Anyone here have an eBay store?
 

I don't have enough stuff laying around the house to justify this, but am dying to know how these mega sellers get set up with places that handle all the packaging and drop shipping. If I wanted to sell computer supplies or car parts or CHinese trinkets or whatever, how to find a place that handles it all. I know someone with a five or six digit eBay rating can't be doing this all themselves.

Get up early (or stay up late!) and watch for those infomercials where they offer you a variety of crap to sell. :)

I listed a bunch of junk on eBay. It took nearly an hour to list 5 things. What a pain in the ass. Power sellers must be able to upload a database or something. There's so many choices of how to list stuff....saps the fun right out of it... I already have one job.

My brother has a "bot" that lists and ships for him (electronic content). He just got it rolling but it's hands off.

Len, what else do you know about it? How did he get it going and what did it cost?

I don't know much beyond that really, but I can ask him tomorrow. If no one else here knows, just PM me tomorrow to remind me(we work together) and I'll get it from the horses mouth.

An hour to list 5 things, that's pretty good. Took me, and my wife, that long to list 1 thing. She then tried Turbo lister, still sucked up a bunch a time but you do it off line then upload it all. Seems the packing is the easy part unless you're shipping something odd.

They were all similar. One change to the description was all I needed. Still took a long time. What a pain.

This took 10 minutes, but it's the simplest possible ad. I could see 30 minutes easily for a nice, well-designed ad.

ebay ad

I'm also interested in an eBay store to get rid of any leftover inventory after every season, so please post what you find.

Re: Anyone here have an eBay store?
 

Yes they can. I'll PM you.

Shaun, I should PM you about this, but want to put it out there in case others have some suggestions.

My fiance's father runs a small print shop in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, PRC. He's always sending her catalogues of stuff he either makes (not sure if he makes just the catalogues or also the products in them) or can get dirt cheap, usually baseball-type hats, t-shirts and the like, which can all be customized with logos or labels. She and I have no idea where to run with this, but there has to be an oppotunity here. I don't think going to door to door to all those little mall shops that make customized hats and t-shirts is a very good use of time. Somewhere I'm sure there's a large distributor of this stuff who has supplier needs in China. Is there an eBay store opportunity here?

Rick,

I spoke with my brother briefly and he names three or for different programs that's he's running(turbo lister and some feedback pgm) including some custom templates he made in Dreamweaver.

His setup lists, ships (e-mail), receives payments, and even leaves feedback all on it's own.

Regarding your father in law, you could handle the sales end have everything drop shipped from China. I order some Thomas the train stuff for my son on eBay and it came direct from China!

Drop-shipping from China is the part that worries me. Getting a container full of stuff from there is no problem. And I buy Zhong Nan Hai cigarettes from a guy in CA who has them drop shipped to me from Beijing. But I wouldn't want to rely on that system for my own business.

Rick, we can talk by email if you like. this is a very broad topic. just one scenario is that there are several, national "blanks" manufacturers out there and local screenprinters who are their primary customers. The 1,000+ member local youth soccer org walks in, pays $6 a shirt. Screenprinter buys shirts for wholesale $.95 ($6 retail) to $3.50($9) typically and makes his profit as you can see.

If you had a way to get to large organizations, you could make a buck or two by outsourcing to China where his costs are probably $.50 per completed unit, shipped by air with customs maybe $2 loaded, sell for $5 and put local screenprinters out of business.

just a thought.

Ok, I've done some reading on eBay stores and want to jump right in, just to get something started. I don't even care about making much money now or spending my weekends packing and shipping. I just want to get my feet wet. What the hell should I sell? I guess the more I buy of something from a supplier, the lower the unit cost. But I want stuff that will sell on eBay. I would love to sell Chinese cigarettes, but there are probably legal issues there.

I have a ton of purses and backpacks leftover from G9Girl.

Shaun, please PM me your email address. Thanks.

FWIW - I recently bought a few low cost items on eBay and was surprised at the high shipping and handling fees. I suspect that is a hidden profit source for sellers.

PM sent Rick.

I've bought plenty of stuff on eBay for which the shipping was more than the item itself. Sellers don't pay eBay commissions on shipping costs. So they price the item way low and make it up with shipping. I think it's a pretty cool deal and have done it myself.

I buy and sell a lot there. Once you get used to it you can do 5 items in 20 minutes or less...