Wanting to be an Affiliate on eBay!

25 replies
I would love to do eBay, but maybe like consign for someone else...for example, take someone's product and put it all together on eBay, and then get a commission for the product(s) sold.

Would this be possible? Where would I get started?
#affiliate #auction #consign #ebay #selling #wanting
  • Profile picture of the author koreancowboy
    Man...nothing? Surely someone knows of a programme/sponsor that I can post ads on eBay to sell stuff...
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  • Profile picture of the author Warclaws
    Kinda curious to what your asking. You can drive people to Ebay as a Partner, but I don't think they share profits from sales of individual items or give you a cookie on those visitors thru their shopping experience. I think you might be barking up the wrong tree for $$$.
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  • Profile picture of the author cobra5106
    In my experience digital products are hard to sell on ebay. I did the best with physical products like electronics.
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  • Profile picture of the author koreancowboy
    Cobra: yeah, that's what I'm talking about, selling physical products on eBay.

    Warclaws: more specifically, I'm taking about taking someone's product and setting it up on eBay to sell via auction. I would also handle the shipping and receiving, as well as the customer service aspect (answering questions via email), in exchange for a percentage of the sale price.
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  • Profile picture of the author theemperor
    Check out the JV section - I remember someone offering exactly this opportunity. You sell it for $5 or $10, he ships it and takes $1. I presume he had some kind of upsell in the product to make this worth his while.
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    • Profile picture of the author seanicasia
      Just do a search on Google for dropshipping.

      There're tons of resources where people do dropshipping for you. i.e. you sell their products but your customers only see you as the business owner.

      Do your due diligence though; make sure you don't hook up with the wrong supplier!
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  • Profile picture of the author koreancowboy
    TE: thanks dood, I'll check it out!

    Sean: don't you have to have some capital to put upfront? I literally have no money to do so...
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    • Profile picture of the author jdkesler
      Originally Posted by koreancowboy View Post

      TE: thanks dood, I'll check it out!

      Sean: don't you have to have some capital to put upfront? I literally have no money to do so...

      You may need a few dollars. But, you can do the consignment agent route relatively cheap. You will need to get good at appraising items and knowing what percentage to take for your services.
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  • Profile picture of the author jdkesler
    You can become an Ebay Trading assistant. There is some information about it here: eBay Trading Assistant Program or here: eBay Guides - Are you ready to start an eBay Consignment Store
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  • Profile picture of the author JustinDupre
    It is possible and profitable if you have the right products with the right suppliers. First is to determine what products you will be offering. Next find a reliable supplier that offers the said product at a lower price. You will have to work out the logistics with them though since they will be the one shipping the product to the customer. You will make a profit through your marked up price in ebay.
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  • Profile picture of the author Phobia
    I've recently read a great dropshipping e-book that teaches you how to make money from ordering products direct from manufacturer and selling them at inflated prices for a pretty good margin on ebay. No handling whatsoever
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  • Profile picture of the author TheArticlePros
    Originally Posted by koreancowboy View Post

    I would love to do eBay, but maybe like consign for someone else...for example, take someone's product and put it all together on eBay, and then get a commission for the product(s) sold.

    Would this be possible? Where would I get started?
    I think everyone, including you KC, missed the most obvious thing you could do!

    Your profile says that you live in Arlington, TX. I've never been there, but I've heard of it and I'm fairly certain it's kinda big with lots of people, right?

    Go to Craigs List. Look at two sections:
    1. Stuff For Sale
    2. Services Offered

    Here is what you want to look for:
    In the stuff for sale (that's not the actual name...I'm just pointing you in the general direction) section, compare the listings there with similar listings on eBay. Try and email each person and offering to list their items on eBay for cost + 10% of the sale price. (Math: If they're selling a cell phone for $100, you put it on eBay, have them pay for the seller's fees, and you keep 10% of the final sale price.) You can ship via USPS for dirt cheap and force the buyer to pay for the shipping.

