The Holidays Are Coming, Make Money on E Bay Now Part 2

I have a close friend that has been making his living by working on eBay for quite a few years. Over that time I have watched him and picked his brain to find out how he goes about it. One of the things that I found interesting was how he comes up with the things he puts up for auction. He has always had an eye for deals. He's a great person to go thrift store shopping with, he seems to have a nose for collectibles and one-of-a-kind items. But the thrift stores have become savvy to items that are worth something and most have started a special section for designer or collectible items.

That doesn't mean that you can't still get more online for them than you would pay for them at the thrift store. It does mean you may want to do a little research to see what that item has recently sold for recently, or if it's even desirable. Many new sellers have figured this out and how to do it. For those of you that haven't here's a quick course on looking up that info.

Put the item in question in as if you were trying to find it to buy. When you get to that section scroll down and look on the left hand side of the screen. You'll see a section that offers options for advanced search. Just check the one that says completed. It will automatically pull up the recently closed auctions for that item. You can then see if it's an item people are actually buying and how much it's going for. You can also take a closer look to see if one kind or another of what you're selling sells better than another. Say it's Corning Ware. If there are 15 sets of dishes and only one has sold and 15 casserole dishes and ten have sold you can surmise that the casserole dishes are a much better item to look for and list. Or if maybe a particular pattern is more desirable than another. Jon is all about the research, with good reason.

Now, onto how he finds his merchandise. Yard sales are always a good bet. One of the things that Jon does that I never thought to do is hit them early, find the ones that look like they have many things of interest, narrow it down to the one or two that are really interesting and offer the owners of the merchandise a set price for anything left at the end of the day. After sitting all day haggling with cheap bargain hunters most people are more than willing to let what's left go at bargain basement prices. Even if he has to just dump a large portion of what he bought it almost always ends up being VERY profitable. Say he offers $75 for the lot. Most yard sales have clothes, knick knacks, tools, etc. He'll put together a couple lots of same size clothing, package up a few tools together, research the knick knacks to see if he has anything of value and list those separately. After everything is said and done he's usually tripled his money just in "junk"! You do have to have a good idea going in what will sell and what won't so you know which sales to make an offer on and a pick up truck or van is very helpful.

Trade trick number two is finding out when storage units have their auctions. When customers default on their units, the storage companies auction off the contents. This method has a few draw backs but can be a gold mine. First off the unit has to be completely emptied within the time allowed by each company, usually a few days. Secondly you can't go thru the unit and see what's in it before you bid. They open the door and what you can see is what you're bidding on. My friend learned early to skip any units that have lots of big items like furniture or appliance showing. Unless you have a way to sell or store large items it's usually not worth the hassle, especially since even if you personally happen to need a washer or dryer or whatever, they can't be tested to see if they work. Jon looks for units that are jammed full of boxes. You'll probably end up with many boxes full of useless papers and such but if you do things in an organized fashion all that can be gone thru and disposed of as you unload the unit. He brings his van and as he goes thru each box separates them into trash, flea market and E Bay piles. The trash goes directly into the back of the van on a tarp so when he gets to the dump he can simply slide the tarp, trash and all straight into the dumping area. He then goes back, sorts and decides which items are E Bay bound and which are flea market items. This is a good way to get a week or more worth of work in one fell swoop. He's gotten units for as little as five bucks and as for as much as a hundred. In one unit he got a lot of those tiny little clocks, the miniatures, and made several hundred dollars on those alone! In another a box a vintage Playboy! I don't have to tell you the money that can be made on them...if they ever make it to auction!

If he's in a position to have free time on his hands, or a helper, he has also put an ad our local little freebie paper advertising to clean out sheds or garages in exchange for the unwanted items. People that don't sell for a living look at items differently than those that do. The job doesn't have to be taken if you walk through with the owner and realize they just want reorganization, but if you walk thru and see old tools, boxes of books, machine or appliance parts, remote controls, toys or anything else you recognize as having re sale value and the owner seems eager to really clean things out, you've just made someone, who, perhaps isn't physically or emotionally up to the task happy and gotten a slew of merchandise for your E Bay business.

These are but a few of my friends trade secrets for finding merchandise. I'll cover auctions and a few other ways in my next installment of this series. Also coming up is looking for trends and how to look at items in a whole new light. Would you stop your car and cross three lanes of traffic because you thought you saw an original Dukes of Hazard Trapper Keeper? You should. It sold for $87.