George Michael's Range Rover That he crashed in A Photography Shop's Window has reportedly been sold on eBay. The full story is Here
Tuesday 28 February 2017
Saturday 5 November 2016
eBay Sellers Feel Abandoned As The Older Selling Tools Will Be No Longer Supported
I came across this story today. eBay have decided to hang up some of their older selling tools such as Selling Manager & Pro as well as Turbolister. Their area a lot high volume sellers are not happy about it. You can read the full story HERE
Thursday 3 November 2016
The 8 Top Places Where eBay Sellers Can Get Great Stock From & Make Massive Profits.
Car Boot Sales, Flea markets & Swap Meets
When most eBay Sellers start selling they will usually sell things that they have laid around the home that they no longer use. They get bitten well and truly by the money bug want to keep selling but have nothing left that they don't use. Getting stock can be can be one of hardest things for eBay sellers to over come. However there is a good number of options.
Car boots sales are where I get the vast majority of my stock. If you do get to go round the boot sale buy as ethically as you remember these are ordinary people that are having a clear out or they may need to get cash fast to buy food. In the past I've given more than the stall holder has asked for, especially when the seller maybe a child who has come along with their parents and they have given their son or daughter a small section of the stall to sell some of their old toys. One time in particular springs to mind when I asked a little girl how much the Nerf Recon I was told 50p this particular gun is worth about £15.00 I told her I would pay her £2.50 her parents were happy & the little girl was ecstatic to say the least. This has happened on a few occasions if I think there is a good profit in the item then I will give what the seller has asked without haggling.
There are eBay sellers however who will stop at nothing to get to the good stuff first and have no qualms rifling through box's going into the back of cars, they're like a lot vulture around a carcass. Don't go down this road you can still make plenty of money without lowering your morals to what is nothing more than a pack of hyenas fighting over scraps. Don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with haggling to get the price a lower to make a profit which has to be decent enough for the work into researching, listing & packing the item. Also for me personally if I know the seller is a dealer who is there each week, the gloves come off. If they can't be bothered to do a little research on the items they're selling that's their tough luck and I will always haggle with any dealer to get the price down.
Always arrive early in the morning to a car boot sale, they usually open to the public about seven a.m. Getting there early means you get to the best bargains first, however there will also be a couple of hundred other resellers doing exactly the same and you'll all be usually looking for the same things. There is a sort of unwritten law while you've get it in your hands you get to refuse it first and no one else can buy it. Have a look at the whole stall, see if you can put together a collection of things you want to buy and sort a deal out for all of it. Get into every area on the stall there will usually be box's under the table that have just had a load of stuff dumped into them, go through every single thing, don't overlook anything which can make you a profit. Not so long ago I grabbed quite a dirty cardboard box that was buried under a pile of stuff underneath a pasting table. I opened it up and there was a Asus net book. The seller she explained that she couldn't get it to work. I thought it had be worth £12.00 as spares or repairs. We agreed on £3.00 I took it home charged it up, it worked fine. It sold it a few days later for £58.00. I picked it quite late in the morning, which meant a number of resellers had missed it. All because they couldn't be bothered to look hard and dig in the dirt a bit. There is a Yorkshire saying "where there's muck there's brass." (brass: Yorkshire slang for money)
Local Auction Houses
Auctions are fast and furious and great fun to boot. You need to have your wits about you. You really can't rest even for a minute. However if you prepare properly you can get some really good stock at fantastic knock down prices.
Auctions usually work on fortnightly or weekly schedules. They put out a list on line a few days before the auctions takes place. The vast majority of auction houses will also email you the list. Have a good read though it and mark down any items that interests you on the sheet. There is always a viewing day before the auction go have a look at what you've marked down. You need to add up what you think you can get for the item and decide what your willing to pay. What I personally do is divide it in to three and one third is what I'm willing to pay to get this item. You may need to spend some time doing this I've spent all day at auction viewing days but the rewards are well worth the effort.
