Originally Posted by
Repurposer
Years ago pretty much anything that was listed sold on
Ebay and people knew they had to include shipping in their costs. Now with the saturation of just about everything being sold on the site and those who ship for free how can there be a profit in this especially if the item sold for only 2 bucks. Out of that comes a listing fee and commission for Ebay.
I appologise for high jacking your thread, to answer your question I'm not sure how you would go about making a profit selling on ebay, especially since you would have to compete with the Chinese who almost exclusivly offer free shipping.
I recently purchased a rotary drum switch, which is used to reverse the direction of an electric motor, the switch sold for $15.00 with free shipping. A four pound package shipped from China free, that same package would have sost me $20.00 or more just to ship it from Canada to the USA go figure that one out.
Not more than a decade ago people from the US purchased truck loads of junk from China sold at cost, the profit was made from the change left over on the shipping charges the trick was to sell in voloume.
If you can find a vendor willing to drop ship, you stand a chance of making a profit problem is finding a reliable shipper who ships on time remeber your reputation is at stake not theirs.
I"ll lay out a plan that I had mapped out, found what I beleive was a reliable shipper located in China who sold induction furnaces and cnc stuff, my contact spoke perfect english and had a good grasp on brokerage. I contacted a local broker in my own coutry, the plan was to have all this paper work prepaid and made out before shipping to the customer which would have been direct to the customer no duty required on the buyers end as this would have already been looked after with my borker.
On paper it was a beautiful plan, went so far as to get my import / export number along with my tax number, then decided to abandon the project. My decision was not based on distrust of my Chinese contact but rather that of paypal. I knew that if I were to proceed with this business venture it would soon fail with the first chargeback.
I'm well aware of the opertunitys out there and wish anyone taking advanatge of them the best of luck.
As for me I want to see the whites of my customers eyes and cash.
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