    In the services section, you place your own ad daily or semi-weekly offering to sell other people's junk on eBay. They bring it to you (at your home at first, later on you can rent an office and/or store front) and you list it. You implement a similar pricing structure that I mentioned above.

    You are literally not spending a penny, but you're facilitating the buying and selling of merchandise in the way that you wanted and making a profit from it.

    I think I should erase this and make it a WSO...

    -- j
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    • Profile picture of the author DubDubDubDot
      Originally Posted by JaRyCu View Post

      I think everyone, including you KC, missed the most obvious thing you could do!

      Your profile says that you live in Arlington, TX. I've never been there, but I've heard of it and I'm fairly certain it's kinda big with lots of people, right?

      Go to Craigs List. Look at two sections:
      1. Stuff For Sale
      2. Services Offered

      Here is what you want to look for:
      In the stuff for sale (that's not the actual name...I'm just pointing you in the general direction) section, compare the listings there with similar listings on eBay. Try and email each person and offering to list their items on eBay for cost + 10% of the sale price. (Math: If they're selling a cell phone for $100, you put it on eBay, have them pay for the seller's fees, and you keep 10% of the final sale price.) You can ship via USPS for dirt cheap and force the buyer to pay for the shipping.

      In the services section, you place your own ad daily or semi-weekly offering to sell other people's junk on eBay. They bring it to you (at your home at first, later on you can rent an office and/or store front) and you list it. You implement a similar pricing structure that I mentioned above.

      You are literally not spending a penny, but you're facilitating the buying and selling of merchandise in the way that you wanted and making a profit from it.

      I think I should erase this and make it a WSO...

      -- j
      These businesses already exist. Most towns have one within range. You drop your stuff off at their store and they list it on their eBay account and ship it for you.

      The question is, is 10% of sales worth it to the little guy? You'd need to be doing at least a few thousand in sales per week. That's a pretty tall order.
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      • Profile picture of the author TheArticlePros
        Originally Posted by DubDubDubDot View Post

        These businesses already exist. Most towns have one within range. You drop your stuff off at their store and they list it on their eBay account and ship it for you.

        The question is, is 10% of sales worth it to the little guy? You'd need to be doing at least a few thousand in sales per week. That's a pretty tall order.
        Keep right on with that belief chain while I rack up the sales.

        There is NOTHING you can do in this world that doesn't already exist in some form, yet thousands of people go into business every single day for the first time ever. How man real estate agents are there? insurance agents? doctors? hamburger shops?

        My point is...the fact that someone is competing with you should never be a deterrent to your own success. If there is no competition, why would you want to bother entering that market? No competition means no demand. That's basic economics 101.

        I started an eBay business a few years ago by buying lots of cell phones (not a lot, but literally several lots) for a fairly cheap price. When they came in, I charged and powered them and resold them one-by-one. The first month I made a profit of $300. The next month the profit went up a little more. If I didn't have the attention span of a goldfish, there's no telling what I'd be doing with it now.

        If you have a dream and an idea, put it on paper. Be prepared for 99% of the people you talk to to be negative and tell you that it will not work. The 1% that are left, half of them are crazy and half are smart, and normally you can't tell the difference in them. Work your dream...I did and I ran my own retail store for over 5 years.

        -- j
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        • Originally Posted by JaRyCu View Post

          If you have a dream and an idea, put it on paper. Be prepared for 99% of the people you talk to to be negative and tell you that it will not work. The 1% that are left, half of them are crazy and half are smart, and normally you can't tell the difference in them. Work your dream...I did and I ran my own retail store for over 5 years.
          Oh yeah, the people who tell you it won't work are just trying to bring you down, man!

          Go for your dream! Put all you've got into it! Ignore the fact that a group of VCs invested millions of dollars in this concept and went bust. You're special, man, you can do it where they failed.

          <snort>

          Seriously, look up the history of AuctionDrop.com. They started with four dropoff stores in the San Francisco Bay area and their plan was to go nationwide. They got nearly $10 million in venture capital. And they failed, utterly.

