Buying and Reselling on eBay
When trying to find items that you can sell on eBay, one source that is often overlooked is other eBay sellers. Want to know what sells on eBay? Look at eBay! This article shows you how to find items priced below market value that can then be resold for a decent profit.
Some of the best resale deals on eBay come from two sources: wholesalers trying to dump product in lots, and inexperienced sellers listing items for much less than street value. The trick is to get to these items before anyone else.
Example
Lets say you want to buy and sell digital video recorder systems (DVRs) that are typically selling for $225. You can enter a search for “DVR” or for a specific model and set a maximum price of $150.
Monitoring eBay Listings
While it is possible to monitor eBay using their website, several problems arise with this approach. First, it can be very time consuming. Next, it can be difficult to effectively monitor several categories at once. Finally, eBay’s website doesn’t update in real-time, but rather, pages are periodically updated.
eBay allows you to set automatic alerts for items that meet your requirements. If you are using eBay’s alerts, you will usually receive the updates quite some time after the items are listed, sometimes hours later.
Buy Low, Sell High
Certain eBay categories can be gold mines. Especially when it comes to consumer electronics, coins, and other collectibles. High volume categories are a great way to buy low and sell high back to the same category. I suggest you buy fixed price items using one eBay account and use another to sell the items at auction or at afixed markup. Using two accounts hides your cost from most buyers who might review your feedback listings. If you have a local market, you can purchase on eBay and sell locally for even more.
Automatic Monitoring
To resolve the delay issue and get quicker notifications, you can use a Firefox browser add-on or Windows Vista sidebar gadget to receive alerts within seconds of an item being posted. The add-ons monitor fixed price items and auctions that have the Buy-it-Now feature enabled. These are the items that you can purchase immediately when you receive the alert.
Real-time monitoring tools provide you with the ability to locate items in multiple categories and have the items automatically update on your screen. With the added ability to set audible and visible alerts, you can run the tools in your browser or on your desktop and work on other things until an item is posted on eBay.
This all happens at whatever interval you choose: 10 seconds or two days. Once you get the alert, you just double click the item title in the list. The eBay webpage opens up in your browser ready for you to buy the item.
Snatching up rare items
Rare item collectors can use monitoring tools as a low effort way to watch eBay. Vintage computers, rare coins, hard to find collectibles – If it’s rare and it goes up for sale on eBay, the tools will notify you. This sort of monitoring can be done less frequently, perhaps even once every few hours.
Conclusion
For best results, pick a popular product. Review completed listings on the eBay website to get an idea of the average selling price. Then, set the tools to show items with a maximum price of 25% or more below the average sale price. Since you know what the items already sell for on eBay, reselling them is a snap. The best part is you can buy items as you need them. Just be sure to read the listing to make sure the item is in good working order or that the price reflects any damage.
Suggested categories
These categories tend to have wide price swings: iPods, Cisco network equipment, GPS systems, laptops, other consumer electronics, collectibles, jewelry, PDAs, gadgets, robotics.
