Is Ebay Selling Dead Or Not ?

If a buyer is on ebay specifically looking for a branded product then they will search by brand name. Once they get there they will find many many sellers all competing with one another.

If you decide to enter this market you have less of a chance of success unless you are able to source your branded goods very very cheaply.

The other problem you will face as a buyer from china is to spot the 'fakes'. The majority of suppliers sell 'fake' branded products and that will not do your credibility on ebay any good.

Yes there are buyers searching for branded goods and there are many sellers on ebay to sell the goods to them. However, competition is tough and being able to source real branded material at a good price is difficult.

Now if you change your focus and concentrate on markets where branded goods do not hold much importance then you have a good chance of buying PLR products and make a very healthy profit.

Like i said in my post above the best market for this is the Health and Beauty niche or the embarrasing products niche.

Hope that helps.

Riz

Steve - agree 100% - research is the key. Don't get me wrong you should always be doing some R&D and testing but I like to sell something I KNOW is going to sell...The beauty of Ebay is you CAN find that out!!! Do your research, look at what is selling, find the profitable items...it's not that hard


Simon

Years ago I used to sell my paintings on Ebay but it has been a "dead calm" for last two years. It was quite profitable but those days are over.

Perfectly said!
I couldn't agree much more with this.
And I forgot to add too that I believe the listing fees just went up, not so sure on that though. And the reason why they hold the paypal money is because they say it's just to increase safety or whatever...

Ghetto..yes it is still possible to make money..and lots of it on ebay importing from china. This year on ebay i've made up to $120 day net from dropshipping a china made product. I found that selling this product at $199 free shipping gives me about $60 net profit each sold (i buy it for about $120).

The last 2 years, i've sold products..all from china..where i routinely had $300 days, $800 days, $50 days, and even $0 days...and my biggest day was about $1,200..these are all net profit figures...after all expenses.

During these past few years of importing from china, i learned that you can literally buy any major product from china, however many of them are "knock-offs" and you don't want to deal with these on ebay because they will shut your auction down and maybe cancel your account.

I didn't make all of my money from china products...I made alot of my money from 1 website called frys.com. I sold hard drives and refurbished cappuccino (i think i spelled that wrong..lol) machines.

I made between $500 and $3500 month from only using frys.com....the cappuccino (?) machines sold like crazy!!!..but i found out that the particular brand i was selling had major problems.

Those refurbished machines didn't last beyond a month, it seemed...i was making about $40-70 net per machine!!

Anyway...it is still possible....i do my research 2 ways

First......I don't sell a product unless there is a huge demand for it...what do i mean by huge?

Well, when you search completed listings..a huge market will have about 90-95% green (sold)....and there will be multiple items sold in a 24 hour period..for example....if there are 50 items listed in the completed screen and 45 are green..then you would like to see that, maybe 15 or more were sold on Feb. 12th, 2010..get it?...or 100 items were sold over a 2-day period (this is not mandatory, but is a great sign of a profitable market), especially if it's a mon, tues, wed, or thurs.

I, then, find a resource for the product.

I've left out some steps, but in general this is what i do..very simple..yet very profitable for me!

You also have to be able to analyze those "green completed markets" because you get people who don't pay..usually "0" feedback people, and some will relist that paid item and when it sells again..it's shown as 2 sells in ebay when actually it was 1

There are markets that are swarming with these types of "buyers"..i've been thru it several times...maybe i'll do a wso on this........



Second research method........ I start with a popular product and i make sure i have a resource for it and then i check ebay to see if it sells well..calculate if it can be profitable..buy low sell for profit......

Check the "green" status of the market..and take action

That's generally it..how i've been able to easily generate $50, $300, $800, and over $1000 net profit days from ebay.

