eBay® PowerSeller Business Practices FOR DUMMIES®

Chapter 26. Giving Unsold Items a Second Chance

As a full-time or part-time career, selling on eBay can be rewarding and frustrating — all in the same day. You'll find a product thatsells like hot dogs in a baseball stadium for months (rewarding), and then, all of a sudden, no one is buying it (frustrating). It's times like these that try sellers' souls . . . or patience.

Many sellers sell unique, one-of-a-kind items, but the majority of sellers stock multiple quantities of many items. After getting some eBay experience under your belt, you're bound to find several items that you're comfortable selling. In addition, if you follow my suggestions in Practice 6, you'll buy multiples (dozens? cases? pallets?) of the items at a seriously discounted price. But when you have all these items lying around the garage, your goal is to get them quickly into buyers' hands at a profit.

Note

I know several sellers who have bought items in such bulk that they're stocked with the item to sell one a week for the next fewyears! That's a good thing only if the product is a staple item that will always have a market on eBay.

In Practice 12, I talk about opening an eBay Store. But in addition to your own store, you need to be running auctions on the eBay core site. Why? Auctions are the key to drawing buyers into your store. And stores arenot only added potential sales, but they're also a distinct marketing tool for your personal eBay brand.

If you don't have an eBay Store and plan to sell the items one ...