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I am a retired RN x 3 years 6 months. I have been doing eBay full time ever since. My husband has been doing eBay as a side show/hobby for about 15 years. We do our sourcing together, and my husband does the packing and shipping. I do all the listing. I started eBay to supplement our income since we no longer have my Nursing income. It has been successful for us and great for me to be able to take time off to take care of my Mom while she was sick (this has occurred 3 times). This last time I took 3 months off and only posted 2 items a day for 2 months. I made $1334.53 Aug. 4-Sept. 3. I started posting full time again on Aug. 24. I listen to the Scavenger Life podcasts while listing (also a lot of other podcasts and sometimes music). I have never been bored. I enjoy doing the research and listing, and my husband and I enjoy shopping together. Thanks Jay and Ryanne for your podcasts that are packed with a wealth of info about eBay, and are also so much fun to hear what is happening in your lives with your ventures that you so daringly take on!
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There are quite a few Californians on here.
When I lived near the beach, just south of Los Angeles, there were always lots of sources available, including estate sales and church sales.
Out here in the desert, sourcing is a little tougher, but in reality, I haven’t worked at it that hard since moving.
Welcome to the group.
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Thanks for the welcome replies. Yes, eBay is much easier than working in the medical field and a whole lot less stressful! Sourcing is good around where I live, we never lack for stuff to sell. My husband also gets a lot of people to donate free stuff for us to sort through and take what we want to sell. We have a truck and we offer to haul away what people haven’t bought at Estate Sales, or for people who need to empty out apartments after the person’s death, or empty out storage units. It has been great for getting a lot of really good free stuff that sells. We also go to yard sales, Estate sales, thrift stores (we don’t do this much, but we have a friend who owns a thrift store and she saves good stuff for us, and we give her stuff that we don’t want to sell). Anyway, good luck to all the fellow eBayers out there.
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Hi everyone,
I’m a long-time listener to The Scavenger Life podcasts and have been a seller on eBay for about 2 1/2 years. I have never introduced myself to the forum (I have written a few responses to other seller’s postings in the past month) but never really introduced myself. I’m a part-time seller on eBay and am a retired nurse practitioner (practiced in central California for 36 yrs). My eBay store is a little one (only about 300 items) but provides a great deal of personal satisfaction while fueling my interest in “old stuff”. I’ve always preferred vintage items over new and I find ” the hunt” to uncover interesting, quirky, or refined vintage items a great source of pleasure. When I started selling on eBay I began by selling pieces of my own vintage stuff I had accumulated over the years. Creating new inventory involves still selling my own things and also picking up treasures at local estate sales, garage sales and a few thrift stores. With the outbreak of Covid 19 and bad air from all the California forest fires sourcing has been difficult – however, it seems to be “easing up” and the weather is now very pleasant so there are still lots of estate and garage sales going on. Haven’t had much luck finding good stuff at reasonable prices at in-person auctions (there are just not that many in my area of California). I have never sourced by buying at ebay auctions (I’m not sure how to go about that- could someone explain how/where they manage to find ebay auctions of things at low prices that they can then purchase and resell??)
I tend to have an eclectic mish-mash of items in my store. I have learned that I REALLY don’t like selling clothing – too much prep-work and too much of a risk (and hassle) of buyer returns for what I consider to be to little profit. The part of ebay selling I love is the research and learning about specifics on new, unfamiliar items I find.
For 2 years I was co-owner of a brick & mortar antique store in our town. This was a while ago – 1988-89. While things are constantly changing I did manage to learn what little I know about good versus mediocre antiques, used, and vintage porcelain and furniture from personal research and being mentored by my older and wiser shop partner. When he retired and moved away I just didn’t have the ability or time to run the store by myself (I was still working as an NP in a full-time medical group). I still have huge gaps in my ebay knowledge and in other areas (for example, good electronics and MCM items). I have learned so much from listening to R & J’s weekly podcasts, watching Steve’s “what sold” video’s and reading the forum posts. Words can’t adequately express my thanks to everyone who continue to selflessly contribute their knowledge, insight and humor on this forum!
I don’t make a lot of money but (more importantly) I’m having a good time being an ebay seller. I’ve tried to get my family (son & husband) to get involved with me but they just don’t have the interest in scavenging, cleaning, photographing, listing, etc. required. So for now I’ll remain a small time solo seller.
I’ve learned that ebay makes changes (“updates”) – some I think are improvements, others are more of the “what are they thinking???” type of updates. I’ve been in managed payments for several months and I haven’t had any major problems. Just wish it was easier to get someone “real” to talk to at ebay when I need assistance.
Sorry for the length of this missive. I just wanted to let everyone know that, for me, this forum is like a welcoming clubhouse whose members are like-minded, independent people doing and sharing what they love and I’m proud to be a member!!
Eliza*Bee
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Hi Temudgin and thanks for your welcoming response. I was referring to buying items found on ebay that are for being sold using the auction format rather than BIN items. Do most ebay seller’s just randomly for items being sold in the auction format? Is there a technique people use to find the items being sold with the auction format that have low bids and then just wait till the auction is almost over to make a final bid that is a good, low bid but could still be the winner of the auction? Do people confine themselves to only certain categories where they have some knowledge or do they just randomly roam ebay looking for items that seem to be a good buy because the seller starts the auction with a low initial offer and has few bids? There are so many categories on ebay – I just don’t where to begin and I’ve never figured out how to find items that are for sale by auction where the price is low enough that it could be purchased and then re-sold at a profit. Thanks for your help.
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I personally don’t think its a common strategy to buy exclusively on eBay to resell. BUT if you know a category really well, you can watch listed auctions and try to buy them undervalued.
Chris told us how he buys gold coins on eBay to resell: https://www.scavengerlife.com/2014/08/scavenger-life-episode-138-how-to-make/
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I look for eBay auctions occasionally in a few niche collecting areas where I have specialized knowledge. My technique is to run certain narrow category and key word searches on Auctions only during off-peak hours, sorting for Time: ending-soonest. If something looks promising and is still at a low price within say an hour of the end of the auction, I put a snipe in on Gixen for what I’m willing to pay for it. I typically only win maybe 10% of the auctions I snipe since many items get bid up in the last minute, or there is already just a single bid on the item that isn’t showing how high it really is until I come along and bump it up when my snipe goes in. This method works best in categories with a many listings and cluttered with low value items, or more obscure collecting areas with few buyers.
But I don’t sell on eBay for a living. If I did, I wouldn’t have time for this. It’s too time-consuming for how much inventory I can get, which in addition to the specialized knowledge requirement is probably why as Jay said it’s not common.
There are a couple other things sellers do to get inventory on eBay, though, like buying lots to break up and sell.
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Thanks for the advice. I think I will stick to more traditional methods of sourcing (estate sales, garage sales, thrift store and charity sales). I agree with you….it seems like a lot more work unless you have the time and expertise to ferret out the “sleepers” to be found on eBay auctions.
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