currently in the realm of online small business. (Although in your case I guess its a larger business.)

Quote from turningpoint84 : How are you going to eat? I think you need more then $300 a month profit...... Anyways look for local auctions, i buy stuff all the time through local online auctions and resell them on ebay for 4x the price. It's fun making extra money on the side, i make $70K a year at my salary job, and own a rental property that makes about $1000 a month. Honestly this is a little off-topic, but you should keep your job, and try to get approved for a cheap rental property(2-4 family). Have a renter in the otherunits pay all your bills. Then you have no rent. Assuming you only pay $300 a month, there HAS to be cheap property near you. FHA loans only require 3.5% down, so save up $2000-5000 and boom you're set for life.

My rent is only 300 and I have other money in the bank. Yeah I don't want to deal with rental being someone who has been with roommates who have destroyed rental properties and pay rent late.

Quote from turningpoint84 : FHA loans only require 3.5% down, so save up $2000-5000 and boom you're set for life.

FHA loans are not for investment property.
and you can get conventional loans for 95% LTV, you just may not like the PMI if your credit sucks.

Quote from Mr.Ritz : My rent is only 300 and I have other money in the bank. Yeah I don't want to deal with rental being someone who has been with roommates who have destroyed rental properties and pay rent late.

Well you wouldn't be a tenant of mine then, also security deposits more then cover most damages to places.

Quote from turningpoint84 : Well you wouldn't be a tenant of mine then, also security deposits more then cover most damages to places.

Well, last place I was at the deposit was 1500.00.. 5 college students live there with animals. The carpet was destroyed. No holes in the walls or anything just dirt smuges in high traffic corners like heading into the kitchen. They took the deposit and asked for another 1200 to repaint everything and carpet everything. We didn't pay because the carpet was 5 years old, they bought it in a short sell. The walls, well no holes or anything just dirty. But then again I suppose you should expect to repaint after people have lived there.

So yeah I have been looking at alibaba and it looks like for the order I want to do it might be hard. So I looked at AliExpress which includes shipping, however their price is right under what ebay sells for. I might make 10 cents an item after ebay and paypal fees.

I have been looking at chinabuye but like aliexpress its right under ebay prices.

Reselling Chinese products won't get you far very quickly - as you've seen, your margins would be RAZOR thin, and the cost of the ebay & paypal fees + shipping material may erase that altogether.

A better bet is to flip products from Craigslist onto ebay. It has to be something you know very, very well & that is in demand. Laptops, tablets, game consoles, digital cameras, phones & video cameras are all good bets. The trick is to buy low on CL (people will sell at a lower price on CL since it's safer to deal with cash), and then sell high on ebay. Even better if you can add value to the product - for example, buy iphones, jailbreak & unlock them and resell them as unlocked. Or get a DSLR body, add a lens, bag & storage card & resell it. High value items like these are EASY to sell so you're not sitting on a lot of inventory - you just have to know the market very well, so you can know at a glance how much something is worth & how much you think you can get for it.

I did this for a while & if I put some time into it, I could clear about $1k in a good month.

2003 called and wans their eBay back. Back then, you couldn't find you're wholesaler/supplier on eBay. And now you can. Even the Chinese suppliers can be found on eBay. It is an overcrowded place, and unless you do not have a mainstream product (such as iphone 5 cases) you can succeed.

I dropshipped books on eBay for a while, but it wasn't worth the time. I earned around 400$ per month in college, but I had to reply to every question (which was a lot, since it were twilight books, lol) and reorder as soon as possible at the website itself (which was a huge downside, because it required me to be online and order every day)

Quote from Jeffbx : Reselling Chinese products won't get you far very quickly - as you've seen, your margins would be RAZOR thin, and the cost of the ebay & paypal fees + shipping material may erase that altogether. A better bet is to flip products from Craigslist onto ebay. It has to be something you know very, very well & that is in demand. Laptops, tablets, game consoles, digital cameras, phones & video cameras are all good bets. The trick is to buy low on CL (people will sell at a lower price on CL since it's safer to deal with cash), and then sell high on ebay. Even better if you can add value to the product - for example, buy iphones, jailbreak & unlock them and resell them as unlocked. Or get a DSLR body, add a lens, bag & storage card & resell it. High value items like these are EASY to sell so you're not sitting on a lot of inventory - you just have to know the market very well, so you can know at a glance how much something is worth & how much you think you can get for it. I did this for a while & if I put some time into it, I could clear about $1k in a good month.

Well, I have been going to thrift stores and will hitting up garage sales in a few hours. Problem is the things I know most which is video games are the things people try to sell at ebay prices. I get so tired of driving around to garage sales only to see items listed at ebay prices.

At least if I find something at thrift store its not an ebay price.

I was just thinking today of all the taxes an ebayer pays.....

lets say you make $500/week on your job. The government will probably take $100 leaving you with $400.

Now lets say you get a great deal on a clearance laptop at Staples for $300. You pay $21 in tax to the government.

Now you list the laptop on Ebay and it sells for $550. Great!

Ebay and Paypal will "tax" you about $50 on $550.

The government will also want a cut of your profit. I believe it is 30%. So $279 x .30 = 68.70

Now you need to ship the item which is about $35 via USPS.

You started with $500. The government gets $224.70. Paypal gets $50.

You are left with $475.30.

You made $75.30. Congrats. Now hopefully the buyer doesn't try to rip you off or change their mind and want to send the item back.

Quote from eddiehaskell : I was just thinking today of all the taxes an ebayer pays..... lets say you make $500/week on your job. The government will probably take $100 leaving you with $400. Now lets say you get a great deal on a clearance laptop at Staples for $300. You pay $21 in tax to the government. Now you list the laptop on Ebay and it sells for $550. Great! Ebay and Paypal will "tax" you about $50 on $550. The government will also want a cut of your profit. I believe it is 30%. So $279 x .30 = 68.70 Now you need to ship the item which is about $35 via USPS. You started with $500. The government gets $224.70. Paypal gets $50. You are left with $475.30. You made $75.30. Congrats. Now hopefully the buyer doesn't try to rip you off or change their mind and want to send the item back.

Ebay now takes 11% and 1-2% on shipping. PP is another 2% so it is more than $50.

The problem is Ebay is pro buyer. It is to the point where buyers do not have to return items. So, buyer purchases computer, files complaint, keeps computer and receives money back.