Home › Forums › Buying and Selling › Scavenging for Inventory › Sourcing on Ebay
Tagged: beer
- This topic has 17 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 2 years, 4 months ago by
almasty.
-
AuthorPosts
-
-
04/17/2019 at 8:28 pm #60439
Just curious if anyone here regularly sources on EBay to sell on EBay. I’ve done it occasionally, when I randomly run across a sleeper item. Now there’s a category I’m looking to expand in, where I see items selling under the money every day, usually as auctions, and often with poor descriptions. To be fair, it does take some expertise and risk tolerance to identify the good buys, but I’ve picked up a few things so far, and we’ll see how I do with them. I’m really trying to be more efficient with sourcing these days, both in terms of time and profitability. Not asking anyone to divulge their strategy, but generally wondering if it’s working for you.
-
04/17/2019 at 10:33 pm #60444
I’ve done it, not often. Would do it more often if we didn’t already have so much unlisted stuff. There’s a LOT of underpriced stuff on ebay.
-
04/18/2019 at 12:24 am #60448
When local sourcing dries up I usually hit eBay for stuff under parts/repair to fix. Not much outside of that, though.
-
04/18/2019 at 8:22 am #60453
We do it sometimes randomly because we see an underpriced item when researching. But sourcing online can take as much time as going out into the world and sourcing. Plus shipping prices really cut into profit.
I know some scavengers here have very particular niches they keep an eye on and buy when a good deal.
-
04/19/2019 at 9:10 am #60518
Yeah, ebay is fine to supplement outside sourcing. It is good to do when you are feeling lazy and don’t want to leave the house for a bit. For the most part, you’ll pretty much consistently find better stuff outside of ebay.
I’ve tried to make the ebay sourcing work on its own, but it just can’t compare to leaving the house.
-
04/19/2019 at 10:41 am #60520
In a reply to myself, the things you miss out on when you stick to only sourcing online:
I was just in a thrift store that had a robbery. As soon as I entered the store, a guy ran out the door behind me with what looked like a small set of swiss army rolling luggage. He popped out of the store so fast that the one poor employee working there had no hope of catching up with him. The thief was so hyped up that he ran into traffic with his luggage and somehow didn’t get hit. It was pretty impressive, we were all just watching him weaving through traffic with this luggage set.
Supposedly another customer had alerted the lone employee to the shadiness of the guy prior to me getting in there, but there was nothing the employee could do since he hadn’t yet stolen anything.
-
-
-
04/18/2019 at 8:33 am #60454
Jay, Yeah, it really brings home the impact of shipping costs on this stuff. I see a lot of stuff that is underpriced, but when you factor in the shipping, it may still be a good deal for a collector, but its too salty for a reseller. I do think shipping costs are one reason more shoppers are going to antique malls, flea markets and so forth for older stuff.
-
04/18/2019 at 8:37 am #60455
Agreed. Sometimes we can find a good deal on a lot of items where we can break it up to make more money. But you really have to follow a number of very particular niches to find enough of these items to make a living. Its also fun getting out into the world and to explore 🙂
-
-
04/18/2019 at 8:46 am #60458
Absolutely. Scavenging on ebay can be profitable, but getting out and scavenging in the real world is what we really enjoy doing. It’s also why we can’t motivate ourselves to buy from wholesalers or even do much in the way of retail arbitrage. I need a T shirt that says: “I’d rather be scavenging.”
-
04/18/2019 at 11:14 am #60474
Thanks for your thoughts. I also love getting out to estate sales and auctions, but have struggled to find time for it lately. I agree so far that sourcing on Ebay really works best for niche items. It’s interesting that we can still find lots of underpriced items on Ebay, even when information about pricing is supposed to be so transparent to sellers.
-
04/18/2019 at 12:08 pm #60480
If you dont have time to scavenge in the wild, do you have time to scavenge online? Maybe you’re working in an office and can spend time trolling eBay?
-
04/18/2019 at 12:28 pm #60483
Jay – yeah, that’s the idea, actually. If I have 20 minutes between meetings, I have the newly listed items in this category bookmarked, and can just check to see if anything good pops up.
-
04/18/2019 at 2:32 pm #60489
We interviewed this guy that buys gold coins on ebay to resell. Fulltime job:
Scavenger Life Episode 138: How To Make Money Selling Items On eBay That You Bought On eBay
-
04/18/2019 at 6:10 pm #60505
Thank you! I missed hearing that one.
-
-
-
-
-
04/18/2019 at 11:33 am #60475
@ HistoryNerd- I’ve been daydreaming about doing something similar in a particular niche that might interest you since your from the PNW-
I recently bought a lot of Rainier Beer posters from a local auction. The ebay prices are all over the place. I sold several for over 50 and a few for 80 and 90. I have several others listed in the 100-300 range.
There are a total of 40 Rainier Beer posters on ebay. 10 are mine, 20 are not interesting to a collector the other 10 posters are between 20-60 dollars-
There are the same number of sold listings 40-Theoretically, If I bought those 10 desirable posters, and relisted them for 100 each, would I be able to corner the market and increase the collectable value of these posters?
Keep your eyes peeled for that elusive wild R…
sally
-
04/18/2019 at 12:22 pm #60481
Thanks for the tip! Beer collectibles are one of those categories that’s invisible to me when I’m out sourcing in the wild, for some reason.
-
-
04/18/2019 at 3:05 pm #60491
Hops are hip, beer is proof that the universe loves us and wants us to be happy. And it sells!
-
04/19/2019 at 5:11 am #60515
Back in the 1980s I found an Everards beer mat in a bar I was sweeping. About 2002 I put the beer mat on auction on eBay, starting at 99p. After a couple of days I checked, and found it had been bid up to £90. Got a message from one of the bidders, saying it was a rare pre-war beer mat and that he confidently expected it to go higher. It sold for £220.
Really thick cardboard, if you were wondering 🙂 I suspect the enthusiasm was something to do with the real ale revival at that time- sold a load of pump clips from a skip then, and I doubt now whether they would sell as well.
-
-
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.