Thrifty Thursday: January Ebay Review

Ever wanted to make a little extra money for your family from home?  Do you have extra things around the house that you no longer use? Got any ideas on where to start?  Set up a Craiglist account and an Ebay account!!

What gets sold where?

I sell the things that are cheap to ship on Ebay and the things that are heavy and bulky on Craigslist.  It isn't always the easiest to figure out but you get a lot more exposure through Ebay so you might get a higher price but you also might get a lower price and there is a limit to how many things you can sell on Ebay where there isn't on Craiglist.  I am sure there are some people out there who are willing to spend the higher price on shipping but it is so much easier to do those through Craiglist if you are in a big enough area.


Have you sold anything on Ebay before??

I have never done it before!  I didn't start until the middle of the January.  I decided to sell all of the extra coupons that I didn't use because I figured that if there were ones that others could use that weren't thinks that our family uses, I would sell them at a low cost to others.  Ebay changed the way that they do things from years ago when my husband sold so you get 50 free listings a month.  You pay a percentage to them and some money to pay pal so with shipping, it costs me about $1 for each shipment so as long as I make more then that, I am making some money for my family.

Did you run into any problems?

Yup! Isn't there always a learning curve?  I set the price for the first few low and did free shipping.  I would say that the best advice that I have to give is to either set the price really low or provide free shipping.  There were at least 5 transactions that I just broke even and that is not exactly worth the effort if I am not going to make money.  On anything that didn't fit into a normal envelope, there was shipping charges to be calculated and ebay doesn't provide labels printed for normal mail so I went to the post office and lost a little on the shipping but at least the pricing on the rest made up for it and I didn't end up in the negative.

My second problem was specific to selling coupons because there is a limit which had wording that I didn't understand but turns out that you only get 25 listings for the month to sell no more then 25 coupons per transaction (at least I think because it is hard to understand the way that it was written).  I got to that point and  it wouldn't let me put up any other auctions or sales.  I tried to make a few things and schedule them for February so at least I could get the work done ahead of time but that didn't work either so I guess I have to wait and see if I reset on February 1st to sell a few more.

For the most part, I got really prompt payments (except one) so it was easy to get things out to the post office every day before they took the mail.  It is hard to wait patiently for someone to pay for me to send it but I did great and didn't run into too many problems.

I also had three things that didn't sell at all but since I didn't have to pay for posting, it wasn't a big loss to put up something that didn't sell even though my time could have been a little better spent picking something that would sell better but I wasn't really sure (and I didn't know there was a limit).

How did you do this month?

 

Isn't this what everyone wants to know?  I had no money out of pocket to start on this new and interesting business plan and I was hoping to make about $50 after I made my first few sales and realizing how much time it takes to get each post up.  I figured that if I was doing something like a garage sale, it takes preparation and something to sell but I normally make about $150 so I was thinking that I would base it on an easier online garage sale so it would be a third of the sale.  The great news is that I almost made it to my goal because my calculations have my profit at $45.57.  I still have two payments that I am waiting for to get the final guaranteed tally. After I pay ebay fees, pay pay fees, postage and envelopes, I should come out pretty good for a little work.

Will you continue to do it?

I think that I will!!  I will try another 25 transactions next month and see if I can sell some of the stuff that I wouldn't use and would otherwise be recycled.  I am not sure if I am in for this every month to add to the budget but for now, it is worth the time to add a little money.  I bought three books of stamps so that should last about three months so I will try to use up some stamps to make some money in the process.  I might try to sell a few other things too since I get 50 free listings a month and haven't really figured out what I am going to do with the other posts but might as well make an attempt to clear out more stuff in the house.

Do you want to add a little more money into your budget?  Check out ebay and remember to calculate the 10% to ebay, $0.30 plus 3% to pay pal and postage into the cost so that you make sure that you make a little bit of money for all your hard work.  Good luck and happy selling!!!