Expert: Marvinator - 3/11/2007

Question
i want to start seling on ebay but i do not where to get items to sell on ebay thanks don

Answer
Sorry for the delay in getting a response to this question. Every so often, the emails letting me know of a question get confused and lost.

Ok, now to your question.  

For the home hobbyist, finding ‘product’ is easy. Look at the shelves and find those nifty collectibles that are cluttering up the place and start selling. Every home usually has a few collectibles or interesting items which can be sold on Ebay.  However, for those looking to make a constant living or part time income, a product base is important.  You'll need to find items you can sell consistently and dependably.

The one thing I tell every aspiring seller is that you have to sell what you know.  If you know nothing about Depression Glass then you won't do well selling it.  If, however, you have a collection of model trains, you may find that your knowledge of this hobby will give you a hand in selling such items.  Every one knows a little about something, or knows enough to get started with a particular item. Barbie Dolls, collectible toys or costume jewelry – it really doesn’t matter what, so long as you use what you know.

When searching for an item or product base, you also need to consider how the item will ship.  Heavy bulky items of little value may not get any bids because of the cost of shipping.  One seller I know wanted to sell an item which weighed nearly 10 pounds.  This more than doubled the cost to the bidder and he was amazed he got no bids!   Make sure that your item’s perceived value (that is the value perceived by the buyer) will also include the shipping which will be needed to get the item to most of the country. You can get shipping prices from USPS.gov and UPS.com.

Once you have an idea of WHAT you’re going to sell, you will probably already have a good idea of where to go looking for these items.  In order to give you a few MORE ideas, here are places that some of my seller friends use.  The idea, of course, is always to buy as low as possible in order to maximize profits.

*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*  A seller I know is great at buying items at Wal-mart that are on end-of-season 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 but can be done online.  

*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!  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, 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.
- 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 but on the wholesale level.  To you the seller: 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.

Now, not a week goes by without someone asking me about Drop Shippers, so let me also take the time to mention them a bit more in depth.  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.

I hope this information helps you in your Ebay business!