Selling on E-Bay
My very first attempt at making money online was to try selling a few second-hand items that I no longer wanted on a website called E-Bay. This was fine, although my items did not sell for a very good price. However, I did make some money out of this process.
Later on I discovered a Chinese website called aliexpress. This website allows you to import large quantities of items very cheaply direct from China including free postage. Don't worry this website is in English as I don't know a word of Chinese either. So, me thinks I will import a hundred un-branded iphone phone cases for fifty pounds including free postage. So, I waited a couple of weeks and sure enough all my iphone cases arrived in perfect condition and in a variety of different colours. So, I created what I thought were some impressive E-Bay adverts and put the iphone cases up for sale on E-Bay. This was great except only a couple of the iphone cases actually sold on E-bay. I later discovered that every man, woman and his dog was selling iphone Cases on E-Bay so very few people even viewed my E-Bay adverts let alone actually buy some of my iphone Cases.
So, I finally worked out that in order to sell items for a decent price on e-bay we first need to check on e-bay to see how many other people are selling the same item. The fewer sellers there are for an item the better the selling price you can get on E-Bay for that item. This is known as a niche product. So, I started selling niche products on E-Bay. These products do not sell very often, but when they do sell they go for a nice profit each time.
Note, that once we have found a niche product which we can sell for a profit; we will also want to know how fast it will sell? Of course there is no absolute guarantee it will sell at all, even with millions of potential buyers online. However, if we check the sales rank by looking at the bottom of the item's listing on amazon we can get a good idea of how long this item will take to sell; the lower the sales rank the quicker it is likely to sell. We can also look at the first few buy it now listings on E-Bay for our item and see how many of the item the top sellers have sold.
By this time I was being kept up half the night sending out E-Bay orders by myself. It was then that I discovered that you can also sell your own items on a website called Amazon. Not, only could you sell your own items on Amazon, but Amazon where offering you two methods of fulfillment (Picking and posting the product). There is 1) Seller fulfillment - like e-bay you do everything including posting the items yourself and 2) Amazon fulfillment, with Amazon fulfillment you log all your items on Amazon's seller central website and then you put all your items in a big box and send it using a special deal with ups to an amazon fulfillment centre. Amazon staff then place your items in the correct place in the fulfillment centre and when one of your items sells Amazon Staff retrieve your item and send it to the customer. Each time you sell an item Amazon pays you minus it's commission for the sale. This was fantastic, except the Amazon fees soon start to mount up, as Amazon take a big percentage of the sales money for offering this service.
Also, note that I soon learned that it was not worth selling DVD's or BluRay's for less than about 1.99 pounds sterling on E-bay or Amazon; as otherwise once e-bay paypal/Amazon fees and postage and packaging has been taken into account; you will have no money left from the sale.
My very first attempt at making money online was to try selling a few second-hand items that I no longer wanted on a website called E-Bay. This was fine, although my items did not sell for a very good price. However, I did make some money out of this process.
Later on I discovered a Chinese website called aliexpress. This website allows you to import large quantities of items very cheaply direct from China including free postage. Don't worry this website is in English as I don't know a word of Chinese either. So, me thinks I will import a hundred un-branded iphone phone cases for fifty pounds including free postage. So, I waited a couple of weeks and sure enough all my iphone cases arrived in perfect condition and in a variety of different colours. So, I created what I thought were some impressive E-Bay adverts and put the iphone cases up for sale on E-Bay. This was great except only a couple of the iphone cases actually sold on E-bay. I later discovered that every man, woman and his dog was selling iphone Cases on E-Bay so very few people even viewed my E-Bay adverts let alone actually buy some of my iphone Cases.
So, I finally worked out that in order to sell items for a decent price on e-bay we first need to check on e-bay to see how many other people are selling the same item. The fewer sellers there are for an item the better the selling price you can get on E-Bay for that item. This is known as a niche product. So, I started selling niche products on E-Bay. These products do not sell very often, but when they do sell they go for a nice profit each time.
Note, that once we have found a niche product which we can sell for a profit; we will also want to know how fast it will sell? Of course there is no absolute guarantee it will sell at all, even with millions of potential buyers online. However, if we check the sales rank by looking at the bottom of the item's listing on amazon we can get a good idea of how long this item will take to sell; the lower the sales rank the quicker it is likely to sell. We can also look at the first few buy it now listings on E-Bay for our item and see how many of the item the top sellers have sold.
By this time I was being kept up half the night sending out E-Bay orders by myself. It was then that I discovered that you can also sell your own items on a website called Amazon. Not, only could you sell your own items on Amazon, but Amazon where offering you two methods of fulfillment (Picking and posting the product). There is 1) Seller fulfillment - like e-bay you do everything including posting the items yourself and 2) Amazon fulfillment, with Amazon fulfillment you log all your items on Amazon's seller central website and then you put all your items in a big box and send it using a special deal with ups to an amazon fulfillment centre. Amazon staff then place your items in the correct place in the fulfillment centre and when one of your items sells Amazon Staff retrieve your item and send it to the customer. Each time you sell an item Amazon pays you minus it's commission for the sale. This was fantastic, except the Amazon fees soon start to mount up, as Amazon take a big percentage of the sales money for offering this service.
Also, note that I soon learned that it was not worth selling DVD's or BluRay's for less than about 1.99 pounds sterling on E-bay or Amazon; as otherwise once e-bay paypal/Amazon fees and postage and packaging has been taken into account; you will have no money left from the sale.