Do you think e-bay is a good place to do business or start a business?

Question

I have looked at many people's store site on e-bay I think they have to be making money right. How do they do it. What is the catch to making a profit on e-bay with all the fee's and problems with customers if they don't want the product after they get it with return policy and pay-pal policy.

Answer 1

If you want to earn serious money from eBay, you need to have a well-thought out business model. Selling on ebay is getting tougher -- just look at the number of auctions that closes without a bid. Go to the boards on ebay and you will hear even oldtimers complaining about how stiffer competition plus higher fees make it so much harder to sell on ebay.



The key success factor is: Sell products that people actually want.



One success model of ebay is the couple Jay and Marie Senese (username jayandmarie) of the 1-cent CD fame. They have the highest positive feedback number of all sellers on eBay. Their business model is to buy very low cost CDs in bulk (those that CD stores sell in their discount bins) and offer them on ebay at a starting price of 1 cent http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_23/b3886080.htm Their success is based on the fact that they stumbled on a sustainable business model with products that people really want.



eBay has several ways for you to determine exactly what the hot items to sell on their marketplace:



Items In Demand = the most popular items currently within that particular category. To see the In Demand page, go to http://pages.ebay.com/sellercentral/sellbycategory.html



Hot Items by Category Report = a monthly report that lists the fastest growing categories on eBay for the previous month. Go to http://pages.ebay.com/sellercentral/whatshot.html and select "Hot Items by Category" from the menu on the left.



eBay Pulse = "a daily snapshot of current trends, hot picks, and cool stuff on eBay". Go to http://pulse.ebay.com/ to see eBay Pulse in action.



Merchandising Calendar = eBay promotes specific categories on its home page each month. Savvy eBayers know that this home page exposure results in more interest in such categories. Go to http://pages.ebay.com/sellercentral/calendar.html to view the current Merchandising Calendar.

Answer 2

eBay is a Market. Plain and Simple. It is a place where buyers and sellers gather for haggling over merchandise and prices.



Making money all depends on if you can sell something for more than what you bought it. You have to factor in competition, demand, etc... It can be done, but its not easy to walk away with profits that let you live the easy life.



Well, maybe there a few masters and plenty of jacks.

Answer 3

Yeah Ebay is ok but it's not what it used to be and it's very hard to make money on there now.



There are a ton of scams out there too. I find the best things to go with are things like affiliate marketing on clickbank.com. They don't sell anything they just host other people's products and you get a commission for every one you sell.



Now, of course, getting people to buy them is what you need to learn. I work from home myself doing affiliate marketing but I won't pitch you anything I do. But my buddy Mack has a website where he teaches people how to do affiliate marketing.



I learned a ton from that guy and he's probably the reason I make close to $200k/yr. online. If you want to check out his site here's the link:



www.MassiveOnlineMoney.com



Hope that helps,



JC

Answer 4

Nope, Ebay is the only one so far that is worldwide. If you wanna expand further, make you own website. Better that way especially if you had large of inventory to sell, and ebay/paypal will charge you fees. Crainlist and Amazon do not had a malaysia base website, you can buy stuff from u.s. amazon third party seller and they can shipped to you but not the other way around, because there no local site yet and crainlist is only for u.s. as it now.

Answer 5

ya you can make good $$$