What to sell on eBay

EBay is one of the best known websites on the internet and it’s not only useful for finding a bargain but it can also be used to make money. Thousands of people are making money from eBay, in 2005 ACNielson said that over 724 thousand people in America use eBay to supplement their income or provide the main income for their family. These are the professional sellers on eBay, but there are actually over a million sellers on eBay that generate extra money by selling things that they don’t want.

Everyone has things that they don’t use anymore so why not make money out of them by selling them on eBay rather than just throwing them away. It’s also a very environmentally way to make money. Sometimes you might even uncover something that is quite valuable.

Products

As with any business the problem you will have is finding a product to sell. Of course you have plenty of choice but you want to make sure that you choose a product that will actually sell and hopefully make you a lot of money. You must concentrate on finding not only any product to sell but a good product.

There are lots of things that you could sell on eBay; trouble is that not all of these will make money. You need to research products to find something that is profitable.
 
A great product to sell on eBay will be profitable, easy for you to deliver to your customers, easy to source, is free from competition, and there’s an unlimited supply of the item. Obviously you may have to compromise on some points.

Digital Products

You can make a lot of money by selling your information. What’s great about these is that this information can be delivered electronically, and can be duplicated as much as they it needs to be. You don’t need to sell worthless e-books or courses that claim to make people rich.

You could use skills you have like teaching someone to speak a foreign language or helping them to solve computer problems. You might also like to offer people advice about key topics such as bringing up children, how to train your dog, or how to get out of financial problems.

Information is very important to everyone and that’s why it’s the best selling product that you could possible have. Everyone searching on the internet is actually looking for information so why not give them what they are looking for.

If you create your own informational product then you can produce them yourself. This means that you don’t have to stock any products and they can be copied when someone purchases your item.

Of course you don’t have to limit yourself to selling only informational products, you can also sell physical products but they will take much more thought.

Physical products

Most people would prefer to sell real products on eBay, so how can they go about doing this? Well eBay actually makes this quite simple because they provide their own sections to help you decide what to sell.

If you are selling physical products then you do need to be more cautious because you will have to invest more time and money in choosing the right products.

EBay has a section called “What’s Hot” and you can use this to find out about popular items on the site. The most popular items on the whole site are of little interest because although they are popular there will also be a lot of competition for these. Instead you should focus on the most popular products in certain categories. This will make it very easy to identify a potential niche market that you can profit from.

When choosing your products you don’t have to focus just on eBay even if you will only be selling them there. You can use shopping comparison sites as an indicator of how profitable certain products would be.

Sourcing items on eBay

Once you have thought about the types of products that you want to sell on eBay you will need to find a source for them. There are a number of different sources depending on how much money you have to invest, and what it is you are selling.

Starting small

If you’re just starting your eBay business then the best place to start would be your own home. You can take a look through all of your old possessions and decide whether any of it can be sold. Take a look at things that you never use anymore and list them on eBay. These could be clothes, CD’s, books, or anything else that you don’t want anymore. All you need to do is give them a clean, take a photo and list it on eBay.

Selling items from your home is a great place to start however you will eventually run out of things to sell which means you will need to find somewhere else to buy products from.

Garage Sales

Garage sales can be great fun and sometimes you can pick up a real bargain. If you can pick up items cheaply at garage sales then it might be possible to list them on eBay for a profit. If you already tried selling items from your home then you should already understand which items will sell and at what sort of prices they will sell for.

Liquidators

Another potential source of cheap stock is liquidators these are people that buy the stock of businesses when they go out of business. This makes it possible to get a great price on some things although the supply of these items will be limited.

Drop Shippers

A dropshipper is a great company to source products from because they mean that you never have to actually handle the products yourself. Your customers order products from you and then you simply need to pass the orders onto your dropshipper. The dropshipper will then process the order and send the product directly to your customers address.

EBay

You can even find products to sell on eBay itself; there is even a wholesale section of the site where you can pick up products in bulk. You will be able to buy a pallet load of products which you can then split up and sell on as individual items. This is normally liquidated or unsold stock so you might be able to get yourself a bargain.

Nobody knows whether the products that they choose to sell will be profitable or not so it will need a little trial and error. Try to concentrate on items that don’t have a lot of competition so that you can get your products seen by as many people as possible.