To ask if you resell anything ?

[Glitter99x]

Hi, thinking about doing some reselling on eBay to cut down on having to go to work (I work at McDonald’s, it’s alright but I would much rather do something like this full time permanently eventually). AIBU to ask if you resell items on eBay? And what do you sell? What have you found successfully sells? I’ve watched some videos on YouTube but it’s nice to hear from a person like myself rather than just YouTube! I’m thinking of reselling bedding sets and my boyfriend wants to sell board games.

I wouldn’t be buying from IKEA or dunelm and trying to resell - as others have said buyers are fairly savvy and will buy direct

Actually in my area a lot of people pay over the odds for IKEA stuff. People who live nowhere near a store and have no transport, IKEA delivery is quite expensive and they don't put the full range online.
We ordered a lot of stuff recently, the delivery was £35 for however much we bought so we took a punt on several items as it was cheaper than travelling there paying for meatballs and daim cake for 6 and buying £50 worth of stuff I didn't know I needed from the marketplace!
All the stuff which turned out to be unsuitable sold on FB for more than it's original cost, people were offering extra as it was still cheaper than them getting it delivered.

Just for context, there are 573000 new double duvet listings, 76600 new board games and 34000 new IKEA items for sale on eBay now. You've got to have something that stands out to avoid your stuff being lost in the midst of that.

I buy bulk items from auctions, usually returns. I don't sell on ebay as postage would knock off any profit but I do sell at car boots sales. I couldn't make a living out of it though

Sell your own stuff first on eBay. Get a feel for it, see what sells and doesn't, how demanding buyers are, what you lose in fees and whether you've charged the correct postage etc.

I've used Ebay to sell my old items and made some money back, and very occasionally I'll spot a certain item in a charity shop and re-sell it for a profit.

I once bought a huge bundle of niche items from eBay and sold them individually over 12 months for £500 profit.

So you can make money, but it's HARD work. Buyers can be (at best) idiots, or (at worst) scammers.

After listing fees, completion fees, PayPal fees, postage costs...well, for example, if you buy something for £2 and sell it for £10, you have a profit of £8. But your eBay fee is £1 and PayPal fees £0.50, postage £2.90, packaging £0.50 then your profit is reduced to £3.10. if you've had to drive to the post office, you'll need to deduct petrol.

So...with the half hour it took you to list the item, photograph, describe it and the time taken to go to the post office, you're working at £3ish an hour.

You'll need to be making bigger profits and selling high numbers stock to make anywhere near minimum wage hour after hour, day after day.

I do it to make a few quid on the side, but I'd never consider it as a main source of income.

I make a full time income selling on Amazon. Fully tax registered Ltd Company though.

I'd recommend as a starter selling text books on eBay. You buy second hand from various sources and resell for a profit. You can also buy toiletries from discount stores, bundle them up into sets of 3, 4 or 6 and sell for profits. You can also make money buying household products when discounted at the supermarkets, such as toothpaste. Lunch boxes sell well in July and August. Also buy lots from Argos when they have 3 for 2 on toys, the 3rd item is where your profit is. I'm running an online course soon to share my tips, but it is taking ages to write!

You’re calculations are flawed. If you sold for £22 + 3.50 p+p using free listing and recycled packaging I think your profit would be less than £7 after charges unless you had a final fee offer which could give you a small increase. Less if you have to pay for packaging or fuel.

Use an online fee calculator to estimate costs, you also need to check the weight to calculate p+p.

Thank you all. Yeah, maths is not my strong point, better than I used to be though. Okay, duvet sets and boardgames are out of the picture now. I want to do it, I am prepared to full time if it is successful, I am the queen of research trust me I'm going to be doing more before I start.

I'm going down to 3 days of 9 hour shifts at work so will have plenty of time to work on a side hustle.

Speaking as someone who's bought & sold a fair bit on Ebay over the years, I can tell you that you'd have to sell a hell of a lot of stuff to make it your only income & avoid going to work!

You'd need lots of time to place all the listings (can be quite time consuming & need decent photos for everything) & a VERY robust system/procedure in place for managing bids/purchases, communication with buyers, payment via PayPal, packing & postage, new stock acquisition, etc. Also, it does actually cost to list each Ebay item (usually only pence but they all add up & eat into your profits!) plus you have to bear the cost of all the packing materials - again, might only be a heavy duty plastic bag & some parcel tape, but it all adds up.

I'm not saying it can't be done but unless you're a 'big' operation, I think it's more of a 'pocket money sideline' for most people.

You'd need to seriously consider what would be a good thing to sell, too - for example, why can't people buy their own cheap Dunelm bedding online instead of on Ebay from you? Same for games etc - Amazon or The Works would be my 'go to' every time.

Glitter, I work for them! And they monitor every single staff purchase, it's always flagged up on tills. I wouldn't risk my job. A few co workers have been sacked, even for things like buying too many paper napkins. You can only buy for your own home and you can't buy for someone else (eg I couldn't buy anything for a friend or my partner.. I enquired about this the other day..even though I live with partner). If I was seen to eg buy three identical duvet sets, I'd be investigated. A few people have been sacked on spot.

If you have IKEA near you, I'd say go for it.. it sells really well (I've looked at eBay completed listings) Even my manager was telling me how crazy it is, people make a fortune! There was one rug people were making obscene amounts from (it was a designer for IKEA one saying Keep Off). But any of the small items can do ok too. Best to look at their website and see what items can only be bought in store.. this is your best bet as not everyone is near a store (or can't be bothered) And if you post worldwide, even better.,,,as some people would be 100s of miles from a store

(I am a successful eBay seller by the way... just not of the aforementioned!)