/biz/ - Business & Finance

>>49384526
ebay is the most based
i will never use amazon or the likes again
ebay will retake what is theirs in due time

>>49384538
Interesting take. Have you had bad experiences trying to sell things on Amazon?

>>49384526
Hey man
I do e-commerce too on a french marketplace called Cdiscount
lately my sales went down by 40%, french medias keep talking about inflation and that defeinitely has an effeft on potential customers.
My custormers are 50 years old + btw, the ones who watch TV all day lol
sucks

>>49384715
Do you specialize in products for boomers? Is it like old furniture or medical devices? If it was in the US I would be thinking books such as the best way to clean your truck, why paying a mortgage is fun, 100 different ways to complain about your wife, diabetes and you, and the 10 best ways to waste your life watching TV.

>>49384526
My experience of eBay is from the perspective of a private seller and not a business. The fees are very high, so I tend to wait until 70%+ off final fees. Postage is also expensive now, but more expensive items need to be sent tracked, due to some people trying to scam items.

You have to be careful with electronics as some people will buy new products and try to return them, swapping out failed parts they already own. There are other pitfalls, but that’s one I know of.

Ebay is just side money for me.

>>49384794
So far the only scam I got was someone trying to ask me to buy them gift cards with communication outside Ebay. Have not had any issues with scams yet other than that incident. Right now I am looking to really liquidate stuff that I do not really need. All my sales so far except one item were a best offer. It seems that users on there are very price conscious. I was hoping some of the higher value items would have been snapped up. I kind of want to post a link to my store for opinions but I am not sure if that is against the rules.

What kind of products do you sell? What is the volume of transactions? Are you able to sell things at full price or are you using lower pricing, best offer, or bidding?

>>49384771
Yes I sell things that only boomers would buy desu
they blindly buy things when they like without really checking the price
Cdiscount is a boomer marketplace, I sell a few things on ebay too but it doesn't work as good

>>49384844
This is more of a curiosity but what do they even buy? To me young and sexy items such as computer hardware, electronics, fashion, and hobby stuff is where it is at.

>>49384526
I heard selling underwear with prints on it is surprisingly profitable- is this true?

>>49384896
I would think that would only be popular as a fetish item such as an OF side hustle.

>>49384538
>ebay will retake what is theirs
No they won't. You haven't a clue about ebay if this is your take. ebay willfully destroyed its business model and has pushed away many sellers and buyers. The site is now set up as if sellers are employees of ebay and will be punished on a whim as ebay sees fit. Fees have skyrocketed the past decade. The new payment system is also trash with its delay of payment to the seller. Many many sellers have left after getting raped by buyers and stolen from and raped again by ebay. Fuck that site. It can't collapse fast enough.

>>49384715

This, it's just the overall economic situation. I've been selling my old shit on eBay lately and have also noticed sales slowed the last couple months.

>>49384794
>You have to be careful with electronics as some people will buy new products and try to return them, swapping out failed parts they already own
I wanted to do this with Amazon but I may get caught

>>49385344
>t. Bezos

>>49385652
Nope. I don't sell on scamazon either. Never have. I'm just a private seller who did a lot of business on ebay for nearly twenty years and bailed recently when shit got too horrible on the to bare. Shipping costs are asinine now as well. ebay even charges fees on the cost of shipping. Its an absolute seller rape fest on the site these days.
Forgot to also mention taxes are a bitch to low volume sellers now too. ebay reports everything to the irs for anyone who sells more than $600 a year. All online sales sites have to now.
Unless a person is running a business online sales is a load of horseshit that only profits the websites, shippers and the irs.

>>49384896
the oddest thing i successfully sell on ebay are my used liquor bottles (tequila especially). i just clean them out after i'm done with them and people pay $15+ for them. just make sure you emphasis in the title that it's "empty". i mean i only make a few bucks after shipping & fees, but hey, it's better than just tossing them in the trash

>>49385888
Why do people buy them? It's so wack

>>49385888
You know I have been considering trying to sell meme items on Ebay. Some random junk with silly titles and descriptions. I am not sure how that would go down though.r

>>49387071
like pet rocks or jesus toast

>>49384526
1. most of your watchers are subscription services that track prices on ebay and store the data for paying customers.
2. some of the watchers have similar stuff to sell and want to see if you're making sales at your price point.

3. ebay lets your shit slide and then tries to charge you to promote it. Your stuff is essentially invisible unless you pay the promo fees.
4. other sellers probably check your prices and undercut you without you knowing.

AMA

>>49387071
i remember when some dude was getting away with selling Air Guitars with free shipping lol

>>49387130
That is something I was unaware of. I suppose if you had an automated service you would be informed of price changes or other information. Clever actually. Yeah, I think that without advertising you are really going to struggle to sell quickly.

