has anyone made money with eBay?

I suggest you contact John Thornhill. He's a very good marketer and has been an expert seller on Ebay. He has recently promoted a Ebay marketing product, I think it was on JVZoo. That would be a good place to start.

http://www.johnthornhill.com/blog/

Ebay or EPN?

I've been using EPN for years, and I am slowly ditching it

Depends on how you define "making money."

I've been using a form of arbitrage for years, and although the opportunities can be sporadic, the profit margins are excellent.

I've mentioned before that my wife's hobby is entering online contests and sweeps. If she wins something we want, we keep it. (I'm typing this on one of those prizes.)

She also wins stuff that we can't or won't use, things like videos, cell phones, tickets to events, clothing, etc. These are the items I put on eBay. The only expenses are the listing/selling fee and shipping (I almost always offer free shipping).

Sometimes the profit is only a few dollars, which doesn't seem like much (see Chris Ba's interesting thread on thinking too small). Other times, like the time she won a pair of Disney World tickets we couldn't use, netted us a couple of hundred dollars.

Like I said earlier, the profits can be sporadic, but you can't beat the margins.

Making money with eBay is tough and competitive but if you know the tricks I believe it is not that difficult. In fact eBay is considered the first step before launching your own drop shipping business.

Yes you can make money on eBay or any site by buying products at cheaper price and selling it in higher price. You will just need a legitimate supplier.
After you have the list of suppliers you can starting buying products from the supplier and selling the products at eBay, Amazon or Craigslist.

Definitely made $5.8k clearing my garage without Amazo / eBay arbitrage, topping it up.

You got to master the art of picking. The holy grail of making money on ebay.

I had also made money on ebay but for very short time, there are many ways you can make money on ebay depend on your skill etc

I still use e-bay to make money. However, they are still joined at the hip to pay pal which is a pain. Expect some delays in getting your money. Also, your account can get frozen if your volume jumps. They are like a very skittish pony. That means they can bump you for no reason.

Ebay in a nutshell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOVf4anVTwI

My brother and I make money on eBay daily by selling used auto parts. The return on investment can go as high as 10x the amount, the lowest earning car would bring at least 2x the investment.

how to make hundreds of dollars on eBay in 37 minutes


SEPTEMBER 17TH, 2009---Jim Griffith, from eBay University


Use lots of really good pictures
Write complete descriptions and think about potential buyers
Do your research
Time your listing right and avoid reserve prices
Choose what to sell carefully

1. Use lots of really good pictures

--Quality: They use really good pictures not blurry and not old-looking. They don't have to be perfect, but should show NOT ONLY the item BUT ALSO that the item lives in a nice environment. I don't care how much of a deal it is Im not buying a designer sweater that's being photographed in a coal plant.

--Quantity: They use lots of pictures. If you're buying something from an unknown eBay seller, your confidence goes up with the number of real photos of the item in question. One reader told us her secret was LOTS of pictures. Use an outside app to manage listings (I use Garage Sale) and to upload photos to your own server so you dont have to pay eBays prices for extra photos.

2. Write complete descriptions and think about potential buyers

Completeness: Fill out all the fields in your listing, and make sure your textual description gives a LOT of information about the item. Its just stupid not to, and yet SO many sellers don't do this. Laziness I guess? Whatever the reason, don't be like them.Think like your buyer if you dropping $200 for a rare book on eBay, I want to know EVERY detail about it. I don't care how mundane or even repetitive it is, I want every reason to have faith that my $200 will be well spent.

Search optimization: Use targeted keywords in your item title AND description. You dont have to be a tech wizard for this. Its as simple as asking yourself, what would a potential buyer for this item type into the search box? The more closely your description matches that search query, the more visible your products will be. If its a brand name thing, then people will probably be typing in the brand, not just the name of the item itself, so make sure to include the brand eg. [pottery barn queen duvet] versus [queen duvet]. One reader told us Don't misspell brand names who's searching for Calvin Klein, anyway? Yeah, its obvious. But people still get it wrong.

3. Do your research

Is there a market for your item? Taking 5 minutes to Google your item and learn its true market value on eBay AND on a bunch of other e-commerce sites helps you to sell it more competitively because youll find out whether or not theres a market for your item, youll see the right price, and youll figure out the right search keywords to write into your listing.

4. Time your listing right and avoid reserve prices

One reader gave us a good tip for timing your listing: Use the 10 day listing starting on a Thursday, that gives you two full weekends of eyeballs. Weekends typically have the highest traffic.
This same seller told us even more about reserve pricing: 99.999% of the time I never use a reserve price. My goal is to make as much money as I can, so I reduce the amount of upfront money I have to pay. I also do this by using a low starting price of $0.99. This keeps me competitive with everyone. I would rather get little for it than have it sit on my shelf and have it COSTING me money.

5. Choose what to sell carefully

The survey respondent who made the most money off of eBay ($50k+ in the past 12 months) gave us an interesting tip on what to sell: Find a niche market, and go deep (do you have a hobby if so, can you sell supplies for it? If selling hobby supplies, make sure your customer has purchased everything necessary for a successful project (i.e. provide fantastic customer svc/support. Selling irregulars/seconds can be lucrative.
This was also one of the key takeaways from my interview with eBays Jim Griffith. Keep reading for more on this point.




Here are the 6 exact steps to sell your first item on eBay in just 37 minutes:

Sign up for an eBay account (2 min)
Find something to sell (2 min)
Research the product and the price (5 min)
Market your eBay listing (15 min)
List your first item on eBay! (5 min)
Fulfil your eBay sale (8 min)
Step 1: Sign up for an eBay account

Almost everyone has something lying around for eBay. Last month, for example, Ramit sold his broken laptop (the one he ruined with a latte, of all things) for $661. (In fact, he used an assistant to do the market research, write the eBay page, and ship it, but thats a story for another time).

Apparently, someone out there knew how to fix it. This highlights one of the greatest things about eBay its wide reach means that youre likely to find a buyer for almost anything that you have to sell. While most people dont have tons of spare high-value electronics laying around, you probably do have something else. As for me, I had these too-big shoes in my closet that Id never worn.

Remember, the point of this post to understand and optimize the process, so lets use the shoes as an example.

Time taken: 2 min

Step 3: Research the product and the price

eBay makes this really easy. I chose to offer free shipping because this attracts more buyers. I bundled the estimated shipping cost into the price of the item.

Time taken: 5 min

Step 4: Market your eBay listing

Since I already did the research, this was the easy part. I took photos and then determined the title and description copy from the other sites I saw that were selling this product, making sure to highlight the major distinction (its color) along with the standard brand distinction.

I took the reader tip and decided to list on a Thursday, for a 10-day auction to get in two weekends’ worth of eyeballs.

Here’s what he did

-Borrowed the title and best descriptions from the other sites I saw. (5 min)
-Took photos and did some minor editing. (10 min)
Note: when Ramit was trying to sell off his broken laptop, he used brand identification (it was an Apple Macbook), photos of the actual item being sold, and added an honest, thorough description – ‘this laptop has some damage, but it’s definitely reparable and it’s a steal if you know how.’ The brand name draws in lots of viewers, and the honest, thorough description targets the listing to just the right person who’ll end up loving the purchase.

Time taken: 15 min

Step 6: Fulfil your eBay sale

Its really, really important to get those good seller ratings, even if youre not quitting your day job. Fulfillment means being a reliable seller, packager, and shipper, and getting the item to your buyer ASAP.

Time taken: 8 min

Total time taken: 37 min

Yes but not lately. It's very competitive but obviously there are ways to succeed consistently.