How to Make a Living Selling DVDs & Tapes on eBay
The largest auction site online is eBay, and thousands of people make a living selling items there every week. DVD and videotape auctions make up a large percentage of eBay's merchandise listings, so a diligent seller can make a good living with these items up for auction. Supporting yourself with eBay sales can be an intense experience, but if you love movies and personal sales, this may be the ideal career for you.
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Instructions
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Create an account on eBay if you don't already have one. Purchase some small items and pay for them promptly so that you can get some good feedback recorded from the sellers.
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Research DVD and videotape sales on eBay. In every sales category there are solid sellers, big-ticket items and items that never sell. Your job is to determine which is which in terms of movies. Do searches on closed auctions in every category of movie. Take careful notes. See if there are trends, such as every movie from a certain studio always being a good seller. Many sellers take weeks or months to do this research. After you start selling, keep researching every day. You can never learn too much about your subject.
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Download eBay's auction listing form. Go through the tutorial to learn how to use the program. Decide if you are going to use a template or go with plain auctions. Templates are more decorative and give your auctions a uniform feel, but they cost more money to use.
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Find multiple sources in which to find merchandise at a low price. Check every thrift store and library sale within an hour's drive from your home. Create a route that will cover all of these places at least once a week. Purchase any movies that you find that are good sellers according to your research.
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Take clear pictures of your merchandise. There are stock pictures on eBay of many items that you will sell, but bidders will trust you more if you have your own pictures that show any flaws that your pieces may have.
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Spend every work day doing three things: writing auctions, packing and shipping sold items, and searching for new merchandise. Do them in any order that feels comfortable, but make sure that you do each one of these every day. Successful eBay sellers treat it as the full-time job that it is, and work the same hours every day.
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Answer any email you receive about an auction within 24 hours. Bidders on eBay tend to be very impatient, for the most part, and rarely understand a seller that does not answer questions within hours of a sent email. They want to know information now, so that they can decide whether or not to bid on your items.
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Relist once any item that doesn't sell on the first offering. If it doesn't sell the second time, donate it to a public library and get a receipt for tax deductions at the end of the year. Make a note of this item and don't purchase anything like it again. Every eBay seller has a list of these items that he tried to sell and never sold. It's part of the learning process.
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Tips & Warnings
Save some of your borderline items for when eBay has one of its occasional free listing days.
Be an active member of the eBay sellers boards. You can find some very valuable information from other sellers.
References
- Photo Credit dvd image by dinostock from Fotolia.com