>>49387180
Here are some questions:

1. How did you sell so much?
2. What do you sell?
3. Do you do any advertising?
4. Is this your main business or a side hustle?
5. How has been you experience in general on Ebay?

>>49387180
How fucked are you tax wise making this much from ebay?

>>49387709
he can expense a bunch of it

what's the best way to ship?
the free USPS flat-rate boxes?
most of the shit I would be selling is "old" unwanted clothing items in new or nearly new actual condition
I don't expect to make much profit, and keeping shipping costs down seems to be the biggest issue

>>49385931
I know a guy who turns liquor bottles into wind chimes and sells them to posh moms for $100+ each, you'd be surprised what some creativity can do for you

>>49385519
Just order and say you never received it, got half the components for my computer this way.

>>49387834
no get some mailer bags for clothes. the flat rate boxes are pricy

>>49387617
I sold off Pokémon cards honestly, mine and then other peoples collections, I have lots of different old vintage items as well, but mainly got my funds from flipping, profit was extremely high. It's a side hustle, but I was working only 30 hrs a week last year, now I'm full time and so my business has slowed down, I expect to end the year between 15-20k.
I don't do any advertising at all, and overall it's been a good experience, just remember the buyer always has the power so expect losses, returns, etc.
>>49387709
I got fucked a bit of taxes with overall income but it wasn't a big deal. and as the other anon said any expenses like shipping, transport, and buying of goods to sell can be written off as an expense.

>>49388405
Do you get sales in seemingly random bunches?

I've had multiple times where I get no sales for days, and then suddenly I'll have 4-8 sales from different people in a single day.

>>49384598
Amazon is great if you can somehow even list your item and get your items for free or <20c on the dollar. They take massive fees (15%) and everyone expects free shipping vs eBay where it's more common to add shipping, especially these days. The upside is that It'll sell like 5x quicker than anywhere else. However, good luck actually being able to list an item since the vast majority I've found require a manufacturers letter or are restricted for one reason or another. And if you are able to list, but the original brand/manufacturer also sells on Amazon, you're likely to get hit with IP violation flags on your account.

Also good thread for once OP. Nice to see non-stock/crypto threads every now and then.

>>49388672
Not the poster you're responding to but I notice if you don't list anything for a while, sales seem to slow. If you start listing stuff at a higher pace, it'll trigger some older items to sell. This is just anecdotal experience but I've found it to be true over the years. Probably something to do with their algorithm pushing prior listings to the top temporarily when you list new stuff.

>>49384526
>they are not moving as fast as I would have thought
because we are in deflation

>>49388748
I've heard this too, but it isn't always the case for me.

My latest boost I hadn't listed anything for almost a week.

The only things I can think of that changed are

1. just got a bunch of ratings come in putting me at 50 total
2. bought a decent size item as a buyer night before

Apparently some people have the theory that buying something can actually trigger boosts.

https://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/letters/blog.pl?/pl/2019/5/1559072376.html

>>49388829
I've (anecdotally) found that to be true as well. I buy a lot on my seller account. Again, all anecdotal since eBay algorithm is a black box.

I think there's definitely a general activity component. If you use the site/app more in any way, it floats your listings up a bit.

>>49387130
eBay milk the sellers any chance they get

>>49388682
Agree with this but to a large degree applies to eBay too.

It seems to me if you're not getting items for at minimum 50% off what you're selling you're going to get rekt or do a lot of work for peanuts.

Not an expert but going into this I hugely underestimated fees + shipping + supplies + random refunds.

>>49385806
Yep the Ebay fees are ridiculous. They even calculate the final item fee to include the sales tax lmao so you pay them more in fees when you sell to someone in a high sales tax state like Cali.
Good luck selling electronics, you're guaranteed to have someone attempt a return claiming the item doesn't work in an attempt to get the item for free.

>>49384839
I’ve only had a few people try and return items or just generally be a pain in the ass, in a way where they seemed disingenuous.

I usually keep an eye out for ‘collectors edition’ type things, or things with big followings like Star wars. After a while you get an eye for a good price for flipping them. I usually sell militaria, toys, figures, lego etc.

At the moment I have a rolling annual stock. So I hold a set amount of things for a year and then sell. So this year I have stuff from last year that isn’t on the market anymore.

I rarely allow offers or auctions, but those are the two best methods of selling as fast as possible. Promoting items through ebay is helpful as well, but just adds to their overall cut after the sale is done.

I have experimented with the ‘promote’ this item though. I have managed to sell some items at higher than average cost just because it was promoted.

>>49388672
like everything theres cycles, summer sales can be a bit slow, also listing on weekends seem to help

>>49389072
Yea eBay sucks just as bad on fees. It's better for covering shipping costs and allowing you to list almost anything though vs Amazon.

