# Anyone Buy Wholesale and Sell on Ebay?



## Tango (Aug 19, 2002)

For a while now I'v noticed my own trends studying different perspectives and comparing methods with everything homesteading. Though my mother and her family before her were born on a ranch, I was unlucky enough to be born after the "improvement" to the city. So I have to learn a lot - by trail and error mostly. I've noticed when there are trends like, for example, aquaponics now, which s getting to mainstream retail that there are books and there are cheap and expensive kits but there is nothing for the rest of us. I'd like a simple way to build my own first set up. Just the parts or components and a simple step by step instruction manual with photos. I want a set up where I can actually grow shrimp, let's say, and lettuce, not watch a lonely betta and basil. I want to afford it as a first experience not shell out $200 for someone else's work. So this is just an example - I know there are a bunch of youtibe videos and I've watched a bunch but I haven't found one that is speaking in my language. Many take things for granted, like I know what a shut off valve is (I do , these are only examples) and that I own and can use uncommon tools. 

So I have been thinking about wholesale purchasing of parts/ components, not aquaponics which I have never done, but something I have done and that might interest others to do, and sell on Ebay? I would sell a kit, with a manual and photos and all components ready to be put together with some mainly large or heavy components to be purchased locally. I love to buy on ebay because I can get great prices on nice things I wouldn't otherwise be able to afford and I notice that some specialty stores must buy the same stuff on wholesale that is offered on ebay but they charge 2 or 3 times as much- due to their overhead or whatever but it is the same stuff. 

I've sold on Ebay before but not as a business. I've mentioned this to my family and think I can get the start up capital on loan. So I am thinking of starting with two things and if they sell well, expanding in one area toward a manual and complete kit which I am most familiar with. Has Ebay been a financially beneficial experience for anyone here? What are your thoughts?


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## homstdr74 (Jul 4, 2011)

I've never sold anything new on eBay, but I do know one thing---if the customers have no interest in it, you're stuck with it. Look at the market on eBay for the sort of thing you have to sell. Has it sold before? What's the going rate? Look up what the least and the most is that article has sold for, or if it hasn't sold more often than it has. Research it first, and see if doing what you want to do is viable at all.


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## Darren (May 10, 2002)

The great thing about the internet is that whatever your interest is, there're others out there on a website/s talking about it. I'd lurk on those for awhile and see if folks were having problems that your kit would solve.The local school has a an aquaponics setup. Much of it looked like stuff you could buy at Lowes or Home Depot. The pricier stuff like the pumps, etc. probably are on eBay.

At one time I had the opportunity to buy all of the remaining books on converting a car to run on alcohol. After I looked at all the factors, I passed for several reasons. One of which was the price of alcohol and issues with insurance.

You have to figure out what factors will further or hinder your success including if it's such a great idea, why isn't someone else that's been in aquaponics a long time not doing it. The educational market might be more receptive to your kit although ag instructors have the expertise to do their own. 

Find out who the big suppliers to the market are doing. Is there a good source?


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## clovis (May 13, 2002)

We make a good part of our living from sales on ebay.

You would be surprised what sells. We buy a product, a product known to everyone in the US, at the grocery store, and pay full retail on it, and list on ebay. You would be shocked at how common this product is, yet in a nation of 300 million people, there are still folks who pay our asking price, plus shipping...and we get stellar feedback. 

We are not getting rich with this product. I think we clear about $5 per transaction, and sell about one a week. That is $250 in profit per year that I didn't have, and this stuff is crazy easy to sell.

The bottom line: Common items do sell on ebay. Part of the trick is listing the shut off valve in the hydroponics, and not in the plumbing section. 

FWIW, I am strongly against borrowing money for any reason, but that is just an opinion.


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## Tango (Aug 19, 2002)

clovis said:


> The bottom line: Common items do sell on ebay. Part of the trick is listing the shut off valve in the hydroponics, and not in the plumbing section.


Good point, thank you. Btw, I am not going to sell an aquaponic kit or anything related. I don't know understand aquaponics. I used it as an example because as I have been looking for a kit I can learn with for months. I saw the need for something that isn't for children yet wasn't for a hobbyist and wasn't junk and could give the ability to someone like me to piece it together and get to know it really well by tinkering and tweaking. So I got an idea from my searching but I can't actually fill the need for an aquapponics kit like that. I am thinking of something else. 



> FWIW, I am strongly against borrowing money for any reason, but that is just an opinion.


Thank you. Perhaps I will put this off for a while. Have enough depending on my new scrap metal business.


