Expert: Marvinator - 7/23/2006

Question
Hi. My wife and I have sold several items on Ebay through out the past 3 years. She stays at home with our 4 children. She auctions things that our children and ourselves no longer need or want and sometimes the "one of a kind" and "different" items she comes across at thrift shops and yard sales. She does the auctions to make that "very little" extra bit of money to help ends meet. But we have been practically looking and brainstorming about how some of the sellers on ebay get to become Power sellers and become so lucky to find wholesalers and/or dropshippers? As time goes on we find ourselves struggling more and more with our finances, and we both would love for her to be able to remain a "stay at home" mom at least until our youngest gets a little older. Can you help us in any way to know which way to turn to make a little more on ebay or on how to become a power seller? And also we have been "took" at least three times buying so called "secrets to make more money" and so called "drop ship and wholesale lists"...are there any tips or any thing you might could give us on any of these? We also have searched the web and have had no luck. If you could PLEASE help us at all, you would be so greatly appreciated......Thank You so much, Jimmy, Christy, and Kids  

Answer
Let's start with your final point. Those so called "Lists" of the perfect items, the wholesalers and drop shippers.  If you take a moment to think on it, if YOU had a list of products which would make a bundle of money would you SELL The list or use the list?  That's right, you'd USE the list.  Why give someone else the information to make money when it's easier to use it yourself.  What these people are selling is a list of companies they probably gleaned off of Google, or some website.  I've not seen ANY Of these lists which were worth the money.

That said, let's talk about Power Sellers and becoming a Power Seller.  First, to become a power seller you must have a certain level of sales for three months running before Ebay will INVITE you to become a Power Seller.  Once you become a powerseller, you must maintain this sales level as well as a certain level of Postive Feedback (98%).  As your sales increase, your status as a Power Seller increases (from Bronze to Silver and Gold).

It should be noted here that becoming a Power Seller should not be your goal.  Your goal should always be the profit from sales. If you get to the Power Seller Status, then that's great, but you are after profit first and foremost.  I should also like to point out that for one reason or another I know darn few Power Sellers who are worth knowing.  They seem to take more interest in their Power Seller status than in the customer and I prefer the opposite.  AGain, your goal should be the profits, not the status.  

Ok, now let's get to dropshipping.  I have no good feeling about Dropshippers.  And heres' why: Drop Shippers are a good way to go if you don’t mind the business of being in business. What I mean is that you need to consider several things about Drop Shippers. First, You are not the only customer of the Drop Shipper. You are not among an elite group of 20-50 sellers either. The company couldn’t stay in business with just 20-50 clients. This means that you are selling the same things as hundreds to several thousand
other Ebay sellers. Each of you is hoping for the same sales and probably the same clients – and you all bought the same item for the same price. Second, if you do actually end up making a sale, there is no guarantee that the Drop Shipping company will have your item in stock when you go to order it and they are not obligated to get the item back in stock just for your one customer, either. You and your customer can end up waiting 6 – 8 weeks or more! In fact, it may end up that you are forced to refund the customer’s money just because the Drop Shipper oversold and didn’t have it in stock when YOU needed it. I’m not saying this WILL happen, but it does happen and more often than Drop Shippers will admit.

So where can you get product? Let's take a look at a list.  
- Thrift Stores and Garage Sales: Many sellers find things to sell at local thrift stores and garage sales. In order to do this, one must know what they are looking at in order to know the value and how to sell it.
- Local Stores Sales and Closeouts: One seller I know is great at buying items at Wal-mart that are on final close out, holding them until the following year, and then  selling them on Ebay. She says it’s great especially for the big holidays like Halloween, Valentines Day and Christmas.
- Online Closeout Stores and Catalog Sales Closeouts. This works the same as the paragraph above.
- Local Craft Shows and Flea Markets: Buying at Flea Markets is a great way to find discontinued items and buy them at next to nothing! Sometimes you can find colletibles for cheap, too.  Crafts have always done well on Ebay
so long as they are shippable.
- Wholesale Product Companies: You can, of course, work with some company and purchase their product wholesale and sell it online. Finding the right company to deal with
and getting the order is not as hard as many may say it is. You need to just write to the company and ask for their ‘Wholesale Catalog and Pricing’. Along with it, you will get all their rules for ordering. (Things like Cash for the first order, $500 min re-order, etc.)
- Purchase Clubs and Drop Shippers: One of the big things you’ll find out there is Purchase Clubs and Drop Shippers. People discuss them, extol their virtues and try to get you to follow them as much as they spend time listing auctions. Let’s examine each one separately.
- - Purchase Clubs There are a couple of big Purchase Clubs in the US. How it works is that you pay for a membership and for the privilege of purchasing from the club’s
warehouse. You may get email or fax updates on items which are available for purchase, and there is no guarantee that any item received one month will be available the next
month. When an item comes in that you are interested in, you must decide immediately if you wish to buy it. You then buy it and – hopefully – sell it on Ebay. If it does not sell however, you are stuck with the entire shipment – even if it is one or two items. Which brings us full circle to:
- - Drop Shipping Companies: Drop Shipment is a term which many of the larger department stores originally used to describe an item being dropped into the mail from the central warehouse and shipped directly to the customer’s home. Currently, the term means pretty much the same thing. A Drop Shipper is a company which will allow you to sell an
item in their stock and they will ship to your customer from their warehouse. YOU don’t have the item in stock, all you need to do is put the item up on Ebay and wait for sales.

I hope this helps you in your Ebay endeavors.  Please feel free to come back anytime and ask more questions as they arise!