Things You'll Need:
- Computer, Knowledge of how to navigate EBay and Google, An EBay account
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Step 1
Buying and selling things is a hobby for me. I started 5 years ago selling things from stuff I had in my garage. A Marantz Stereo, Pentax Camera. Once I depleted my stuff, I tried garage sales. I was successful finding things to buy and sell on EBay. It was for sure a hot or miss thing. The trick is not to pay too much for anything. Looking up values of products is the best way to know if you have a valuable item to sell. There are many things one thinks will sell for a lot and there are things one would never think would sell for a penny that bring hundreds of dollars profit. It is easy, fun and a challege to make money selling on EBay. I will tell what I have learned and how to find a estimated value of an item. Use your own things to sell, garage sales, estate sales, auctions and you can even sell other people's items (charge a commission) to get inventory to sell. I have even picked up free things to sell and done well.
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Step 2
The secrete is finding the value before you list an item on EBay. Do this by logging onto ebay, type in a description of your item. You will have to use different search descriptions. Such as, if you have a CD player for a car, type in the name of the unit, or car manufacture, or even model number of the radio. You can have a broad search, or defined search. NIKE shoe, or NIKE tennis Shoe, or the size and Shoe, but use different search words until you find your item. If you do not find the item on EBay, try google search. Most every time you will find the item you are looking for using this way of looking up and item. Be creative and do not give up. Once you find your item on EBay you will see all kinds of prices. Use the high to low feature to find the highest priced item on EBay. Then use the completed listings. This will tell you how much things have sold for in the past 10 days or so. Sold, or completed sale items are the telling tale of the value something will sell for. This will tell you if you have a valuable item, or just do not mess with listing it. I bought a turkey caller once for 3.00 dollars. When I did the search, it saw those game callers sold for up to 2000 dollars. I was very excited. I also sold a fishing lure for 685.00 that I paid less than one dollar for. I searched lures and found I had a Heddon lure make in 1904 and it was worth a lot. Most important search your item on EBay or internet before listing to sell it. It saves time and money. You might have a hub cap, or a cookbook, but look it up and you will be way ahead of the game.
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Step 3
Once you find the value and decide to list, set a selling price. The least you would sell your item for. Start you item at that price, or use the reserve price and start at a dollar. Remember it takes at least two people who want your item to drive the price up. Example, if you want 25.00 minimum, set a reserve at 25.00 and start at 1.00, or just start at 25.00. Your best tool is to sell an item, get paid and ship it. Once you have done a few transactions, the listing and selling is easy, the hard part is finding the things to sell.
Go garage selling and make notes, then go home and look up items you have seen. If you have a winner, hurry back and buy the item to sell on EBay. It take time and learning to find items to sell. If you do not sell an item, consider it an education and move on. You cannot buy the knowledge to learn what sells on EBay, you have to acquire it.