The day of the auction get there early I like to sit at the back of the room so I can see who is bidding against me. You have to watch every item that's coming through the auction I've picked up some really good buys this way but you have to think on your feet and act fast. Auctions can move at a furious pace and that's how the auctioneer likes it. It's easier for people to make mistakes and run the bidding up which means more commission for the auctioneer. When the items you've marked come up for auction its personal preference when you make a bid. I wait until there is only one bidder left and it looks like they've won before I jump in. This is where you need to be really disciplined and stick to your maximum limit DO NOT! go over it. It's so easy to think just one more bid, just one more, just one more, before you know it there is no profit left in the item and you've won it. For buyers there is also a buyers premium to pay which is usually between 10% & 15% of the winning bid which you must factor in when your working out how much your maximum bid will be. All that's left is settle the bill and pick up your goods.
Friends & Relatives
A friend of mine just asks people if they have any stuff they don't want that she can sell. She gets a really good amount if quite high quality stock. She'll go through it all, sell the good stuff on eBay or Amazon. Anything that's got questionable quality or has bits missing she'll save them up and take them to the local car boot sale. This is a system she has been using for years and she does really well out of it.
Charity or Good Will Shops
Only a couple of things to remember here check everything is complete and if its possible that its
working. Sometimes people have done a car boot sale and this is stock that hasn't sold for one reason or another. It maybe because it broken or has parts missing. The goods you can get at charity shops is now not as good as it once was. The big players such as Oxfam, Bernardo's & The Red Cross the all having eBay accounts and have dedicated teams looking for rare or vintage goods for eBay or Amazon. There is still stock that gets overlooked and a lot of the smaller local charities don't have eBay accounts or the resource to start one. Don't haggle in charity shops its there for a good cause & most of the colleagues are volunteers so don't give them a hard time. Ask what the price is if its not priced up and pay up. Go to charity shops on different days and different times there is always stock coming in so no two days will be the same.
Retail Arbitrage
This is very new to me and its something I've just started dabbling in.
Retail arbitrage is when you buy from a retailer an then resell for a profit. You can buy this stock in bulk usually after seasons have finished. So end of summer for such things as camping and outdoor and after winter for toys and games. Retailers need space and it maybe not worth shipping back to the local depot to hold onto as it won't be next years hot item. The retailer still needs to make as much out of the stock as they can but they also need the space for the next promotion. So goods are marked down to a fraction of the price and as time drags on the lower the price will go. Like all things eBay and Amazon there are a lot of resellers who are looking out for deals just like this. It's a case of who is willing to hold out the longest and get the best price before committing to buy. Once you have the goods list them as one lot in quantity. Put them on a BIN & good until cancelled, they'll then trickle out until you've sold through and hopefully made a good profit on each one.
Nic Hills who I've mentioned on the blog before is a master of retail arbitrage. Check out his video's. He talks about it at length in a few of them.
eBay & Amazon
These are an obvious but so many people over look them. I'm seeing more and more auctions set up for "collection Only" in other words "cant be bothered to post it" this type of auction attracts very few bids and are a great place to get stock from. You can also complete a search for auctions in your local area and drill this down to as close as you want. Complete the search using lowest price at the plus post and packing first start with a category that you already sell in. Don't forget to go through the wholsesale and joblots category. You can get some really cheap lots which can be broken down and sold separately.
Finding items on eBay or amazon to flip on can be time consuming and tedious but it can also pay off really well and like everything you'll only get out what your willing to put in.
Local Advertisements
By this I mean supermarket notice boards, Local papers, Facebook selling Groups & Gumtree. Again here speed is essential. You need to make very fast decisions whether there is profit left in it. Don't
forget your probably going to have to go pick the item up. Its no good if your going to make £10.00 profit but its going to cost you £11.00 in fuel to go get it. If you can, try and negotiate a better price before you go see the item. When I get in touch with the seller I'll say something along the lines of "you've got it advertised for £10.00 I'm coming a bit of a distance if its what I'm looking for would you accept £8.00?" they'll say either yes or no you can then make a decision whether to go anyway and probably pay £10.00 or give it a miss. I'll usually give it a miss but leave them my phone number and see if they get sellers remorse. I've had a few calls back saying they've thought about it and £8.00 is fine. Even if you don't get a call back you can still call them later and say something along the lines of "I've had a look round there is nothing else as good as yours is it still available?" This is all about he who blinks first "pays!"
