Things You'll Need:
- Grocery coupons
- eBay Account
- Internet Connection
- Scanner or Camera
- Time
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Step 1
Decide how you will obtain your coupons. You can purchase several copies of the Sunday paper. If you are especially frugal, you can ask friends, neighbors, and coworkers to save the coupon inserts for you.
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Step 2
In addition to Sunday paper coupon inserts, you can also find coupons in Women's magazines like Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, Family Circle, and People. Look for the "All You Magazine" at Wal-Mart. It is packed with coupons every month. Again, ask friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers if you can have their magazines when they are finished with them.
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Step 3
Avoid offering internet coupons that you have printed out. Some stores won't take them. You don't want angry buyers who can't use the coupons, or even worse, you don't want buyers to be embarrassed in a store when trying to use a coupon the store won't accept.
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Step 4
Next, decide how you will group your coupons together. You may want to do some research on eBay. Grocery coupons are listed in the Home & Garden/ Food & Wine / Food Coupons section on eBay. Some sellers batch coupons together by exact product, such as 10 coupons for Suave Shampoo. Others group them together by product type, such as cleaning products, pet products, or baby products.
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Step 5
Once you have your coupons clipped and sorted, create your listing. Some sellers just scan one coupon on their scanner (blocking out the bar code) and show that as the item photo. Some show a pile of coupons. Some don't show a photo at all. For the sake of clarity, and to avoid any confusion for the buyer, I recommend showing the EXACT coupon you are offering. Many buyers just look at the picture so you don't want to mislead anyone.
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Step 6
Write the description. Explain how many coupons you are offering, what products must be purchased to receive the coupon discount (such as $1 off two, etc), and most importantly, the expiration date. Make sure you allow enough time for the buyer to receive and use the coupon before it expires. For example, you won't want to offer a batch of 20 coupons that expire in 7 days.
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Step 7
Decide how much you will charge to mail the coupons out. Most coupon sellers either offer free shipping (which will put you at the top of the search page), or the cost of a first class stamp.
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Step 8
Determine if you will offer a shipping discount for multiple orders. Most coupon sellers do this. Shipping discounts encourage customers to buy more at one time.
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Step 9
Explain on your listing when you will ship coupon orders. Some sellers ship every day. Others ship once a week. Just be clear so your buyer will know what to expect. It is better to underpromise and overdeliver than to leave a customer expecting something in the mail.
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Step 10
Keep track of your profits. You can just use an Excel Spreadsheet. Include your expenses, such as the cost of Sunday papers, eBay listing fees, envelopes, and stamps.
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Step 11
Get your kids involved. Older kids can help clip, sort, and organize coupons. Make it a family project. You won't get rich selling grocery coupons on eBay, but selling grocery coupons can be a way to earn a few extra dollars without leaving home without having to invest in expensive inventory.
Comments
sunnyplace said
on 1/15/2010 Nice thorough article on how to sell coupons on ebay! 5*s & rec!
showpup said
on 2/9/2009 Great idea. This is something I would enjoy. I'm odd in that I love looking through coupon offers even if I don't use them. lol 5 stars
Elizabethknows said
on 10/24/2008 I saw this the other day when I did a ebay search. I think there was about 2,000 listings for it. Thanks for sharing.
JoyNmyHeart said
on 10/15/2008 Who would have thought you could make money doing this? I will definately have to give it a try. Thanks for the tips. I am checking out the good ads here too!
NanasPlace said
on 9/5/2008 Awesome, I have collected so many coupons some of which I do NOT use, I need to do this! Thank for the tip.