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What do you consider a good profit>?
 

When looking for new items to sell, What do you conisder a decent profit off each item? I know each item and pricing will be different. Lets say you pay $19.95 for an item and sell it for $25, is a $5 profit considered good?

Yes it is, but personally I get 1200% profit on average these days lol...

I look for more than 25% on low to mid value items .
$5 profit less fees and the likes doesnt leave a lot unless your selling hundreds a day .
I generally aim for 100% markup this then leaves me something after being raped by EB and PP for there cut.
But if your going to shift volume at $5 a go may be worth a try but you dont want to be a busy fool ..

Well Da!m, I need to put in some hours and find something better! lol I have a few items that I make about 3x what I pay for them, but something they cause me trouble...

You'd be making just over 20% on that. That is actually very good markup for a "legit" product. And if you are able to sell a lot of this item then you are doing great.

Lately, I've been putting my items up for auction with a starting price that will garner me 2x profit (after all fees), with a BIN at 4x.

Its not always about the amount of profit per item. Making £5 on one item isn't going to make you rich. But if you can sell 100 of them a day...

Its all about volume in my opinion.

volume vs profit.
always a sticky one .
all that matters is the gross amount deposited in your accounts every day and what you have to pay from this .
I personally prefer to sell less and get more but thats just me .
Ive done the 1000s of items a week to gain small margins and the only winner in my eyes was the couriers and EB PP
Sonow i mark up more so im the winner .
Yes i sell less but i make more .

if you are selling 1 a day then no. if you are selling 20 a day now we are starting to talk. everything depends on volume. it is very hard to compare models to other companies, sometimes there are industry 'standards' but that is for bigger companies. if you are making good money each year that is all that matters

=}Trouble in what way?

Is that $25' then eBay fees, then PayPal fees then shipping fees?

My best item I buy for $7.69 I list on eBay as an auction for 69.99. Some bid up to $100.
My limit is 10 and I did that item 10x for each of the last two months.

If my limit was higher I would lower the price but I can only sell 10 so Im trying to get the most. Also, eBay is full of the same item for $20-$30 so you don't always need to be the cheapest.

At the moment i am all about volume. My profit per item is really low but i am shifting a few per day.

It does take up lots of my time preparing parcels. My goal now has to be to find items that create more profit.

Holy sheeesh kebab. Good stuff man :clap:

Any profit is good profit. No such a thing as bad profit.

I can turn $500-$1000 into $20,000 easily over a few months. And when you do this with 200+ items....well you can do that math. So to answer your original question I do not think that is great profit but if you are doing it in volume than you will be rolling in money.

Anything that I can get into my pocket after fees and such is a 'good profit' for me. lol :clap:

Very nice amazon :).

as others said im happy with any profit. I go for 10-20% for anything I sell. It adds up if you sell alot. Im shooting for 40k sold from dec1-mid jan. so for me, ima get paid :)

Volume is good to shoot for - but the profit margin is high. Have to do research to find the top killers.

What's more important is purchasing very cheap items that sell like hotcakes e.g. wholesale price $7.25, and reselling for $40-$60 each, selling around 10 per day, it adds up in the end to the point where if you're humble, and don't want to be greedy you can just sell for 1 week per month instead of EVERY SINGLE DAY BEING STRESSED OUT!!!

what exact percent does Ebay take per item? And also Paypal?

I am able to make 460.00 profit a day listing 2 of my items in ebay motors. That's all I list usually been this way for 14 months so far

I used to make 20% on "VERO" items, now I make 35-40% on legit items.

I fell for vero items before I joined here but never touched my good account with vero I stick to ebaymotors. No 21 day hold. Money is released soon as u print shipping lAbel. I've been using 1 account 14 months. Every payment is cc now. I give customers 25.00 off order. They all say hell yeah send me invoice.

can anyitem be sold in motors?

Do only searches in motors show the items in motors? ie if list product X in motors and some searches for X in ebay, will they see my item?

THanksS

Yes correct. But has to be a motor part or power sport etc to be sold under ebay motors. But when I'm in motors which I only sell I search iphone cases and other things out if curiosity , and it brings normal ebay right up. Same company same format. If I have had ebay app on iPhone and stealth got killed. Safe thing is to download the ebay motors app 1 extra life per se. Lol

I'm more concerned with the demand and liquidity of a product then the percentage of profit per item. I operate under the assumption that if there is an infinite number of profitable orders, I could fill the orders.

Man I like your thinking. I just wish I could keep enough in stock! I would be loaded by now!

25% avg no risk no inventory

Are you dropping shipping?

Great thread, sorry for bringing it back from. Figured it would be great to update this rather than start a new one. I've been also the same. I used to get excited when my iPhone rang couple of times every hour with Paypal notification of payment. Also it was nice seeing my bank account go up $200 a day, however at the end of the month when I paid my bills for my inventory, it went drastically down to leaving me with barely any real profit. Gross profit makes you excited, but in reality it's just ⊗⊗⊗⊗ money you don't own.

Not to mention deal with heavy volume makes for more angry customers, more problems, and more people trying to scam you and as result lowering your accounts value (Negatives, cases, stress etc...)

I've been starting to phase out of the volume sale. Now when I get home, I have only a few items to ship vs the 30-40 items I used, but I'm keeping a little more. I do miss the volume rush though.

The eBay fees now make it much harder to make money than it 5-10 years ago. But I agree, I just try to maximize the profit on every item I sell. Some items I have make small markup maybe 5-10% profit other I am in the 30-40% range. For me as long as I am selling items and the customers are happy and not bitching. I am happy to sell anything that I can turn for a profit. I don't get caught up in the numbers. I am one of those that cares more about inventory turnover than anything else. I figure if I have a base price for most items and I have good turnover the profit will take care of itself. (I.E. I would rather sell the same items 10x for 8% profit margin than once time for 30%) Turnover is always my biggest concern.

At minimum I expect to at least earn $10 after PP/ebay fees and original cost. My goal though is typically $20-40/item. This means my original price varies widely, anywhere from $1 (amazing garage sale find) to $60 (clearance higher retail item) for example. It's a tough balance because the higher my original investment, the higher the dang ebay/paypal fees and the lower my paypal threshold goes.

Time is valuable though and I'd rather make more for putting in the same amount of time. Ironically I've found that mid-range priced items seem to have the sanest buyers (knock on wood!). It seems the times I've sold something at a loss is when I get the biggest PITA buyer on the planet. lol

Like others here, I always do what I think is a reasonable price even if others have theirs at 25% the cost of mine. I've found as long as I'm willing to let it ride, it will generally sell (I try to do good research prior to listing so I know what's selling and what's not before I even bother).

Buy gold from someone who thinks they're selling you coal.

I like at least 50% and better to hit the 300% which is typical of antiques if you can find the right item.

Closeouts etc I depend on volume and make less but make up for it is large amount of sales and average 500-1000 profit per skid/pallet most times.

I usually prefer to make a minimum of 50% and more. Anything less and I'm not really interested.

I make about 350%
I'm a busy guy so I try not invest in things that aren't too profitable.

It depends on what ur selling. Certain markets average 3% so if you are doing 5% u are way ahead. Sometimes making 50% isn't enough. There's a lot of factors that go into something like this. Market, volume, etc

^^^ That's right. Making %100 on an item that's $1 means making $1. However making 5% on a 5000 item is $250 far superior than the 100% on that $1 item. I think the rule shouldn't be the % but rather the actual cash return. I think $5+ should be the smallest profit after all said and done to keep.

LOL

Hopefully we all think this way.

Nothing worse then going backwards.