Ebay selling

[robdedgar]

I have recently sold all of my used cell phone repair parts on Ebay.  Boy, what a headache...good money but headache dealing with cell phone parts.  I have been worried that since Ebay is paying my bills right now that I should continue with this business until I am wealthy from real estate investing. 

What items are you folks having good luck with selling on Ebay?  What do you sell that would not cause someone to repair their item,  ship you back their old item and demand a full refund?  I am looking for  something that is profitable yet fairly inexpensive to purchase.  I have access to drop-shippers if needed but am interested in other methods as well.

Thank you for your advice

Rob

[christopher w]

Just for fun I have started buying and selling stuff on Craigs list. Last week I put my kids trampoline on there at a very reasonable price and I must have had 10 phone calls in 2 hours. Another time a customer of mine had a ton of old firewood that one of his tenants had bought and left when he moved out. I posted on Craigs List that I would be there for 2 hours one day (while I was loading up my Expedition) and anyone could meet me out there and for $50 could have a trunk or truck bed full. It was amazing how many people called. I made $200 plus got a huge load of free firewood, and the customer was thrilled because he did not have to pay someone to haul it away.

I am seeing how much of a bankroll I can build then i am going to buy a cheap car and see how quickly I can flip it. My best friend bought a prelude to drive to and from work in out in Cali ( he drives a Dodge Ram and gas was killing him), well right after he bought it he got transferred to a new branch right up the street from his house. He sold it two weeks later and made $600 profit. I know that is not a lot of money but believe it or not it's fun and SOOOOO easy.

[robdedgar]

All of last year before I found out about Ebay I was using Craigslist to sell my used phones.  I loved Craigslist and constantly had enough customers to justify needing more friends selling me thier old phones.

[Jerald]

this post is a little late , but i'll give my two cents anyways.  I sell musical instruments on ebay.  print the adds off craigslists or any classifeds you have in your town.  look at the completed auctions so you get an idea of what to offer.  buy your gear and list it on ebay.  i list all of my auctions internationally and i start them at a penny with no reserve.  you'll get more bids this way....you're always going to have shipping problems from time to time.  just hold onto some money and you'll be ok.

[ShortSaleArtisan]

Every so often I will buy stuff on sale (like from Slickdeals.net) and flip on eBay. I bought 60 headsets the other day for $100 a piece and sold 'em for $200 a piece, minus e-bay fees, it was a nice $5k profit, but it took like 2 months to sell it plus I was constantly at the PO for more mailing supplies, lol ..

[robdedgar]

Thanks for all of the feedback.  I am currently selling electronics like tvs, computers and laptops through a dropshipping company.

[robdedgar]

Over Easter weekend Ebay brought me over 59,000 dollars in Revenue from my store.  Well Paypal was not happy with thier percentage of profits and restricted my account and wants me to refund all of my customers BECAUSE I use a dropshipper!!!!!   I was told that dropshipping is against Paypal policy and I must be the only violator. 

I have been selling on Ebay since 2007 with good standing and have not had unclosed case resolutions with Paypal during this time.  I have always completed any refferencing tasks asked by me of Paypal in a timely manner and still managed to have a restriction on my account.  I had orders placed right after they were made showing that items were being purchased - and printed out all of the orders made and faxed them to Paypal.

What Paypal wanted me to do was use another funding source to pay for all 100+ items I sold and pay for shipping, provide tracking numbers and wait till they were delivered before lifting the restriction on my account.  Now, I would have loved to do that had I had an extra Mercedes in my garage to pawn at Titlemax.


ARGHHHHHHH!!!!  I hate Paypal

[NJbird_dog]

What on earth did you sell that gave you almost $60k revenue in one weekend, through a drop shipping company, and what was the profit margin?! I realize these are confidential questions, but I figured I'd ask anyway..

[robdedgar]

unlocked apple iphones 3gs 16gb and 32gb, 55 inch flatscreen tvs and very expensive nikon cameras.  I was looking to make between 10-15 thousand dollars in profit.  Now I am contacting an attorney involved with a class action lawsuit against Paypal.  Probably wont get anywhere but it is worth a shot. 

My business and I were about to be completely debt free in less than a week.    I am currently exploring other methods of selling these items.

[REIER]

You actually found a drop ship company that is reputable and allowed you to make a profit? I have to say, that isn't something I see very often.

I read through paypal and didn't see anything in their TOS that states selling via a drop shipper is against their rules. Besides, if anyone should have an issue with it, it should be ebay paypal is just the payment processor.

What I would recommend doing is getting on the phone and calling paypal directly and asking them to point you to the portion of their TOS that states you cannot sell items on ebay as a drop shipper. I'm willing to bet there is another underlying issue here.

Also, NEVER leave large amount of money in your paypal account. They are famous for freezing funds when they see lots of activity in a short period of time with a large sum of money in an account. Also, is your paypal account a personal or business account? If personal, make sure you change it to business. Did any of the buyers of your products possibly put in disputes with paypal?

[robdedgar]

I had a business account with them and already refunded peoples money due to questions about their shipments not being fulfilled

[REIER]

I had a business account with them and already refunded peoples money due to questions about their shipments not being fulfilled

There you go, that will cause them to freeze your account. Like I said, I've never found a reputable drop ship company.

[robdedgar]

The drop shipper was fine. Paypal made me refund everyone because I didn't have means to fulfill orders.

[Jinal]

EBay Selling has become the home based business of choice for tens of thousands of people.To sell on eBay successfully,you need real wholesale suppliers of products to sell.eBay understands this,which is why we are the ONLY Wholesale Directory Publisher of products to sell that is eBay Certified.

[christopher w]

Rob,

You could have found someone to loan you the money to pay for everything up front for a cut of the profits. There are plenty of lenders that will lend on purchase orders. Although in my opinion I think you probably lucked out that Paypal stepped in. Dropshipping is a scam industry. They suck you in with the whole "be a wholesaler" sales pitch and then nothing is ever in stock. I too sell unlocked Iphones for fun and profit and I have never EVER found one of these companies to be reputable. Do you know how hard it is to acquire an unlocked Iphone? For it to be unlocked it has to have the old software or be from another country. The supply of them on the secondary market for new phones is getting smaller and smaller as apple stops shipping them. Once OS 4.0 comes out this summer the supply will shrink even more. So for these companies to be advertising that they have large quantities at affordable prices is a myth.