What should I sell in my auctions? Well this has been the biggest question to answer in this new venture. I have done a bit of research for the answer to this question and have found that there is no specific product. Just about everything is for sale on eBay. First thing is turn to your hobbies and interests. Many sellers think the only way to make great money is to buy hundreds of the latest hot selling items and put up dozens of auctions. The problem is that hundreds of other sellers are doing the same thing. As you gain experience you can move into these markets, but this area is diffucult for the new seller. There are plenty of companies with enough money to import these items directly by the thousands and undersell anyone who buys through a distributor or wholesaler.
Sell something you know something about. Almost everyone collects "something." If you are knowledgeable about a collectible or an art object, then you have the ability to do the research to find the products at prices you can resell.
Another way is to sell items in light bulk. If you bought a large box of videotapes at a garage sale, separate them into categories and sell them as a lot. You will often make more money than selling them individually. This can also work for clothing. There are sellers that buy children's clothing from garage sales, sort it by size and gender and sell it in lots. One of my neighbors does this. She will typically pay between $3 to $6 total for several pieces of clothing that she can get over $20 for on eBay. She does the same thing with closeout dealers. She will buy a pallet load of new children's clothing, sort it by size and sell it in lots of 5 or 10 pieces. Although she might make slightly more selling the pieces individually, this way they sell quicker, the average sale is larger and she turns her inventory over many time more often than she could otherwise.
On eBay seller I know purchases large lots of the hot selling items on eBay (cell phone boosters, pocket knives, etc.) and turns around and sells them in lots of 10 or 25 to other eBayers who want to buy for resale. He recently imported 50,000 disposable cigarette lighters from Korea that he bought for about 11 cents each. He sold them on eBay in lots of 500 for 36 cents each. He made $125 on each lot less his eBay fees. I asked him who was buying the lighters and he said that most of his buyers were flea market, gas station and convenience store owners who sold the lighters over the counter for 99 cents each.
Everyone wants to sell computers, software, movies, DVD's, digital cameras and all sorts of consumer electronics. The sad fact is that SONY, Panasonic, Canon, and others don't sell their latest hottest products to small dealers who work out of their home. (In fact they don't sell anything except through their master distributors.) Even the big stores have trouble getting a large allocation of really hot products.
It is possible to get into this business if you have a lot of market and product knowledge (such as you work in a computer store) and you have the contacts to buy the merchandise. The problem is that you are competing with major retailers, some who sell under their own name and others who sell under blind usernames. One way you can succeed selling consumer electronics is with overstock and closeout merchandise. Millions of dollars worth of consumer electronics, computers and software are sold by closeout dealers every week. The trick is to really know what you are buying and to be able to work on small margins and turn your inventory over often. Unfortunately it takes quite a bit of capital investment to compete in this arena.
There is also a huge market on eBay for "vintage" hi-fi equipment, cameras, old computers and computer hardware and so on. Last year I found an Akai Reel-to-reel tape deck at a garage sale for $25 and the seller threw in 10 reels of tape. I sold the deck on eBay for just under $200 and sold the 10 reels of tape separately in another auction for $30. I met one of eBay's product managers last year at the first eBay Live event in Anaheim. She sells vintage Apple computers, parts and software. She buys almost all of it at garage sales, flea markets and thrift stores.
Drop shipping is another strategy used by new sellers. I hesitate to recommend working with drop shippers because so many of them are not very reliable.
The problem with drop shipping is that your feedback is on the line. If the drop shipper is temporarily out of stock or somehow screws up your order –it is your feedback that will suffer. When you are starting out just one or two negative feedback comments can set your back months. Also the merchandise available from most drop shippers is very common and being sold by hundreds of other sellers.
If you are really strapped for cash, you can use a drop shipper temporarily. As soon as you can afford it however, I would start buying wholesale from direct wholesalers and/or distributors. You will make more money and have greater control over your business.
If you want to know what to sell on eBay, probably the single best piece of advice I have found is to be unique and to specialize. Find a niche market, learn everything about it and work it over and over.
