Ebay Sales August 2016

up front....my comments are just to help you. I am sure you are a competent Ebay person, but these are just some observations.

You are putting an awful lot of time in and making basically very little in the end for your effort. I sell on Ebay, so I know how much of a PITA it is to list etc. Here are a couple things that will help you going forward.

1. You are selling alot of small ticket items. Yes, I know, don't throw something away or scrap if worth more...UNLESS, the time and effort to sell for the slightly higher price point ends up making the "worth" or the few extra bucks essentially nothing.
SOLUTION: put more of your smalls together if you have similar or keep them unless you have several like items and sell as a group. (like those learning cartridges)
2. From some of the items, you seem to be paying alot vs the resale values (the cartridge I mentioned, you paid $2 and sold for a whole $4...sounds good, but then you gave FREE SHIPPING which killed all profits)
SOLUTION: look for higher priced (resale value) items to buy at cheap prices. Buy all those small items in bulk for REALLY cheap prices (combine 10 items that would have been $20 and offer $10 for the lot...I do this all the time). KNOW your resale or pull it up before you pay for the items. I use my cell phone ALL the time to check ebay solds...I just do it without attracting too much attention.
3. FREE SHIPPING...seriously, free shipping on a $4 item??? You will never make any money doing that.
SOLUTION: only offer free sipping on items at a certain pricepoint or NOT AT ALL (that is my motto...you get the deal on the item, you pay the shipping, I am NOT AMAZON). I have NEVER offered free shipping on any item. #2 ADD A HANDLING fee of $1-2 to pay for your shipping supplies

I am not telling you how to do your business, but I AM suggesting that you change the way you do your business. The only way you can up the $$$ made is to cut the costs associated with selling. Well you can't cut Ebay or PayPal fees...but you CAN cut your shipping fees and mitigate your shipping supply costs with a handling fee. There is a reason most companies have those in the small print. Finally, reselling and making $1/item is not worth ANYONES time. You need to find higher priced items to resell (for the same amount of time it takes to list the cheap item, you can list a more expensive one) or combine the smalls into a single listing.

I personally, do not buy anything I can't check pricing or KNOW pricing on (ie I know the market I buy and sell in and stay out of most others unless the deal is SO good or the gamble is one I can swallow if it goes south). I do not sell ( in general) items under $10. I NEVER EVER offer free shipping and charge a $1-2 handling fee on everything. If I cannot sell it, it goes to goodwill or whatever and I get a tax writeoff for the value of the item (the $4 cartridge is a $4 writeoff even if I paid .50). I sell TONS locally, not on Ebay through Facebook yard sale groups and even craigslist at times....and I make FAR more money that way (I also do not deliver, you can come get it).

Again, just some suggestions. I know you spent several hours doing all that stuff to sell those 28 odd items and you walked out with maybe $100? I just think your time could have been spent better making more money...unless those youtube videos are KILLING it with the advertising revenue. OH another hint on that for you....make your own website page with all your videos and embed them. Send people there...you can get the youtube ad money AND put some ads on your site to make alot more money for the same view of the video.

well I flip bikes and big kids items locally....min I make on a bike is $20 (and I only buy them if I do not have to do ANYTHING to them, unless a higher end bike) and I can make up to $150 on one bike. Kids items like playsets or toyboxes I make $20-70 each. Again I sell these all through Facebook yard sale groups...typically same or next couple of days. For instance I bought stuff last Sat and have sold it all by Tue. I also carry a lope with me and pick up .925 silver stuff and even some gold stuff for nothing. I bought 2 rings for $2 the other day...they are worth $6 in scrap...I will put them in my pile and do one trip to my jeweler to scrap them at some point.

Basically, if I can't at LEAST double my money, then I move on.

I guess figure out what you are seeing the most of at yard sales and then quickly become very educated on it. Then you can scoop all of it up or advertise you buy that stuff. There is a guy here that just does golf clubs...and there are clubs all the time at yard sales here. I did broken cell phones for a period of time...but I needed to have a place where people could just come to...driving was killing the profits.

you can also make more money on youtube by titling your videos something like "Yard Sale finds - $20 turned into $150 in 4 DAYS!!!" or whatever. Again, your own site, embedded videos and refer people to them...you get 10X the $$$....just put adsense or some amazon stuff on there surrounding your video. You aren't going to get rich, but it ads up for really very little work.