Profitability on eBay anymore

aking · #1 08-18-2014

How much are you guys paying out everytime you make an account? I know a lot of us are spending $10 on tracfones everytime we need a new phone #. Also, you have to pay $25 per bank account if you dont't alreaydy one you can transfer $ into.

Is anyone actually making $ on ebay or just obsessed with making accounts? I rarely hear anything about profitability on ebay.

Just a thought...

Kiroshi · #2 08-18-2014

Quote:

Originally Posted by aking

How much are you guys paying out everytime you make an account? I know a lot of us are spending $10 on tracfones everytime we need a new phone #. Also, you have to pay $25 per bank account if you dont't alreaydy one you can transfer $ into.

Is anyone actually making $ on ebay or just obsessed with making accounts? I rarely hear anything about profitability on ebay.

Just a thought...

I certainly aint making them for fun!

Callidus · #3 08-18-2014

The profitability comes when you know how to run an account and it turns from a small account to a giant with nice limits and good feedback. Selling the wrong items leads you to keep making accounts....

stanislav · #4 08-18-2014

eBay is DEAD ... In all these years I have never seen eBay sales this bad ... No traffic whatsoever ... no views ... no sales ... high return rate due to abuse ... extortion ... high final fees ...

jeffweico · #5 08-18-2014

eBay, like any other marketplace is constantly changing. If your items have slow sales, it is time to look for new items to sell. Ditto if the competition brings down your profit to 1%.

I too, get frustrated, because I am an adult with a family and all of the expenses that come with it and I have to compete with sellers from other countries where $5 per day is considered a bigtime payday and with college kids doing this for beer money.

All you can do is find new niches. It is a never-ending process. But eBay IS profitable if you are selling the right things.

Dmshark25 · #6 08-18-2014

I'm still making money , if I wasn't I would never be jumping thru all these hoops making accounts , I do it because of the money , you need to play there game, and it has been changing constantly and dramatically, but as long as u adapt it is definitely still profitable ,

I feel the day of just having a few big accounts that you are selling big sales on are over but u can still make them same sales just over many many many accounts

aking · #7 08-18-2014

Yea, I agree with some of the comments here. It wil depend on your items and having the right niche. I'm doing research as we speak to find the niche. Trying to stay away from Vero items is difficult. Finding a non vero item with decent profitability is not easy. I'd like to have a 20-30% profit per sale.

The days of 300% profit per item is over I guess!

joew8989 · #8 08-18-2014

I agree 30% is a good margin nowadays. Its hard to compete with China.

unkown5454 · #9 08-18-2014

Build your own websites if you are truly bored.

rsot · #10 08-19-2014

Quote:

Originally Posted by unkown5454

Build your own websites if you are truly bored.

Always good to vary it up - websites...eB...amazon...others

miketyson · #11 08-19-2014

Adapt or perish. Plain and simple.

rsot · #12 08-19-2014

Competition never sleeps

aking · #13 08-19-2014

Quote:

Originally Posted by joew8989

I agree 30% is a good margin nowadays. Its hard to compete with China.

Yea, everything I think about selling there's always a China listing for a little of nothing. I'm not sure how China is able to get away with selling so many items over here.

newjerseymax · #14 08-19-2014

Quote:

Originally Posted by stanislav

eBay is DEAD ... In all these years I have never seen eBay sales this bad ... No traffic whatsoever ... no views ... no sales ... high return rate due to abuse ... extortion ... high final fees ...

Extortion and scammers are on the rise that's for sure... Especially now that they are catching onto the new defect rules....

I had 3 negative feedback in couple of years on one of my best accounts. Now I have 31 defects in 2 months for idiotic things. People asking questions, simple things.... I can see my best account drowning fast and no way to stop it. Very frustrating.... So yea losing accounts faster then ever makes it a lot harder to make money.... Starting with lower limits etc.... First time ever I even got scammed here.... (Sandy drama)

oompaloompa · #15 08-19-2014

I am 50/50 myself. There are low margins on ebay unless you have a reasonably exclusive distribution deal, and alot of those are taken. Just buying off alibaba etc, you are paying too much for decent margin IMO and sometimes you have to sell alot to make anything, it can seem too much outlay or too much hard work.....

also I fell in to the trap of making too many accs, then not having enough goods to sell on them, as my main powerseller accs are still standing and they sell 75% of everything...and why change that.....so what is the point of like 20 plus stealth accs, sitting there doing nothing....

I am always looking for stuff to sell on my stealths but never see anything much worth what I know about already, but I always research periodically when I have the time......which is hardly ever....and research can turn in to days then weeks if you do not call a halt to it....

however you would be silly to sell stuff that has too little or no profit, so whatever you sell, you make some money and that is not hard to do...but what I call big money, no not on ebay, or az, not for me anyway....glad I married well har har....

fox20c · #16 08-19-2014

Been seeing a huge drop-off in profits lately. Been moving to other avenues of making money. One of which is what others have mentioned, my own website. But that is a completely different story.

jeffweico · #17 08-19-2014

Profits and sales ALWAYS decline during the summer months. People are outside and on vacation, visiting family, etc. Things should pick up somewhat in September. But if you have been selling the same items for a long time and seen a steady decline in profitability, you should be doing your research and finding new products to sell.

And, as one person noted above, the days of the 300% profit margin are gone.

fox20c · #18 08-20-2014

Cant wait until Fall comes around again to see if we do get that bounce back, Should be an interesting holiday season this year.

sergfro · #19 08-20-2014

Quote:

Originally Posted by stanislav

eBay is DEAD ... In all these years I have never seen eBay sales this bad ... No traffic whatsoever ... no views ... no sales ... high return rate due to abuse ... extortion ... high final fees ...

change what you're selling. Ebay has been amazing for me this year.

Blighty · #20 08-20-2014

Maybe better on .com but it's been really bad on the UK site for a while now.

rsot · #21 08-20-2014

Force the profit margins within customer acceptable method/route

stanislav · #22 08-20-2014

Like I said, yes I totally agree that during summer months it's slower than usual but not THIS slow. Either this is done on purpose to get rid of/discourage as many sellers as possible or eBay has lost a huge chunk of their customers due to recent events. Decline in sales begun about 2 years ago but this year was especially bad beginning end of March and then at the end of May it turned even worse than before. You have to have a lot of products in your arsenal to keep you afloat. Profit margins are very small, significant amount of returns, very few views, extortion and negative feedbacks are on the rise. I don't know what eBay is thinking so either they are allowing this intentionally to go on or they are just as clueless as the rest of us. eBay is sinking ... And there are no good alternatives either.