A Practical Walk

I recieved a comment asking to hear more about selling on ebay, so here’s an ebay post! I’m a beginner at this (as in my very first listing was posted only 80 days ago) so my advice is limited, but my 2 biggest pieces of advice would be:

• Learn from others.
• Start small and work your way up.

Learn from others! I’m fortunate to have a family member who has successfully been selling on ebay for years now, and she’s been my guide through this process. She’s always willing to answer my questions or give advice and gets excited for me when I sell a big ticket item.

Not everyone has someone like that in their life, but there’s a robust online community of resellers. Of all the youtubers I’ve watched, Justin Resells has impacted my selling process the most.

My second piece of advice, is to not jump in too deep at first. I know this might depend on your circumstances and even personality, but for me starting small has worked well. I started off thinking I’d give it a try and see how it went. My goal right now is to only be doing it part time. I didn’t want to invest too much time, money, or space in our house to this business, especially when I didn’t know how well it’d go.

I started by selling items I already had or things I bought cheap. In fact, so far, 4 of the 19 items I’ve sold were things I already owned and just didn’t want anymore.

Some ways I’ve tried to keep it low-cost here at the beginning:

• Borrowing a manican for women’s clothing pictures.
• While I did purchase 100 poly bags, so far I haven’t needed to purchase any boxes for mailing larger things.
• Borrowing a light for photos.
• I’m not paying for a store subscription on ebay, I may one day, but it’s not necessary yet.

Here’s what I have spent money on:

• Poly mailer bags
• I paid my daughter to do the picture (She’s looking for commissions by the way, if your’e interested email me and I can send you her email address or go check out her instagram).
• Tape
• And of course inventory. I’ve gotten things from thrift stores and garage sales.

Here’s what I’ve loved about selling on ebay:

• The flexibility, I can list lots of items when I have time and stop listing when I’m busy. I can even turn it to vacation mode when I don’t even want to mail items out.
• As a stay at home, homeschooling mom, trying to enjoy my kids’ last years at home, having a job like this has been a huge blessing!
• I really like thrifting. I love everything about it, how it keeps good stuff in use rather than wasted. How one person can make money selling something, and another can save money buying used. I enjoy going and searching for treasures.
• I personally purchase quite a bit off ebay, because it’s usually cheaper than Amazon, and so I’m happy to also sell on ebay.

I’ve sold 2 Teddy Ruxpins. This guy was my 3rd biggest money maker.

I use white boards as a backdrop for most of my photos.

Any other ebay sellers out there? Any sites or youtube channels you recommend?

Check out my “dos and don’ts on ebay.”