Cha-Ching! That’s the sound my phone makes notifying us of an eBay sale. It’s sweet, sweet music. Just as we have in our lives and in our former jobs, we have put in the time, made mistakes, and learned new things in our eBay reselling business. This side gig has allowed us to quit our W-2 jobs in our mid 50s and completely capture total time freedom. We Have CHOSEN to continue online selling for now because we enjoy it, and it is profitable. However, we do have complete autonomy of how much, or little time we spend “working”. We also created this webpage for accountability, to tell our story, share our travels, and maybe someday reach others (in addition to our family and close friends) to show it’s never too late to steer things in the right direction. We hope that all the information here can inspire others to start, or continue their own journey.
As far as our eBay sales, people ask all the time how we did it, how we got started, how do we know what to sell. The short answer is: a bit of natural instinct, persistence, and a goal, combined with the ability to adapt, learn and, to quote John C. Maxwell, “fail forward”, meaning we try to learn from our mistakes. Online reselling seems to be ever changing and over the last several years we have had to adapt to new regulations, increased competition, rising shipping costs, and a worldwide pandemic. Needless to say, we have made many mistakes, have been blindsided, scammed, and come up on the short side of things more than once. To indulge your curiosity, or possibly to motivate someone, we’d like to share some of the pitfalls, and some tips with you. This post contains the first few, with more to come. Full disclosure: In the grand scheme of things, we have done well for ourselves in this venture but, we are still considered small sellers and are absolutely not experts on any of this and only share here some things that we have experienced and from which we have learned. Since we are ALWAYS learning, feel free to add any other advice in the comments.
Patience
…is a virtue! We have shared our story with many people and inspired others to start selling online. It takes effort, a good eye for what sells, timing, and some luck to be successful. By far, the most common things that causes people to fail before they get going are unrealistic expectations and a lack of patience. Unless you’re sitting on the actual treasures from Oak Island or a case of Superman Action Comics #1, chances are you are going to have to wait for regular profits to roll in. You simply cannot list 10 average items at market prices and expect them to sell within a week. Be diligent, keep sourcing quality items, continue listing, and wait. If you have good stuff listed, sales will come.
Research
First things first – you should ask yourself what do I have already, or what should I search for to list? I have become quite adept over the years at using online research resources in the field, especially the eBay app. Obviously, You must learn to look for items that have a good chance to sell. You can start by looking for things you know something about, or enjoy. I started years ago with sci-fi collectables and fantasy type stuff. Also, music, sports, and other things I liked. Eventually, I started looking up anything and everything if it looked interesting or unique. I’ve looked up thousands upon thousands of things I knew nothing about, and this research revealed the most obscure things, often to my huge surprise, to be valuable, and many, many things that weren’t. Next, you have to come up with an asking price. It’s easy to overprice something and it won’t ever sell, or underprice an item, leaving money on the table. Unless you really are an expert on something, don’t just THINK you know something’s value – look it up, you may be surprised (both high or low). It takes a few seconds to look at comparable sales, but creates a lasting database in your mind of items for which to look. Over time, you can learn to scan a sale, or store for sellable items pretty quickly.
Research the right way
As for using online apps…I suggest you always start by navigating to the SOLD comps. Anybody can list anything for whatever price they want, and often do sell items for ridiculous prices to people who don’t bother to do their own buyer’s research. Sold comps tell you what people are ACTUALLY currently paying. Listings, on the other hand, can still be helpful in seeing the amount of competition for an item and the asking price range to help you decide if it fits the profit margins you’ve decided are acceptable. After weeding through the crazy high and stupid low prices, you can get a good idea of expected value. Of course, if you have a truly unique or desirable item, you can set the market. The eBay app is what I use most often, but also regularly rely on Google, including the Google Image search that allows you to search for an item by snapping a photo of it. Different operating systems may call this feature by different names. There are a multitude of others, many free (PicClick, Amazon) and some for which you pay a subscription (WorthPoint). Bottom line, use whatever resources you can to research item worth.
These are just a few of the things to watch out for and tips to overcome them when starting. We’ll have more in the next post, including how/how not to construct a listing, shipping/packing, and managing inventory.
We are Mike and Kristi, and we spent the last decade getting out of debt, saving money, and becoming financially independent so we could retire early and travel the globe. You can also follow our journey on Instagram at MKAlmostThere https://www.instagram.com/mkalmostthere/ and eventually on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh6VD3QdcfN_2IIHkjk7V-Q