I hear people complain about eBay all the time.
Most of them have been around for a while and remember the good old days of eBay.
Back then listing fees were lower and sellers could leave feedback for buyers.
I'd tend to agree that taking the feedback privilege away from sellers was sort of a slap.
But I also know that the sellers that stuck around were almost forced to provide quality products and great service.
And that's what eBay wanted in the first place.
Let's fact it, nothing stays the same forever.
eBay has gone beyond its baby step days and become one hugely successful online marketplace.
And every day people like you and me have the opportunity to offer goods and services in one of the most popular retail outlets online.
it's ">It's too bad that eBay is charging more to list things but that's just the way it goes.
I tend to look at the bright side more often than not.
And when it comes to eBay the bright side is this: you can still list your stuff there for chump change and take part in a closed community of ready buyers who want what you have.
Think about it.
Every day millions of people log onto eBay looking to both buy and sell.
And eBay is a great place to buy wholesale inventory for your business.
The Right Stuff It's obviously a good place to sell things as well.
But just offering stuff on eBay doesn't guarantee success.
You still have to be smart about it.
First you need to find an item that people want.
Duh, right? That seems obvious but it doesn't always appear so obvious to the people listing items that never seem to get sold.
That's surely a recipe for failure.
The Right Price If not offering the things that people want isn't the first cause for eBay failure, paying too much for the things you sell would be.
None of this is exactly rocket science but still, when I see someone listing an item with an outrageous minimum bid or buy it now price I just cringe.
I have to wonder what they were thinking.
As I've said, this stuff isn't that hard.
A simple 10-minute search of that item will show a potential seller how much other sellers are getting for it.
From there the only thing left to determine is whether the seller buy that item wholesale for a low enough price to make it pay off.
Finding Stuff To Sell Under this heading I'm going to talk a little about both the right stuff and the right price.
When I was an active seller on eBay I'd literally hunt around yard sales and thrift shops every day.
And I'd almost always come home with plenty of good stuff to sell.
I also became familiar enough with most of what I was buying to know how much it would bring on eBay.
If you'd like to try this consider leaving a friend or partner at home and call them from the thrift shop to check what certain items are selling for.
But what if you don't like cruising the thrift shops or yard sales? Does that mean you can't play the eBay game? Nope.
It just means you'll need to find a different source for your items.
There's an entire industry existing around wholesalers offering products for people to sell on eBay and other auction sites.
There are also many outfits offering products to drop-ship.
That simply means you sell it and forward the shipping address to the drop-shipper and they send it out for you.
You never even have to touch the product.
Still, the challenge with wholesalers and drop-shippers is, do they really offer things at a price low enough for you to profit.
In my experience, most don't.
Anyone can advertise wholesale prices but it's still up to you to determine whether a price is really a bargain or not.
The good news is this: there are some companies and individuals out there offering excellent deals on wholesale merchandise.
And it becomes your job to sift through the gravel to find the gold nuggets.
Are you up to the task? I'll close this with a little tip I referred to in the third paragraph.
Take a look around on eBay.
Lots of people are selling good stuff cheap [http://www.
userfriendlybooks.
com/business/starting-out-on-ebay].
Happy sailing.