Is it called eBay upselling, upcycling, recycling or re-selling? We’re not sure, but that thing where you buy items for cheap on eBay and then sell them back on eBay for a higher price – yeah, we’re doing that.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is exactly what we’re going to be doing for the first of our three-man head-to-head challenges at themoneymountain.com – and we’re pretty excited about it.
Sorry, wait. What are you doing on eBay?
Ok, so there’s a theory out there that there is money to be made on eBay by buying items cheaply and then selling them to others on that very same platform! The idea being that the money you make is not just from what you’re selling it’s about how you’re selling it.
Now, this might turn out to be a complete crock, and like Bigfoot, Nessie, and all those 9/11 conspiracy theories turn out to be nothing but the stuff of legend.
Bigfoot… waving as he goes off to try to make money on eBay
But you can see why it might happen. eBay is massive and has a large number of buyers and sellers but does every sale happen at an optimum price? No, you’re damn right it does not and I’ll never forgive the guy who bought my cigarette dispensing donkey from me on the cheap (that thing was worth serious money).
We all know that there are a lot of factors that affect how much someone will pay you for your crap on eBay and you’ll often not get the money you think you should if:
- You include poor photos of the item.
- Your description is badly written or incomplete.
- You listed the item in the wrong category.
- You didn’t bother to present the item well – like if you sold it dirty or creased, for example.
- You had the listing ending at an unpopular time. Let’s face it, as good as you think your collection of rare bottle tops are, no idiot is going to stay up til 3.30am waiting for your auction to end. The chances of two such suckers waiting up and getting into a bidding war over them in the early hours of the morning is even less likely.
So, the concept is simple: we hunt the far reaches of eBay for these listings that we think are going for less than they should be and then we get them back on eBay a few weeks later, presented much better. We make a profit on them, become overnight millionaires and retire early to second homes we’ve bought in Barbados.
Ah, Barbados. I can see it now. Just got to buy and sell some crap on eBay first.
Might have got a bit carried away there. It’s entirely possible we’ll make a loss on this whole thing.
Can you really make money doing this. Really and truly?
Don’t look at me for the answer. Like all good ideas, I just read about the possibility on the internet and now I’ve convinced Dave and Ben into believing this tale too.
The skeptic in me thinks this actually might be a very difficult task. There are lots of transaction costs that are bound to eat into our profits and make this very difficult indeed. What about postage costs when we’re buying items? What about eBay fees? What about the risk that we end up buying items that are broken or never arrive? All of these have got the potential to shaft us in a big way.
But regardless, we need to know if there’s potential in it. After all, this website exists for that very reason – so you can learn from our money mistakes.
So now, for your viewing pleasure, we’re going to get to the bottom of this with a little competition. And here’s the rules:
- Each of us will, during the month of October, purchase absolutely anything we want to on eBay, with the express intention of re-selling it on eBay in the very same month.
None of us will spend more than £30 (including postage) on items. You can spend less if you want. - To keep the challenge moving, all purchases must be completed by 10th October. Sales of items must be completed by 28th October.
- Whilst we’re buying items, we will not reveal to each other what we’re buying. This way we’ll hopefully end up with completely different perspectives on the challenge and shopping in different categories (unlokely downside: we could get into a bidding war on the same item)
- Each of us have got complete freedom on how we buy and sell, as long as it’s on eBay. So whether it’s a standard auction, a ‘buy it now’ or ‘make an offer’ – we’ll do what we think is best.
- He who makes the most profit (in absolute terms – incorporating all postage costs and eBay fees) will be declared the winner, and king amongst men.
On your marks, get set. Go!
Whether we will make a profit or not, I’m really not sure. But I’m convinced that by doing this we’ll learn some important lessons about the best ways of doing thing on eBay. And that could come in handy further down the line on this project. At the very least we can bring you a post with some top eBay tips in.
But for now, it’s time to dive in to all sorts of categories of items I’ve never before considered, and bid my fellow blogging companions good luck in the challenge!
And just like that, on goes my game face…
The next update you’ll get from us on this will be at the halfway stage when we’ve bought our items. Each of us will explain our thinking and no doubt there will be a fair bit of explaining to do. At this rate I’m feeling as though I’ll have some sob story of how I’ve overpaid for a hairdryer* that doesn’t even work, or something equally ridiculous.
* Was this a curve ball just to throw my fellow challengers off the scent. Find out in the next update…