A few years ago my wife and I had a full-time business on eBay selling clothes and…(wait for it)…women’s purses and handbags.
Stop laughing.
Don’t judge me.
Why are you still laughing?
Anyway, I quickly learned that you can actually make some decent money selling stuff online. So if you’re in the midst of a hot summer and are having trouble finding a job, just create your own and start selling stuff!
Here are 10 tips to get you started…
- Start With What You Already Have – Go through your room, closet, garage, attic, basement, etc and find anything that you can sell. Don’t try to sell crap like the macaroni necklace you made for Mother’s Day 1993. Find quality items that you would be willing to buy yourself.
- Learn The System – The big places to buy and sell online are eBay and Craigslist. If you haven’t already, take the time to familiarize yourself with how each site works on both the buying and selling end of things.
- Sell What You Know – With our business, I didn’t know or care about women’s purses…but thankfully my wife knew something about them. People want to buy items from someone who is knowledgeable about the product, and you’ll have more fun if you’re selling something you love.
- Buy Low, Sell High – Business 101. Repeat this mantra to yourself every time you buy something and every time you sell something. Find items where there is a big gap between what you can buy it for and what you can sell it for.
- Know Your Actual Profit - A lot of people lose money selling because they don’t figure in their actual costs. If you buy something for $10 and sell it online for $15, most people assume they made $5 profit. But that may not be the case. Take eBay for example. You have a listing fee, a final value fee, and a PayPal fee, so after all that, you may be close to breaking even. Thankfully you can sell on Craigslist for free.
- Do Your Research – Go on eBay and search for the item you want to sell, then look up the completed listings. This will show you how many have sold and what prices they are selling for. You can also see how many of the same item are currently for sale. Do your research before you try selling an item.
- Find A Source – One of the biggest challenges with a long term online business is finding a steady stream of product to sell. We used to buy product from wholesalers, outlet stores, and a lot of stuff just came from sale racks in stores! If you find a source that you can “buy low and sell high”, you’ve hit the jackpot.
- Pay Cash – We made the mistake of buying lots of product on credit cards, then paying them off as we sold the product. But what happens when you lose money on a sale or if the item just doesn’t sell at all? When you buy something to sell, pay cash for it.
- Take Pretty Pictures – In the world of online selling, pictures are worth a thousand words. Take pretty, sharp pictures so the buyer has confidence in purchasing that item from you.
- Understand Supply & Demand – When the Nintendo Wii was first released, I was fortunate enough to buy two of them at a Wal-Mart and then sold them on Craigslist for $100+ profit each. Why? It was simple supply and demand. Supply was low, demand was high, so there was a lot of room to make money on the item. Beware that the opposite is true. If supply is high and demand is low, you can easily lose money.
One final piece of wisdom…if you’re going to sell stuff, make sure your parents are involved so you don’t have some weirdo showing up at your house. I don’t want Chris Hanson and Dateline to blame BrokePiggy for something!
YOUR 2 CENTS – What advice do you have for selling stuff online? What other questions do you have about selling stuff online?
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