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Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

I swear no matter the category, there are people selling items and they can't be making any money. It's ridiculous and I'm seeing it more and more. The bad part about it is its not even Chinese sellers, they are right here in the USA.

I'm sorry, I just had to vent. I am doing some research for new items and this is killing me. Also, some of the items I have now have slow sales b/c people are buying for these guys selling items for dirt cheap with free shipping.

How do you guys manage this?

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

I've thought the same thing. I constantly see things with fees, shipping, & cost of goods there's no way thru can be profiting. My only suggestion is think outside the box. The items I sell are unique items that I make myself, and I can customize them for customers. I learned that they tend not to harp on the price because they can get exactly what they want. Hope that helps. Good luck man!

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

Maybe it st*len items bein unloaded for da low low :pout:

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

Same in the UK too!

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

Two, ok three groups here:

1. Stolen items being unloaded quickly. There is an epidemic of theft going on at retail stores. In the nice area where I live, all Walmarts now have private security or a employee in front of the store to deter grab & runs. These will never be sold at close to regular pricing because the thieves don't want a bunch of stolen stuff loitering on their shelves in case of a visit from the cops.

2. Idiots selling for super low prices in the delusion of carving out a chunk of the market for themselves. These come and go as the previous morons go bankrupt and new ones think they will make it work this time around.

3. People who literally sell for fun and think it's some sort of valid social interaction. Think dumb old ladies who destroy the market for a lot of craft type stuff. Etsy is full of these; they admit this on the forums.

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

Yea, I've been thinking about a product that I can make myself, or a product that I can customize for buyers. That is probably the way to go.

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

Better think ahead to protect your product or any hint of success and Chinese lowballers will copy your product and destroy all profit potential.

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

I believe some people sell at a near loss in an effort to build feedback also.

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

This is very common with the Chinese Sellers. They sell at super low prices and then they sell their higher priced stuff.

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

If I have anything lying around like ps4 games, i will sell them for any price as long as it covers postage

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

yes good idea, sometimes i do it just to make going to the post office a worthwhile trip and to push selling limits rather than for profit

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

I tried giving away stuff and noticed one thing the people who get freebies are complainers and take up more support than paying customers. They not happy with 1 freebie they make few accounts a day get lots of them. So I learned quick not give anything away. Well I tried it once if they of played nice I would of keep doing it but now I never offer freebies until I forget this experience (so probably do it again next year). It did help sales but not enough for time took.

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

so true. whenever I discount something I always get the annoying cheapskates complaining about something :attention::attention::attention:

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

eBay is now a place to get free stuff. I'm about to move onto Etsy and my own website. I find the items those Chinese sellers are selling are even cheaper than stuff I can find on the China market.

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

I'm seeing that too.

There are a couple of products I no longer buy in bulk...I buy from china single piece one at a time.... :lol:

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

Ive noticed this too, usually though they run out of stock and dont come back with it....

so if you checked a month later, probably that product is good to go...

but when researching what to sell, eg. cross checking wholesalers and then price on ebay, you can sometimes discard a profitable item because some joker is monopolizing...and often you do not come back to it...

its even worse when you already have the stock, and the joker sinks the ship....and then it is tempting to just offload so you are not stuck with it....

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

Thats a good point, they wont be selling long at that price. Why would you want to have like 50+ sales a day making no $. Seems like it would just create stress.

Ah well, they will run out of stock fast and not have any profit to buy more inventory, haha.

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

even worse in the UK, we have to pay 1/6th of the sale price in tax if you're legit and most don't.

Not sure what its like over there but various ways to scam over here, not paying postage,not paying the tax above.
Biggest ebay seller in the UK/world shut down 2-3 months ago, sued by royal mail and had all assets seized

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

Or group #4

People who discovered Dave Ramsey and selling all junk bought over years with credit cards in order to get out of debt. He mentions selling on ebay or having yard sells. He also suggest getting 2nd job as pizza delivery man. But of course think they do better listing on Amazon not ebay and alot sell there too.

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

One more thing, without any doubt, not ALL people are paying the same costs for goods. People who are buying several thousand items at a time can oftentimes get 50+% better pricing.

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

Very true!

I know my prices are better when I spend 50k on one items versus someone who is buying few hundred dollars...

Then I often still not cheapest as to be lowest price = annoying buyers, pesky questions and buyers remorse.

Also, the type of shipping you have plays a role. Offer FREE priority or express mail at higher price and you get a whole different type of customer....

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

I have been thrust into a situation where I need to sell about 200 items right at my cost. It is a long story but I will use this to include a catalog of my real profit making items in the hopes that a guy buying item X for a really low price wold get witih me to buy many more items which are not on ebay. I guess that is called a loss leader....like the dollar burger so they can get you to buy profitable drinks and fries.

Good way to build up feedback and store traffic to I guess.

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

I do XMAS guaranteed delivery December 15th on and add 40-50% to the cost of items. So an Item I would get $350.00 on an auction will sell for $500 with a BIN with guaranteed delivery. I hoard certain items just for this reason. I have a room full of Christmas delivery over pricing that will not get listed until Thanksgiving day.

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

I'm reading this and... You know it just sounds like a lot of bitchmoaningandcomplaining to me.

I get it, we all like to sell and make profit, but if 345645654546345 users all follow the same guides: Find a supplier, find how much profit you can make, make the profit by undercutting then what do you expect?

If you want to use dropshipping and are looking for a product, then I'm pretty sure there are 7 million people doing the exact same thing, thinking the exact same thought that you are "omg, people are eating away my profit, just leave and leave my profit to me, let me sell sell sell"

Its like... cmon man, it's business- Everybody wants to do exactly the same thing: Buy low, sell high and nobody wants competiotion. If you are selling in a "****ty" category you'll always get competitors who can afford to drop the prices for 6 months, just to make you suffer and once you have either moved on, or struggled and decided to quit, they can slowly put the prices up again. Same with amount of listings and everything else "business" related.

Unless one really finds a category where undercutting doesn't really get you anywhere or figure out a personal and profitable way of sourcing the stock, you'll always run into same problems.

Everybody wants to find a cheap online wholeseller, do the price checks with couple of clicks, list using stock photos and other peoples templates. Everybody wants to do so in huge numbers, more money, more items, more accounts, more sales, more profit, more products more more more more... More problems and more retarded people doing exactly the same thing.
It's pretty lazy.

If you want to make profit, you have to put time and energy into it and if something is easy, its only matter of time before you have 7 million people doing the same thing and they can't seem to figure out where have the profits gone.

Go back to basics, work hard and do your own thing, find a creative way to run a business. Instead of having 600 products that are **** and don't produce any profit, find one good one and develop it. Experiment with categories and suppliers, go back to basics and figure out a way to be one step ahead of other people.

I have never sourced anything that I sell online, I travel 2-4 times a month to different parts of europe to meet with local suppliers, other people who sell the same things and I develoop business contacts. I try to work with what I've got and seek advantage- I take something that nobody else is selling and sell that. I find the hardest thing you could possibly sell(Either because of its price, size, need or other factors) and try to make it as easy as possible for a customer to get it from you.
I get downright oldschool whel it comes to business and I try to avoid selling USB chargers and batteries, screen protectors and shoelaces... You get what I mean.

Hustle, hustle hard.
https://media.giphy.com/media/mFZtaBRB3srle/giphy.gif

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

Word.
</drops mic>

Re: Do people just sell for the heck of it?
 

Real talk.