          Why? Because a business where both your revenue (eBay auction proceeds) and your costs (ever-rising eBay fees) are completely unpredictable is a prescription for disaster.

          fLufF
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        • Profile picture of the author koreancowboy
          Originally Posted by JaRyCu View Post

          Keep right on with that belief chain while I rack up the sales.

          There is NOTHING you can do in this world that doesn't already exist in some form, yet thousands of people go into business every single day for the first time ever. How man real estate agents are there? insurance agents? doctors? hamburger shops?

          My point is...the fact that someone is competing with you should never be a deterrent to your own success. If there is no competition, why would you want to bother entering that market? No competition means no demand. That's basic economics 101.

          I started an eBay business a few years ago by buying lots of cell phones (not a lot, but literally several lots) for a fairly cheap price. When they came in, I charged and powered them and resold them one-by-one. The first month I made a profit of $300. The next month the profit went up a little more. If I didn't have the attention span of a goldfish, there's no telling what I'd be doing with it now.

          If you have a dream and an idea, put it on paper. Be prepared for 99% of the people you talk to to be negative and tell you that it will not work. The 1% that are left, half of them are crazy and half are smart, and normally you can't tell the difference in them. Work your dream...I did and I ran my own retail store for over 5 years.

          -- j
          I think that you've figured it out, moreso than most.

          This is what I was thinking about (business model wise)...but instead of buying a bunch of stuff, I would rather have someone ship me their product, then I would market, sell, and ship the product...then we can split the profit.

          It's probably wishful thinking, but I would prefer to do this. I feel like it's something that I would enjoy doing everyday!
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      • Originally Posted by DubDubDubDot View Post

        These businesses already exist. Most towns have one within range. You drop your stuff off at their store and they list it on their eBay account and ship it for you.
        That's right. These stores have been around for over a decade. Well, the ones that survived have been -- lots of eBay dropoff stores went out of business.

        The reason why it doesn't work is simple: high eBay fees, combined with the 40% or so you need to charge to make any money.

        fLufF
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  • Profile picture of the author DubDubDubDot
    Originally Posted by koreancowboy View Post

    I would love to do eBay, but maybe like consign for someone else...for example, take someone's product and put it all together on eBay, and then get a commission for the product(s) sold.

    Would this be possible? Where would I get started?
    There's a lot of this going on, but there's dozens of people competing against each other selling the same product for the same price. Then there's the guy who mysteriously is able to sell it for less than the others, so if there is a sale he gets it..... and there is rarely any sale because the products tend to be lackluster.

    Decent dropshipping offers have a minimum order. So if you are paying $50 for it and they have a $500 minimum order (that figure is often much higher), you'd need to sell 10 products before you can place your dropship order. It would be very difficult to make this work on eBay unless you could get the sticker price way down.
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  • Profile picture of the author hashbury
    JaRyCu knows his stuff. I run several eCommerce sites along with several profitable ebay stores, and what he says is the truth.

    I do believe dropshipping would be a great thing for you to try. However, do not pay one of those sites like doba to get a list of dropshippers. You can go around to your local shops/stores and see if anyone would let you dropship their items for a percentage of the sale. Or see if they would offer you a discount on their merchandise if you brought them in so many sales. I did this with a local golf store a did quite well.

    Even if you are not the lowest price on ebay does not mean you will not get any sales. If you use good keywords within your listings (description and title) you can often get listed above your competition.
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  • Profile picture of the author Recession_Proof
    The easiest way to make money dropshipping is to get with a dropshipper that supplies their resellers with a flat file feed, which is basically a excel or .txt file that has the suppliers product values organized in a way that an e-commerce platform like Amazon.com can read them. Upload like 30,000 items at once in under 5 minutes. From there its just automatic sales. It's easy to clear over $7,300+ a week using a flat file. If you need more info send me a pm.
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    • Profile picture of the author koreancowboy
      Originally Posted by Recession_Proof View Post

