As a relatively experienced online shopper, I have kicked myself over the years for not attempting to “sell” anything on eBay. Often running across items I no longer use or like, I have thought “why not put this on eBay and get rid of it.”
Wrongfully, I assumed it would take more time to take the photo, upload it, write the item’s description, find an appropriate box with bubble wrap, prepare the label for shipping subsequently taking it to the post office, to make it worth the few dollars I’d make.
With over three months until our estate sale, I thought, why bother?
Well, this week, I succumbed to the eBay selling frenzy, selling three items this week for a total of $139 less the $12.65 I paid for the free shipping I offered with the “Buy It Now” prices.
The “handling” of entering the three items to eBay’s website, the packaging and postage prep required a total of 18 minutes of my time. With a few calculations I tallied my average earnings at $421.17 per hour!
Here are the items I sold:
SierraSil Joint Formula 14 180 caps NEW – Promotes joint health and mobility,
End time: Jul-13-12 12:05:52 PDT
Sale price: $45.00
Quantity: 2
Quantity sold: 2
Quantity remaining: 0
Coleman LED Quad Lantern — Battery Powered Outdoor Camping/Emergency Lantern
End time: Jul-13-12 20:42:16 PDT
Sale price: $49.00
Quantity: 1
Quantity sold: 1
Quantity remaining: 0
Here’s how they sold so quickly:
- The pricing for the items was determined by checking recent sales of the same items on eBay that were also “used.” I decided to go slightly under these prices and offering “free shipping.”
- Researching the items at the manufacturer’s websites, I copied and pasted the photos and descriptions to ensure I accurately represented the items.
- In a matter of a few minutes, the items were uploaded and active.
- The next morning, I received an email from eBay telling me the “Buy It Now” items had sold and was paid by the buyer of course, for the prices I had asked. (Why didn’t I let the items go via an auction? Simple, I wanted to spend as little time as possible paying attention to an ongoing auction, and I wanted to sell the items for my competitive asking price). In the email from eBay, I was able to follow a link taking me directly to the printing of a mailing label. All that was required of me was to weigh the items on my kitchen scale in the packaging materials and posting it online. EBay subsequently calculated the price of the postage using USPS, my preference. My PayPal account was debited the cost of the postage with no mark-up.
- Printing the label on plain white printer paper, I taped it with shipping tape to the boxes I happened to have on hand, sealed the packages and took them out to my mail. When I listed the items, I had arranged with my mail person to take the prepaid packages thus avoiding a trip to the post office.
- Within three days, I received another email from eBay stating that the total funds of $139 were now available in my
PayPal account.