By the side of the road
You can pick up some amazing items that people have
just thrown out for the trash man. You do need to make sure that it really is trash and its not just sat there while the the owner pops inside for a minute.
www.Scavengerlife.com is a website that's run by a couple in the U.S. They go round and pick up a lot of other peoples trash and turn it into good money, really good money. They do some fantastic pod casts and have done for a few years. Infact at the time of writing eBay sellers can listen to pod cast No 282.
When most eBay Sellers start selling they will usually sell things that they have laid around the home that they no longer use. They get bitten well and truly by the money bug want to keep selling but have nothing left that they don't use. Getting stock can be can be one of hardest things for eBay sellers to over come. However there is a good number of options.Car boots sales are where I get the vast majority of my stock. If you do get to go round the boot sale buy as ethically as you remember these are ordinary people that are having a clear out or they may need to get cash fast to buy food. In the past I've given more than the stall holder has asked for, especially when the seller maybe a child who has come along with their parents and they have given their son or daughter a small section of the stall to sell some of their old toys. One time in particular springs to mind when I asked a little girl how much the Nerf Recon I was told 50p this particular gun is worth about £15.00 I told her I would pay her £2.50 her parents were happy & the little girl was ecstatic to say the least. This has happened on a few occasions if I think there is a good profit in the item then I will give what the seller has asked without haggling.
There are eBay sellers however who will stop at nothing to get to the good stuff first and have no qualms rifling through box's going into the back of cars, they're like a lot vulture around a carcass. Don't go down this road you can still make plenty of money without lowering your morals to what is nothing more than a pack of hyenas fighting over scraps. Don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with haggling to get the price a lower to make a profit which has to be decent enough for the work into researching, listing & packing the item. Also for me personally if I know the seller is a dealer who is there each week, the gloves come off. If they can't be bothered to do a little research on the items they're selling that's their tough luck and I will always haggle with any dealer to get the price down.
Always arrive early in the morning to a car boot sale, they usually open to the public about seven a.m. Getting there early means you get to the best bargains first, however there will also be a couple of hundred other resellers doing exactly the same and you'll all be usually looking for the same things. There is a sort of unwritten law while you've get it in your hands you get to refuse it first and no one else can buy it. Have a look at the whole stall, see if you can put together a collection of things you want to buy and sort a deal out for all of it. Get into every area on the stall there will usually be box's under the table that have just had a load of stuff dumped into them, go through every single thing, don't overlook anything which can make you a profit. Not so long ago I grabbed quite a dirty cardboard box that was buried under a pile of stuff underneath a pasting table. I opened it up and there was a Asus net book. The seller she explained that she couldn't get it to work. I thought it had be worth £12.00 as spares or repairs. We agreed on £3.00 I took it home charged it up, it worked fine. It sold it a few days later for £58.00. I picked it quite late in the morning, which meant a number of resellers had missed it. All because they couldn't be bothered to look hard and dig in the dirt a bit. There is a Yorkshire saying "where there's muck there's brass." (brass: Yorkshire slang for money)
Auctions are fast and furious and great fun to boot. You need to have your wits about you. You really can't rest even for a minute. However if you prepare properly you can get some really good stock at fantastic knock down prices.
Auctions usually work on fortnightly or weekly schedules. They put out a list on line a few days before the auctions takes place. The vast majority of auction houses will also email you the list. Have a good read though it and mark down any items that interests you on the sheet. There is always a viewing day before the auction go have a look at what you've marked down. You need to add up what you think you can get for the item and decide what your willing to pay. What I personally do is divide it in to three and one third is what I'm willing to pay to get this item. You may need to spend some time doing this I've spent all day at auction viewing days but the rewards are well worth the effort.
The day of the auction get there early I like to sit at the back of the room so I can see who is bidding against me. You have to watch every item that's coming through the auction I've picked up some really good buys this way but you have to think on your feet and act fast. Auctions can move at a furious pace and that's how the auctioneer likes it. It's easier for people to make mistakes and run the bidding up which means more commission for the auctioneer. When the items you've marked come up for auction its personal preference when you make a bid. I wait until there is only one bidder left and it looks like they've won before I jump in. This is where you need to be really disciplined and stick to your maximum limit DO NOT! go over it. It's so easy to think just one more bid, just one more, just one more, before you know it there is no profit left in the item and you've won it. For buyers there is also a buyers premium to pay which is usually between 10% & 15% of the winning bid which you must factor in when your working out how much your maximum bid will be. All that's left is settle the bill and pick up your goods.