      The easiest way to make money dropshipping is to get with a dropshipper that supplies their resellers with a flat file feed, which is basically a excel or .txt file that has the suppliers product values organized in a way that an e-commerce platform like Amazon.com can read them. Upload like 30,000 items at once in under 5 minutes. From there its just automatic sales. It's easy to clear over $7,300+ a week using a flat file. If you need more info send me a pm.
      Thanks for sharing that, I just sent you a PM. Please clarify/point me in the right direction.
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      • Profile picture of the author SecretFuss
        I have a full time store on Ebay. Here's my advise to you--Be very careful.

        Most drop shipping on Ebay is a " pipe-dream. "

        Reason why- Your actual margin of profit drop shipping is next to nothing. You would be responsible for all listing "fees." Most Drop shippers require a minimum of 300+ active listings at all times. If you are lucky you might sell 1 out of 10 items listed. .20-.50 cents per listing adds up fast with hundreds of products. And everyone selling the same products.

        Most important: Drop shippers are also notorious for delayed shipping, and having you promote items that they don't actually have in stock. It is a CS nightmare. And if you start rolling in negative feedback-you're done. And your Paypal account will be done too.

        Paypal also holds your money/profit for the 1st 100 transactions, for up to 21 days. Or until you receive positive feedback from your buyer. There are also selling limits now too. You would have to be in business for awhile before even qualifying for quantity listings.

        If you are suspended: Flying under Ebay's radar after a suspension due to negative feedback is doable with different credentials ( fake Credentials ), but Flying under Paypals radar after a suspension is almost impossible. Ebay owns Paypal.

        I don't always like Paypal, but I think it makes life alot easier if your doing online business. Merchant accounts are very expensive-that is if your approved.

        " Most "of the drop shippers that you see on Ebay that are successful are based in China. The reason why is that the Chinese government subsidizes those Ebay businesses, their Gov. pays all their fees, labor costs and provides free postage to the United States under our international trade agreement. Most of the profit goes straight to their Gov.

        I'm not trying to rain on your idea. Just saying I wouldn't drop ship on Ebay if I were you. You would be much better off selling your own product, or trying to sell for someone else locally if your serious.

        I have been selling on Ebay fulltime for almost 5 years. Thought I would share.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lightlysalted
    You could consider doing drop shipping, this is where you arrange with a third party supplier to offer certain items for sale and then supply these to customers. You don't keep any stock yourself.
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  • Profile picture of the author marco005
    Hi.

    yes you can build a small business on ebay without paypal, I do this know to make first little money in online business.

    But listen,ebay makes a limit, my limit is 25 items in a month, I be 2 years on ebay and have over 25 good feedbacks. So when I get 50 positive feedbacks, than ebay does lift up the limit to 75 items.

    I only make auctions (fix price -only fix price) so I dont must use the criminal pain pal, only bank transfer to my bank account.

    You need a few items who have a good marge, but I see the most distributors (in europe) who makes reseller prices, your profit for the most items is nothing-zero, the only rabate you get is the price without
    VAT- lol they call that; wholesaler prices, what a shame.

    But I have found 4 distributors each has 4-5 products for me I can sell with profit on ebay, I looked always on ebay ended auctions to see how this item is sell on ebay, is it good, is it only fix price, then I sell this item.

    It is a little business, when I sold 4 items fix price with a turnover lets say 500 euros my profit is 35-45 euro per item (shipping,VAT,ebay costs I have include calculate), so I make 80-120$ in month.

    It's little business, but this little money I fly under the ebay radar have no trouble with pain pal and can re invest this money to build my affiliate sites to make more money on a stable affiliate business.

    That is my plan with ebay.

    But one thing I not understand; why big rich online companys like paypal, ebay and so on, do such criminal things to make the life for us "normal folks" so hard, why they do this? Does we have communism or plutocracy or what?
    Only big rich company have all rights but we normal folks not- or what?

    best wishes and happy easter
    marco005
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