I source mainly by buying truckloads of different merchandise categories. It's basically the "resale pallet" thing but I buy direct full truckload for much better margins. I get the freight/pickup/storage for free/cheap so that helps a bit on the overall cost.

My sales filter is :

1. Buy based on stuff I need first. Dog food/animal feed / building supplies I keep since it greatly reduces my input cost on my farming venture.

2. Market the manifest to friends / coworkers first for stuff they need. Lowest effort and quickest return. No cost either other than COGS.

3. List larger/higher dollar items on FB market and Craigslist first. Add shipping option on FB market because the fees there (only paid when shipping) are much lower like 5%. Only do this with items that are worth meeting up with someone in gas and time (100$+). Only take lower offers if they will come closer to you.

4. For lighter/ high inventory items I check to see if I can list on Amazon first. Light high inventory items mean negligible shipping costs so free shipping doesn't hurt. Very few items make it thru to here because of Amazon's restrictions but if they do, they will sell. Don't sell stuff that's likely to get damaged / returned easily, that'll kill you since you paid the shipping regardless.

5. List on ebay. Lots of items make it past step 4 to step 5 because Amazon is so strict on what you can list due to the original brands selling on there and not wanting reseller competition.

>>49384794
>ebay is just side money for me
I feel like this is just the case now for a lot of online-only side hustles unless you're doing soul-crushing shit like writing SEO copy, or you have crazy amounts of shit to dump on ebay/FB Marketplace

>>49384526
How do ya’ll get your margin up? I’m good at flipping but usually it takes a few weeks until an item sells. The profit is usually only between 20-40% at most

>>49389377
Buy bulk if you have the space/capital. Recommend getting a storage unit to hold inventory if you don't have a large garage.

Buy from flea markets/yard sales if not. Especially on slow days you can really get cheap stuff at flea markets because a lot of vendors just want to make something. I've bought plenty of items 10-40 dollars that I flip on FB market for at least 2x sometimes as much as 5x.

>>49389272
Forgot to add

6. Bring everything else to flea market and sell at cost or a loss if needed. Turnover / space optimization is the name of the game.

>>49389377
>>49389483

This is something that I had not considered. You guys are buying product in bulk and then selling it at a higher price online? The items I have been selling were things that I bought but no longer used / needed.

How does the logic work for purchasing items in bulk? If they can be sold at a higher price wouldn't the current owner just sell those items themselves? Also how do you find people willing to sell things in bulk anyways, and what kind of product do they unload by the pallet?

>>49389483
What kind of items are worth looking after in flea markets?
Seems like i only see worthless garbage being sold by greedy boomers asking for way too much money.

ebay fees are sky high and always side with the buyer and there's also that 3-4 day delay in getting your money when an item sells

>>49389752
I never see the point in asking these kinds of questions in these threads. They never get answered.

>>49389683
It's all about time / space / sales channels. If you don't have a large variety of sales channels / filtering methods, it's hard to move Tons of stuff *just* listing online. For example, a 10 pound item that only sells for 20$ isn't going to make you money online. You need another sales channel. Lots of people try to buy bulk and resell and don't make much because they don't have their full system set up properly IMO. Here's a couple suggestions:

1. For pallets / truckloads ( truckloads are preferable margin wise but you need space and direct access to trucking companies. I personally have a competitive advantage here over most resellers) my hint would be "reverse logistics companies". It took me 2 years to get my source but that's one direction to start looking in. Warning: you need at least 500 sqft of storage space, minimum 15k in capital and a way to arrange the freight before doing this. You'll lose your shirt if you don't have the infrastructure set up. Also stay away from manifests where a few items make up the majority of the value. There's usually at least a 10% defect rate on these sourcing methods and if one of your top items is broken, it'll be a lot harder to make your money back let alone profit. I look for a higher volume of 50-200 dollar items.

2. Scour Craigslist or similar sites for "bulk", "liquidation", "going out of business" etc. You can buy inventory from either businesses shutting down or other people that tried their hand at reselling, decided it wasn't worth their time and just want stuff moved out of their garage. I got a large lot of purses and clothing for 1400 that took a while to move, but I had the space and made about a 3x on over a year or so.

3. Figure out a product category to specialize in and put ads out that you will buy X product. The best would be something that you can add value i.e. buy broken lawnmowers, fix and resell. Obviously you need to know small engine maintenance in this example.

>>49389913
3 (cont). Also on the flip side of this, if you are at a certain scale it can be useful to look for these kinds of buyers to provide liquidity for you. You won't make much margin but you can be guaranteed to move certain things with a text of a phone call.

