ebay tips

[dadofandrew]

I keep looking at selling stuff on Ebay as a part-time gig, now that playing poker online is reserved for those who can actually play at a winning level, darn it (I made $2300 last year, $2100 of it in one tourney...one bad beat, I was a break-even player for 2007, bonuses included).

 

Anyway, I keep hearing the key is to sell one thing over and over, as you can't know the value of everything. That's where I'm stuck...I can't really decide what I want to specialize in.

 

My current idea is tickets of concerts and sporting events, as it is not a "make $1 a day" thing, but has the potential for loss as well.

 

Any ideas or thoughts would be appreciated, I'd especially like to hear people that you know are doing well, and what they are selling.

[Paul77]

Well, I use ebay as a supplementary source of income off and on. Last month I was able to bring in $1,100 which helped tremendously for Christmas. Back in 2002 a friend and I each invested a few grand and started buying up concert tickets. We really did our research too. They was more work to it that just buying tickets aimlessly. We always tried to stay ahead of the curve, planning ahead - blah blah blah....

 

In the beginning it was awesome. But over time, it became harder and harder to get the "good seats", then the "good shows", then the "good markets". As profits shrunk, we began to take risks - buying smaller market shows, lesser artists... We started to have more misses than hits and eventually found ourselves spinning our wheels. I eventually went back to work full time and ebay became a hobby once again.

 

And that's my ebay story.

[dadofandrew]

I would only look to buy the sold out shows, but that does seem hit and miss. I'm unhappy the Hannah Montana tour appears to be over for now.

[Paul77]

Thats what we did. Our biggest scores were on the boy bands of the time. $750 return on $150 investment. We got burned badly by the Dixie Chicks. Everything pointed to them having a monster tour. We got tickets to sold out shows in a few cities, mainly in the south east. Then a few days later the big Chicks/George Bush controversy erupted and the secondary market fell apart. I tried for months to at least break even. I eventually sold most of them for under face value.

[gypcasino]

I've sold tickets too. It's really a grind if you don't know what you're doing. If I added it all up I've probably about broken even. I've had some hits but of course I ended up taking a bath several times too.

[pogokat]

i've gone from baseball cards, to car parts, to comic books, to rare video games...

 

just like the stock market, i believe diversity is the key...that way you don't get burned on old stock...make sure whatever you are selling is rare and you can get it for less than the average buyer...

 

and it's really hard to make lots of money on ebay...you are competing against the whole world...in a lot of ways it's harder to make money than it would be to just open your own retail outlet...sure, lots more prospective customers, but infinite competition drives the prices for everything down...