Anyone Here Got an ebay Business?

Not looking for any tips or anything. I've been selling on ebay regularly now for a few months and I was thinking of linking up with a wholesaler to really turn this into a legitimate money maker. Anyone have any experiences with this? How did it turn out? Was it your primary income?

I had an ebay business for about a year. It's my opinion, that like any other business, it takes money to make money. You need to have a large inventory. You need to have a product you can buy at a good price (probably in bulk) and sell for a profit. Enough profit to cover your expenses (foam peanuts, tape, boxes, etc.) and of course ebay's cut. I was selling books. It seemed like a good idea at first, as I could buy large lots of books at garage sales, normally for pennies per book. If I could make 2-4 dollars on each one, my profit margin would be huge. Now don't get me wrong, I made some spending cash, but nothing substantial. And after I started adding up all the time I was spending (Going to garage sales, listing each book, boxing it up, shipping it off) just to make that few dollars, it wasn't worth it for me. My advice would be to find alot of the same item so you can type it up once and sell multiple times, or go for the big ticket items. So to answer your questions, for me it turned out just ok, definately some potential there, And No, not even close to being my primary source of income.

I am also planning to open an eBay store, but strictly as a side business. Get my feet wet, make a few dollars, and then if all goes well, ramp it later. I would recommend this sort of "start slowly" approach. My two cents (almost literally! )

A good friend of mine has an ebay business selling records. He helps run a local record store and is constantly scouting for collections and going to shops, conventions, and what not. I think it takes a pretty niche market to make money on there. Know your product and so forth.

The collector route on ANYTHING seems like a great idea though. From dolls to dishware, if you find something that people get really batty over and you become a provider of that, you can definitely make decent $$$. It is such a time investment though. I tend to think it'd be way easier (and a more lucrative use of your time) to work on investments or play with commodity markets or something similar.


I sell on there a lot myself, but mainly because I have a terrible shopping addiction. Clothing can be a good angle too, but it is so fickle.

i had an ebay business back in 2004-2005 selling wholesale stuff from online wholesale membership websites. Those are not real "wholesale" site! So I quite because it's really hard to make a buck! No joke. Instead of selling with dropship/wholesale companies, i started my own. I now do something really different from that. I post adds on line and at local places for people who want to get rid of their stuff. I charge a commission fee which is usually a certain percent of the final value + the insertion and final sale fees. I don't do this for small items like toys/etc. I sell stuff that ha more value like tv's, electronics, motorcycles, and even one car! I find this more entertaining to because you don't always have to copy and paste the same items over and over again which will get very boring VERY fast! If you want to seriously consider buying wholesale, you will have to show various kinds of proof to join their club. And, if you want to make some dollars instead of some cents per sale, you must buy in bulk! I now have over 185 positive feedback(repeat customers not included) This is not my primary income since i only put in about 30-45 minutes a day and only made around 9k in the past 6 months.

PS:: It is not as easy as they make it seem!