My Bottom Line: Selling stuff on eBay is a lot of work, but it's also nice to get things out of your house.
I think to really be profitable, you could make selling on eBay your full time job. I have other interests in my life, like my volunteer career and my science class, so I'll just put a batch of items on My eBay from time-to-time.
I did recently buy a new cheap camera tripod and I really love my choice. It was about $40 from B&H. I used to dread trips to the real B&H in NYC and if you've been there you know why, but now I kind of miss it and I was happy to order from them. Because even though I don't want to be in their over-crowded nutso store, I know they are fucking fierce over there. There is a method to their madness.
Here I am holding the wonderfully compact Canon tripod in it's carrying case. I love the carrying case. It's nicer for storing the tripod. A tripod w/out a case is kind of a snaggly monster in your closet.
I am my own model and photographer so that helped. I just picked a sunny day and mostly used natural light and ran around the apartment changing wildly fast in and out of the items I sold.
It's best that I was home alone. Thank goodness.
Putting stuff up is way smoother than it used to be. Even back a few months ago eBay would peck you to death with all these tedious questions, but somehow they really got their shit together and the listing process is much more streamlined and looks better too.
I just sat at my desk with my items in a stack near-by and used a tape measure as I went to enter them into eBay online.
I didn't get too many dumb questions about my items. That was a relief. I do have an extremely solid eCommerce background on my resume, so I think I am good at predicting the questions the item-viewer will have.
I set-up my auctions to all end on Sunday evening THINKING everyone would pay and I could have this big trip to the post office on Monday morning, but that was not the case at all. I received rolling payments and took several trips to the PO and LUCKILY I live within walking distance of a post office so it was pretty convenient. I just had to remember to bring my own packing tape over there.
Most of my buyers bought USPS Priority Mail Shipping service so I got to use the free packing stuff supplied by the post office. My post office here in Little Rock is SO MUCH NICER than the ones in NYC. Here in LR the supplies are stocked and the works are so eerily nice.
I had a surprising amount of international buyers.
I didn't pay too much attention to how much money I actually made. I also started almost all of my items at .99. I had rescued several of my items from thrift stores and some of my items were things I no longer wanted to use/wear, so it was really a mission of sending things off to new homes.
I would relate the prices I got to those of yard sale prices. Except for in the case of a Marc Jacobs handbag.
I think to really be profitable, you could make selling on eBay your full time job. I have other interests in my life, like my volunteer career and my science class, so I'll just put a batch of items on My eBay from time-to-time.
I did recently buy a new cheap camera tripod and I really love my choice. It was about $40 from B&H. I used to dread trips to the real B&H in NYC and if you've been there you know why, but now I kind of miss it and I was happy to order from them. Because even though I don't want to be in their over-crowded nutso store, I know they are fucking fierce over there. There is a method to their madness.
Here I am holding the wonderfully compact Canon tripod in it's carrying case. I love the carrying case. It's nicer for storing the tripod. A tripod w/out a case is kind of a snaggly monster in your closet.
I am my own model and photographer so that helped. I just picked a sunny day and mostly used natural light and ran around the apartment changing wildly fast in and out of the items I sold.
It's best that I was home alone. Thank goodness.
Putting stuff up is way smoother than it used to be. Even back a few months ago eBay would peck you to death with all these tedious questions, but somehow they really got their shit together and the listing process is much more streamlined and looks better too.
I just sat at my desk with my items in a stack near-by and used a tape measure as I went to enter them into eBay online.
I didn't get too many dumb questions about my items. That was a relief. I do have an extremely solid eCommerce background on my resume, so I think I am good at predicting the questions the item-viewer will have.
I set-up my auctions to all end on Sunday evening THINKING everyone would pay and I could have this big trip to the post office on Monday morning, but that was not the case at all. I received rolling payments and took several trips to the PO and LUCKILY I live within walking distance of a post office so it was pretty convenient. I just had to remember to bring my own packing tape over there.
Most of my buyers bought USPS Priority Mail Shipping service so I got to use the free packing stuff supplied by the post office. My post office here in Little Rock is SO MUCH NICER than the ones in NYC. Here in LR the supplies are stocked and the works are so eerily nice.
I had a surprising amount of international buyers.
I didn't pay too much attention to how much money I actually made. I also started almost all of my items at .99. I had rescued several of my items from thrift stores and some of my items were things I no longer wanted to use/wear, so it was really a mission of sending things off to new homes.
I would relate the prices I got to those of yard sale prices. Except for in the case of a Marc Jacobs handbag.
Thanks so much for the info! After reading about what you went through, I think I'm going to stick to the old fashioned approach and have a yard sale! The photographing, writing, organizing, wrapping, mailing sounds like too much work for me! Thanks so much for the recap.
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