Saturday, August 6, 2011

postheadericon Sorry for the wait, eBay post!

Well since my last post I have been working very hard research a new source of income on the internet. No doubt you've heard the story of eBay millionaires and maybe you want to get a piece for your own. From what I've found, the gold rush over there in auction land isn't quite what it used to be, it's now dominated by large volume selling power-sellers. However there seems to still be a bit of a profit available for small time drop-shippers. You may or may not have heard the term drop-shipper before but just so we are on the same level:
Drop shipping is a supply chain management technique in which the retailer does not keep goods in stock, but instead transfers customer orders and shipment details to either the manufacturer or awholesaler, who then ships the goods directly to the customer. As in retail businesses, the majority of retailers make their profit on the difference between the wholesale and retail price but some retailers earn an agreed percentage of the sales in commission, paid by the wholesaler to the retailer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drop_shipping

So basically, as a drop shipper, you will generally be purchasing  all of your good from china, plain and simple. China is notorious for having poor quality products and as a retailer that has no chance to inspect your merchandise this can be a little bit risky. Often you can order sample products from the manufacturer to see the quality before you sell it but that defeats the purpose of our quest, to make money, not spend it. One way around this is to make sure your Chinese manufacturer will accept returns. If you end up selling a crap product and your manufacturer does not have a good return policy, try to help your customer out, stop payment to the manufacturer and grant them a refund. We are trying to make money but not rip people off.

One way to get started drop shipping is to buy some products from Dealextreme. I have had no problems with them so far the only problem is, they are an aggregate which means they are basically a middle man turning a profit distributing these products. But for our purposes to get started we can use them.

Basically what you do at this point is look for products that you think would sell well on eBay and more importantly items you can turn a profit on. If you see something that is really cool looking, that you might even buy yourself and it seems really cheap, imagine what the price would be if you bought it in a traditional retail environment. Finally, scour eBay for any listings of the item, if there are none, list the item at the price you came up with. If there are already listings for your item, see if you can undercut the competition a little bit.

I'm going to play with it some more, I will report back with my findings. I suggest you do the same if you want to make some money!

21 comments:

Comic Book Club said...

i never use ebay. i still don't trust internet resellers. amazon is the way to go

TheGamerDaily said...

Yeah I agree with the guy above me, i try to avoid ebay as much as possible lol

Shaw said...

Sorry to burst your bubble Chanon, but they're are resellers on Amazon too.

Unknown said...

This one sounds really good but so did the TM, I'll keep checking back and see what you come up with from this one.

Zanities said...

very interesting, i like this blog alot!

Unknown said...

Don't care much about ebay since the crap deal my sister ended up getting.

Sinclair said...

Huh. That's an interesting concept... Let me know how it works out for you.

Khorne said...

That's interesting, I'm impatient to see the results.

TheNomGames said...

i really want to see this!

Unknown said...

can't use ebay... still have an outstanding 31$ bill I need to pay, heh.

F0urTw0Zer0 said...

I don't tend to trust ebay, my dad always told me that it was just a huge online car boot sale run by gypsies!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the information, I never knew about the drop shipping concept. I'll be returning often!
+1 Follower

Diego Sousa said...

i always buy from ebay :P

Jackson.k said...

I love ebay, but i've gotten scammed on many occasions. one time i ordered some blurays, when they arrived they weren't in the case. Either way, nice post!

mentats4me said...

HMMM idk about this i sell stuff on ebay. I get a new phone sell the old one can normally get what you would buy it for on a new contract

Bersercules said...

I'm interested in seeing if you can make a profit on this. Good luck!

Magixx said...

nice idea actually, keep us updated! :))
+followed

AvidPathfinder said...

If settlers of catan has taught me anything, it's that making money as a middleman is -always- profitable.

Dan Carter said...

wow, nice helpful post.

romuosezre said...

I may try that

vitaminandmineralfacts said...

Was looking into ebay myself, great info.