Now some markets are crawling with scams on many different levels..like the cell phone market (but there is a way to get into this market selling a legitimate phone and rake in the cash..i've been doing it!) and video game consoles.

but, i will say this..agood way to make money from the video game market is not by selling the consoles themselves (per se)

I found that the xbox 360 has a particular common problem (actually built in by microsoft as many say)..not by playing it, but by my research

it's called the "3 rings of death" or "red rings of death"...on and on

well, there are people who love their 360 soooo much, that they will pay whatever to fix this or give you their "broken" xbox or at least sell it to you for cheap

Most people are lazy and don't want to go thru the trouble of fixing it (oh yes..did i mention it's very fixable?) or think that it's beyond repair

They'll pay you to do it or a guide (hint, hint)..check clickbank..there are at least 2 xbox 360 repair guides that have been selling well

Anyway, I hope you benefit from this..Ghetto..and anyone else reading.

eric

eBay isn't dead, but its not nearly as easy or rewarding as it once was. Now its all about sourcing. You can't just go to some middlemen (and alibaba sucks, and is mostly middlemen) and buy in bulk and hope to make a profit, because the amount of sellers are huge. Chances are, someone else is buying in bulk from that same supplier and if they get each item, they have no problems with selling something for just a $1.00 profit and enough to cover eBays high fee's. It isn't too uncommon for me to buy in bulk during a sale at a retail store and sell it on eBay.

eBay is simply getting too expensive, eBay is now taking between 9 and 12 percent of a listings sold price. I haven't seen any good advertising by the company in a while either. Thats a huge cut for most people, thats why everyone is jumping ship and making their own ecommerce website and sending their ebay traffic to it.

I went to eBay live 2008, and it was horrible, and full of tension. Everyone who made their living online was pissed. Everyone was pissed about the DSR system, the feedback system, etc. One of the confrences was nearly empty. Some guy stood up and yelled at eBay and said that nobody else was going to come because they were ran out of business by eBays system and pricing.

Every serious eBay seller clinges onto the hope that Google is going to come in and blow eBay out of the water.

eBay isn't impossible to make money from, you just have to do some great research (terapeak) make great listing templates that are attractive, cross promote other similar items, and make a good SEO title. You also need to find products that are actually in demand. No sense in putting something up on eBay that nobody wants.

Here's a tip for building repeat business:

One of the things that always amazes me is how eBay sellers waste the opportunity to sell to me after the sale.

This month alone I have purchased 6 products on eBay. Only one was from an individual looking to unload something that was collecting dust in his garage. All of the other items were from repeat sellers; two were from Power Sellers.

Not one of them put anything inside the box other than the product.

• No Thank You Note with an offer to join their list.

• No sell sheet or catalog showcasing their other products

• No discount coupon for a future purchase

• No link to their online store

In short -- NOTHING to build continuity and keep their brand on my radar. What a waste!

Hi, I do sell quite a few things on Ebay every week which helps. I don't however use this as my primary source of income, not that there's anything wrong in that. Ebay has always been good for me although it lacks the impact it did 5yrs ago.

Regards. Dherm

On eBay, a niche is a pre-established market of a certian product. Like most markets, products are created, thus new niches are created. Sometimes, this is a whole new trend, and sometimes this is an innovated product.

For example, this year in clothing, Pea-Cocking will become very popular. Very bright multi-colored clothing. This is a trend, and you can prepare yourself by purchasing bulk amounts of this style clothing or even producing your own.

An example of an innovated product would be the jump from:

Heres one Niche



Which then turned into



Which is now



Of course, you could sell "Watches" but you could also go the micro-niche route and sell and focus only on "Digital Watches" or focus only on "Techy LED Watches" or you could sell old "Antique Pocket Watches"

So, all Niches aren't tapped, that would be impossible, as each day more are being made and some are being faded out.

Not on eBay. Selling in Bulk actually kind of sucks, but buying in Bulk on eBay is awesome because of this.

It's just like any other saturated market, you need a rare and definite value proposition. Whether that's selling in bulk, fixing up old stuff, or going really niche... but it's not going to work if you're just like the other sellers.

Ebay is still profitable and there are plenty of items that can be acquired for next to nothing other than your time to get them. Many of these items would depend upon your location and proximity to certain areas of the U.S. These items won't replace your fulltime job but could get you some extra cash to pay bills.