eBay selling still a good gig?

[OhioGuy]

Can you still make money selling on eBay? I heard because of their ever increasing rates they charge to sell, it's becoming difficult for a lot of folks to make a living. Is this true, or does it just depend on the profit margins? I'm sure there are lots of variables but overall is it worth the time?

If eBay selling isn't the answer anymore (in general) what are some other ideas I can look into for an online business? I'm just getting ideas and my brain working. I've been working for someone else so long that I'm not up on the latest Internet ways to sell and make money. I don't like those online "scam" type marketing, trickery, shady businesses, I'm looking for an honest way to make a living. I don't have to be rich, just make enough money to put a roof over my head and bread on the table. The main thing for me is I do not want to work for someone else anymore. Getting too old for that. :cool:

Thanks for any input.

[Harold Mansfield]

Can't tell you anything about selling on Ebay in general other than obviously plenty of people are selling products on it, so they must still be making money. The only thing I look at are computer and electronics deals and those are mainly from suppliers and brick and mortar stores with a surplus order or discontinued models. But plenty of new products there too.

I'm an Ebay affiliate and I can tell you that it's not as good as it used to be, but it's still one of the better affiliate programs out there. Nothing online is as good as it used to be and little guys have to work a lot harder to make a living today, than in the past.

As far as searching for an online business, the best advice I can give is stop searching for some arbitrary business. Ecommerce is hard. Very hard. Everything online is hard, time consuming, and changes frequently. With so much to learn from web design to copy writing to marketing to social media to building lists it will take you a long time to get the hang of it, let alone start making a living.

You can't just decide one day you're going to start selling widgets online without knowing anything about widgets, or the web. You will starve and probably never make one sale.

If you are going to do that much work just to learn (which you're going to have to do anyway no matter what you do), you'll have a better chance at success doing something you know because at least you won't have to learn that too and can probably implement some ideas for improvement of whatever good or service it is.

[MyITGuy]

You need some large margins in order to sell on eBay.

I.E. Looking at my recent invoice:
I sold my old Samsung S3 phone for $145. I paid eBay a listing fee of $0.30, Final Value Fee on Product of $14.50 and Final Value Fee on Shipping of $1.00.
PayPal then took their cut at $4.80

This left me with $124.40, meaning your profit margins have to be higher than 15% when you account for your time to store/process/ship the items.

[billbenson]

You know I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it takes at least 5 years (with exceptions of course) to be able to make money at a new business. And the learning curve generally doesn't stop there.

[Blessed]

We used to do quite well selling hunting gear on Ebay - then the fee's kept getting higher, more people started selling stuff and eventually it just wasn't profitable anymore so we don't do it now. Of course we were just doing it as a hobby so I never tried to find suppliers and etc... to make the profit margin better. But what Jeff said is very valid - you've got to make sure you've got enough profit margin in your product to make it worth your while.

I'll also second Harold - don't just sell any widget, sell something you know - you'll do better.

[OhioGuy]

I'd rather have a brick and mortar to be honest. I don't want to spend every second of my day in front of a computer. I think I'd rather have a business I could drive to each morning, unlock the door and open up shop in the retail business. Beyond that I am doing my homework for what market (age groups) to sell to and what types of products sell for that specific target market.

My eBay question was answered. Thank you. :)

[Harold Mansfield]

Great, You now know what you don't want to do and what you really want to do. Now take it step further and determine what you want to sell. What are you interested in? What products do you know the most about?

Retail ain't easy either, but it's easier if you know the product because then you also probably know the demographic of the people who use that product. Now you've killed a lot of birds and your learning curve, and insight into how to market and advertise it gets easier because you know how to talk to your target demographic. After that determine if there's a market for it, and if you can capitalize on it.

[RKZENITH]

Agreed that you need at least a 15% margin just to break even. Although my annual numbers have gone up, this year's shift in focus to auctions really stunted my growth. When eBay had free fixed listings, it was common to have to relist several times, so I've been wary of paying for said listings individually or through a store subscription. Another point you need to keep in mind is that Paypal's extending their rental period from 45 days to 6 months effective November 17th. That and it's very likely the 90 day returns eBay says are optional now stand a pretty good chance of becoming mandatory in the 2015 spring update.

Sadly, it's not like there are many viable alternatives. They all have something seriously wrong with them. Amazon's fees are even higher and they shortchange you on shipping vouchers. SquareMarket, StorEnvy, eCrater, etc only offer per-order flat shipping charges with no regional controls. StorEnvy, eCrater, Bonanza, etc have only Paypal as an alternative to a merchant account. iOffer's site is so slow as to be useless, WebStore is a flippin' ghost town, and 11main requires an invite/approval just to shop. eBay, for all of its faults, is still the least terrible of the lot.