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## pax6 (Feb 7, 2013)

Hi! I don't sell on eBay as a business, I am more of an opportunistic seller but eBay has no doubt been a great tool for me to earn more 

I make most of my $ doing these 2 things...

I buy deeply discounted new seasonal items at the end of season (generally no less than 70% off msrp) and resell at the beginning of the next season (generally for 20-25% off msrp as they are last years style/model). 

I buy from thrift shops & yard sales, dig through free piles, etc and resell. (This is where my smart phone pays for itself)

Good luck!


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## Fire-Man (Apr 30, 2005)

pax6 said:


> Hi! I don't sell on eBay as a business, I am more of an opportunistic seller but eBay has no doubt been a great tool for me to earn more
> 
> I make most of my $ doing these 2 things...
> 
> ...


This info above is a Money Maker. I bought 64 brandnew boxes of Christmas lights Janurary 1st(a couple years ago) at a Auction for almost Nothing. Some of these lights were marked $29.99, alot were $19.99 most were $9.99. I stored them till About Thanksgiving, carried them to the Flea Market, Sold them for Hundreds and Hundred in profit. I too did this with other seasonal items.


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## clovis (May 13, 2002)

Tango said:


> Thank you. Perhaps I will put this off for a while. Have enough depending on my new scrap metal business.


I don't know a thing about your scrap business, but I have sold scrap brass mill ends on ebay. Hobbyists with lathes use them in home shops.

Also, if you are scrapping appliances, the parts off of those can sell well on ebay. Knobs, timers, clocks, doors, hinges, handles, burners, etc.

If it is small enough to ship easily, there is a good chance that it will sell on ebay if you list it as a BIN, and keep relisting it until it sells.


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## Tango (Aug 19, 2002)

Thanks all. I knew people were buying the Christmas lights at clearance this year for purposes other than decoration. I have been trying to create my Christmas light collection (all over again like I am creating my entire life again) and was so happy to see them at Lowe's 50% off beginning January. When I took my couple of LED mini lights to the cashier, she told me they would be 75% off the next day. So I thanked her and put them back. Next morning when I went to get them, all the blue LED mini lights were gone! Over 20 - 30 boxes! So I took some larger LED lights and a couple of mini multi color strands and ended up paying less for five boxes than I would have paid for 3 the day before. But I knew someone had made off with the lot of them to offer for next Christmas  

Thanks for the tip on the scrap clovis. I am unburying the remains of a collector's hoard at my new place. Quite a surprise business that I wouldn't have chosen. But I am all the time picking up interesting rusty things, there is a car I found which is way too much for me to remove, all sorts of stuff, maybe I will find an interesting useful thing and put it up on ebay. I appreciate the help, very gratefully


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## Spinner (Jul 19, 2003)

clovis said:


> .... keep relisting it until it sells.


Don't they charge a listing fee? If you relist over and over wouldn't the listing fees eat up any profit you might make? It's been several years since I've sold on ebay so maybe it's changed.


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## homstdr74 (Jul 4, 2011)

Spinner said:


> Don't they charge a listing fee? If you relist over and over wouldn't the listing fees eat up any profit you might make? It's been several years since I've sold on ebay so maybe it's changed.


The listings up to maybe fifty are free. They charge a higher percentage for the sale now than they did a few years ago.


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## Plow Boy (Jan 1, 2004)

I found with ebay you can list something for a week, get no bids and I think no one wants it. Then I put it on again and the bidding goes up to $20/$30.. It's crazy!! So don't throw that idem away if you non't get a sale, put in on later. I have shelf's in my basement where I store things nice and neat and they all sell sooner or later. Remember, you have the whole world checking ebay, it takes all those people to find it at sometime.


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## pax6 (Feb 7, 2013)

homstdr74 said:


> The listings up to maybe fifty are free. They charge a higher percentage for the sale now than they did a few years ago.


Yes, they got way better with their listing fees. Frequently run deals where you get an insane amount of free listings-like thousands of them.


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## clovis (May 13, 2002)

The free listings sure have helped.

We often use ebay as a crock pot, just relisting as needed, and waiting for it to sell.

Over the summer, I found a high end woodworking vice. There had been tons of auctions for the identical vice, selling in the $40-$50 range. I just listed mine at $89 plus ship, and it took about 40 days for it to sell. 

Some may say that I should have listed it for $40 and sold it sooner...but I preferred to have $89, and just wait a few more days for it to sell.


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## That'll Do Pig (Jan 23, 2014)

Sorry but you're about 10 years too late. The eBay bandwagon is dead and Amazon fired the first shot.


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