Friends & Relatives A friend of mine just asks people if they have any stuff they don't want that she can sell. She gets a really good amount if quite high quality stock. She'll go through it all, sell the good stuff on eBay or Amazon. Anything that's got questionable quality or has bits missing she'll save them up and take them to the local car boot sale. This is a system she has been using for years and she does really well out of it.
Charity or Good Will Shops
Only a couple of things to remember here check everything is complete and if its possible that its
working. Sometimes people have done a car boot sale and this is stock that hasn't sold for one reason or another. It maybe because it broken or has parts missing. The goods you can get at charity shops is now not as good as it once was. The big players such as Oxfam, Bernardo's & The Red Cross the all having eBay accounts and have dedicated teams looking for rare or vintage goods for eBay or Amazon. There is still stock that gets overlooked and a lot of the smaller local charities don't have eBay accounts or the resource to start one. Don't haggle in charity shops its there for a good cause & most of the colleagues are volunteers so don't give them a hard time. Ask what the price is if its not priced up and pay up. Go to charity shops on different days and different times there is always stock coming in so no two days will be the same.Retail Arbitrage
This is very new to me and its something I've just started dabbling in.
Retail arbitrage is when you buy from a retailer an then resell for a profit. You can buy this stock in bulk usually after seasons have finished. So end of summer for such things as camping and outdoor and after winter for toys and games. Retailers need space and it maybe not worth shipping back to the local depot to hold onto as it won't be next years hot item. The retailer still needs to make as much out of the stock as they can but they also need the space for the next promotion. So goods are marked down to a fraction of the price and as time drags on the lower the price will go. Like all things eBay and Amazon there are a lot of resellers who are looking out for deals just like this. It's a case of who is willing to hold out the longest and get the best price before committing to buy. Once you have the goods list them as one lot in quantity. Put them on a BIN & good until cancelled, they'll then trickle out until you've sold through and hopefully made a good profit on each one.Nic Hills who I've mentioned on the blog before is a master of retail arbitrage. Check out his video's. He talks about it at length in a few of them.
eBay & Amazon
Finding items on eBay or amazon to flip on can be time consuming and tedious but it can also pay off really well and like everything you'll only get out what your willing to put in.
Local Advertisements
By the side of the road
just thrown out for the trash man. You do need to make sure that it really is trash and its not just sat there while the the owner pops inside for a minute.
www.Scavengerlife.com is a website that's run by a couple in the U.S. They go round and pick up a lot of other peoples trash and turn it into good money, really good money. They do some fantastic pod casts and have done for a few years. Infact at the time of writing eBay sellers can listen to pod cast No 282.
Friday 23 September 2016
Saturday 20 August 2016
Pair jailed for total of 18 years for 'sophisticated and cunning' eBay conspiracy (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)
A pair of crooks are each starting a nine year prison sentence for selling £1.25 million worth of stolen and counterfeit goods on eBay. You can read the full story HERE
Friday 29 July 2016
EBay & The Taxman
I added a post to the blog some time ago on declaring any earnings you make on eBay, Amazon or even just selling at the local car boot sale.
I found this story in a local paper about and eBay seller that thought he could cheat the system. Wrong answer Taxman and his buddy Vatman are really good at finding dodgers. If your buying and selling on eBay for a profit its very easy and simple. Register your business with Revenue & Customs, they will even help you complete the forms. Then keep up to date accounts of your earnings and pay any Tax & Vat due.
Wednesday 27 July 2016
DeLorean DMC-12 Back To The Future Time Machine For Sale On eBay
Although this wasn't the car used on the film it is an officially licensed product by NBC - Uninversal and comes with all the correct paperwork. The vehicle has also been signed by most of the film's cast and crew, including the guy who designed original movie car. The bidding currently stands at $50,500.00 its ends in a few hours so you better be quick if you fancy it.
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