4. Online auction/liquidation/estate sale sites. Govdeals and hibid are good ones. Make sure it's local and that you bid / win enough to be worth traveling to pick up. Don't use liquidation dot com the pallets are scams/junk. Look mainly for larger lots of stuff that isn't getting bid up into the stratosphere. For example I bought 40 office chairs for ~ 3$ a pop from a government auction, kept 4 and sold the rest for about 20$ per but to just a couple buyers.

>>49384526
My wife, picrel.

>>49390013
That's a man

>>49384526
It's the economy, stupid.

>>49389874
Where do you guys get this information? Clearly you don't sell on eBay. Fees are about the same as they've always been if you have a store. Funds clear in one day and go to your bank the next day.

>>49384526
People just don't have much money to spend right now. You could consider selling things that people really need (instead of electronics), or things that save people money.

>>49389752
Small furniture. Stuff that people can put in an SUV or larger sedan. The larger the furniture the bigger the haircut on the price out In the secondary market. That's why you see lots of free sectional couches but fewer barstools or nice end tables for free - because the large items take up space and are hard to move.

Outdoor furniture like wicker stuff sells well and is light. I buy stuff like this from some Amish and resell for 2-3x locally. The kicker is it's pretty far travel (which is why they don't just go do it themselves) but it's a route I already take regularly in my monthly routine so it works for me .
Another example: I found a cylindrical wicker storage chest / end table piece for 15$ at a flea market that I resold for 100$ on FB market and they came to me so little time or cost.

Baby items that are in good condition. Careful, lots of things like carseats and strollers have expiration dates. Surprisingly stuff like doll houses do fairly well. Plastic toys, not so much unless you get a whole box for super cheap.

Only buy from boomers when it's a slow day at a flea market. They'll be a little more desperate to make something and come down on price

>>49390059
yeah something sells Thursday and you get your money Monday-Wednesday next week, ridiculous.

>>49384839
I’m in the same boat, I’m planning on getting rid of about half my stuff to make room for a music studio in my house, and while a lot of the stuff I’m planning on taking to a Goodwill, some old electronics and musical gear are worth money
I haven’t dealt with eBay in over ten years since I was an accidental Wii scalper, scared to start now due to the horror stories I’ve heard, looking for advice

>>49390059
Good point, now that i think about it the 15% fvf they charge on most items now is similar to the 10% + PayPal fees from before when they did PayPal payments exclusively. I think they cash out daily too which is way better than Amazon.

>>49390244
also
>urm hi there a buyer claims you sent them a box of rocks instead of the item you listed
>so we've decided to pull your funds immediately to refund them
>I know, we take 5-7 days to give you your money but when we need it from you we can take it instantly
>no we didnt ask for proof that theyre telling the truth, buyers never lie.
>yeah we know you have thousands of positive feedbacks and its highly unlikely you would do anything shady but reputation means nothing to us.
>have a nice day

>>49384526
I sold a massive collection of Universal Genève Polerouter vintage watches and parts on ebay that i had collected for about 15 years, mainly bought cheap on ebay before watch collecting became hot and anyone knew what they were.
Made loads of money on them 20x sometimes and luckily never had any problems. though it's such a niche market you usually had a lot of messages so you could feel out the buyers first.
Most expensive one sold for $2,400 and just a buckle sold for $110.
I mixed it up a bit with auctions and did BIN and Best offer.
Difficult t say which worked best, i did the auction on the buckle and never expected it to go over $60.
If i priced it with BIN and BO i would price it quite high that I would accept an offer that wasn't and shitty lowball as long as the customer felt genuine.

I've now got a lot of porn shoot kink wear to sell, mainly swimsuits, bikini, leotards and lycra, a lot of it rare vintage jap, and USA stuff to sell, I should have done it 3 years ago really, but i have a problem with using the models pics for some of them to sell it as i know i would get higher prices.. So i will have to buy a mannequin and a nice background to display.

Oh yeah make sure your photos look good them this is really important.
for my watches i used a nice chess board a velvet matt on top, books in the background etc...

>>49390272
I would say just sell it. If it providing you with no value now then you should take the risk and put it online. You can tell if a buyer is genuine if they have a decent history, or if they send you odd messages such as trying to communicate to you outside of Ebay. I was afraid of that too but all of my sales for electronics and collectibles have been fine. I would say just go for it.

>>49390280
It's not 15%. It's 12.9% with a store. Almost exactly the same as it was before with PayPal.

>>49384526
Ebay has a preference for promoting new sellers. So to be top of search you have to be a new seller or the most established. Shit for those in the middle

Do any of you guys using any sort of advertising either directly or indirectly? I think it may be possible to enhance sales if people just know it exists. I think direct ads would only be effective if you have a lot of product. If it is only a few items it may be more beneficial to just go to a forum or hang out with guys who are into your product.