Anyone Making $$$ On eBay?

Wondering if anyone runs a business on eBay? Any tips on what works well?

I have been doing some summer cleaning over the past couple of months on ebay and have gotten about $300 from junk I didn't want anymore. It's probably a far cry from what the original purchase prices were, but it's something.

I think the only people that really make money on ebay are people with connections to china. They must get these items for pennies or less.

For example, I ordered a couple of cables for $0.99 shipped. This is from a USA seller too. Somehow he managed to pay for the item, the padded envelope (50 cents), and for USPS shipping (which is ridiculous these days), ebay final value fees (10-15%), listing fees, paypal fees (3%), and still turn a profit somehow on that 99 cents, it's amazing.

The China sellers can actually ship from China to the US on 80 cents and still make a profit. That's incredible to me.

When you're dealing with Ebay, your primary market is going to be people that care pretty much about cost only. When there's 100 other people in the world selling your product, you've gotta be prompt and sell quality products.

Ebay also doesn't mess around. If you get some negative feedbacks they'll suspend you. If a buyer thinks you misrepresented your item, he can file a paypal claim and they'll take the money out of your account.

I can just imagine these sellers. With the amount of items you'd need to sell to make a profit, your apartments would probably be ceiling high with boxes, and you'd probably be making daily trips to the post office (items that you can't print from home).

If you're not willing to commit your life to serving ebay customers, I suggest you stick to a regular job.

Hope this was helpful.

Oh yea, I see you're from Ontario. Most of buyers are from US I would say, so a lot of people won't buy from you because of that.

I believe your currency is higher right now. You've also got more hurdles to cross to ship items, and for me, price the same, I usually buy from people on the East Coast (I'm from VA).

Most of the stuff I buy comes from NY, NJ, NC, and Florida.