I hope everyone had a relaxing and enjoyable Holiday! Mr. Bean and I spent some time with family in another state, but we're now back at our own home. While visiting my parents I took a look with a critical eye around my childhood bedroom (as well as at the gifts given to us by Mr. Bean's father-- he owns a boutique uses the excess inventory as gag gifts) for potential Ebay items. I found a few possibilities, but decided to run the numbers on my eBay debut earlier this month to see just what my profit margin looked like.
In my first attempt as an eBay seller I listed 3 items in a 7-day auction (in mid-December 2006):
Item #1: NWT (new with tags) shirt: no bids: Cost to list: $1.10
LOSS: $1.10
Item #2: Gently Worn Merrell Shoes: Sold at the Buy it Now Price of $24.99 + 7 S&H
Cost to list + Commission: $2.41
+ actual shipping = $4.80
(Net expense of sale) = $7.21
Profit: $24.78
Item #3: Insect Paperweight (a 2005 Xmas gift from FIL’s shop): sold at auction fro $3.50 + $3.00 S&H
Cost to list + Commission + PayPal Fee: $2.07
+ actual shipping and padded envelope= $2.36
(Net expense of sale) = $4.43
Profit: $2.07
TOTAL eBay income: $25.78
Half.com was much more profitable for me. I sold 6 books (including one $50 textbook). After shipping and commissions, my net gain was $48.43.
After analyzing the results, I will continue to try to sell items on eBay, but I will be careful when creating my listing to minimize fees (something I failed to do this first time around). I also think I will be judicious in what I sell and focus only on larger ticket items. Obviously the shirt was a loss and the paperweight was barely worth my time.
I am an avid reader, but don’t have a lot of room for books, so I will continue to use Half.com to thin out books I don’t plan to read again. When shipping items, it’s best to use small boxes lying around the house, but when boxes are unavailable, I found the best place to buy padded envelopes is the Dollar Tree where they are sold in packages of 2 envelopes for $1.00.
Ebay and Half.com results
December 28th, 2006 at 03:38 am
December 28th, 2006 at 07:47 am 1167292063
December 28th, 2006 at 09:49 pm 1167342592