[Closed] Mystery item. EBay bulk selling. Effort Vs Reward.

I'd check the amount that have been sold on eBay in the past month, and the number of resellers.

Unless the answers are (i) more than, say, one a day; and (ii) hardly any, I wouldn't personally want to be potentially stuck with loads of these mystery items in my garage.

Would you buy a pile of them and put on eBay for a potential £14-19 margin (minus the cost and time of posting out to the buyer)? Is it worth the effort and at what scale would you do it? 10, 20, 50, 100 units?

I've seen simular myself, I only want a can of Fenwicks foaming chain cleaner, it's been a fiver or so forever, last I checked they were £12 on eBay.

I wouldn't, not for any real moralistic reason, but these sorts of demand bubbles rarely last and you don't want to be the one left holding 20x £50 do-dars you bought at RRP when stock returns and every shop and online seller is selling them at a 20% discount. By now it's too late.

Unless the answers are (i) more than, say, one a day; and (ii) hardly any, I wouldn’t personally want to be potentially stuck with loads of these mystery items in my garage.

There looks to have been a steady stream of sales at this price since at least April, from multiple resellers. Those based in China (therfore with a 2 week delivery time) sell closer to £40. UK stock with shorter delivery for nearer £45.

you don’t want to be the one left holding 20x £50 do-dars you bought at RRP when stock returns and every shop and online seller is selling them at a 20% discount.

Very true, but if I sell a proportion of stock for the inflated price early on then the risk losses due to having to discount later reduces. In this event I'll have lost very little other than time and effort.

By now it’s too late.

I guess this is the big question. Am I coming to this too late.

bags of Gypsum plaster?

I guess this is the big question. Am I coming to this too late.

Well, if you want to be really safe there's not much stopping you putting up an eBay listing, and fulfilling any order by buying stock from the supplier direct, you just risk not being able to buy stock if the supplier runs out.

It sounds dodgy, but it what I do for a living in a roundabout way, the only difference is my suppliers don't sell to the public.

Why don't you list on eBay at the inflated price and if you sell, just order direct from the manufacturer on their behalf and have it shipped to them?

No risk, potential income?

Why don’t you list on eBay at the inflated price and if you sell, just order direct from the manufacturer on their behalf and have it shipped to them?

Great idea, but if buying individually from the manufacturer's online store, then postage is £10 per item. Making the total cost £35.99, so reducing the potential gain per item to £4-£9.

Vs an additional potential £10 to cover holding the stock myself and doing the secondary postage.

Postage is free from the manufacturer if spending over £40ish, ie two or more of this item.

(I actually ordered two items myself to get free postage, one for me and one for a work friend who was also looking at them for the inflated price on eBay)

Looking at eBay completed listings is consistently selling 5-10 units a day at that price.

Buy from the manufacturer when you have 2 sales then.

i'm very torn on this... as I utterly hate people who over-price things on ebay, especially if to profiteer from things like Covid (which you state it possibly isn't). But then equally I think if someone is stupid enough to not shop around, find alternative suppliers etc, then kudos to you for praying on people being lazy/thick.

Now you have had my 2 pence worth that you didn't ask for..... is the items likely to return to a 'normal' price anytime soon? As others have mentioned, the risk of being lumped with stuff after things return to normal. IE, like turbo trainers during lockdown, going for silly money, but now back in stock in most bike shops, the OTT prices have vanished (apart from the few still chancing their arm).

and don't forget ebay and paypals cut, this can eat into your potential profits. Plus the cost of packing things and sending them (jiffy abgs and tape aint free). Then the potential time spent chasing orders that haven't arrived, or having to replace them and chase the courier for a refund.

If you are going to make hundreds or thousands from it, worth a punt, if its just beer money, maybe the juice aint worth the squeeze.

No risk, no gain - get on with it. What have you got to lose, just money and time 🙂

Buy from the manufacturer when you have 2 sales then.

Or just keep a small rolling stock.

Message me all the information and I’ll tell you in a few weeks how much you would have made.

I wouldn't bother. CBA with becoming a market trader.

Ebay is great for moving on easily-postable-things-I-no-longer-want.

Your margin wont be as high as you think.

£19 “profit”. £4 to send, probably. 15% Ebay/Paypal fees - £6. That leaves you £9 profit at the higher price....which you will then have to pax tax on.

A friend of mine has been buying layzspa sex ponds at RRP then punting them on, in going to guess he's made £20k this summer (minus any tax).

I tried to test the water, my order wasn't fulfilled and it took nearly a week to get my money back. I stopped trying after that!

Ebay is mad sometimes isnt it? I've seen a used digital camera sell for more than a new one still available in the shops.

That leaves you £9 profit at the higher price….[b]which you will then have to pax tax on.[/b]

😂

Because everyone on eBay pays tax. Right?

Buy some.. make your listing better than the others.
Better photos, better description etc.

At the worst you'll lose a few quid if things slow down.

Because everyone on eBay pays tax. Right?

If you are buying stuff for the specific purpose of selling it on EBay at a profit you should absolutely be declaring the proceeds as income and be taxed on it.

If you choose not to, that depends on your view of the risk of being caught for tax evasion as well as the morals.

Just stick 'Peekay's Ebay Thing' on the side of your bike for marketing and you can offset all your cycling purchases against any profit.

If you are buying stuff for the specific purpose of selling it on EBay at a profit you should absolutely be declaring the proceeds as income and be taxed on it.

If you choose not to, that depends on your view of the risk of being caught for tax evasion as well as the morals.

Ex landlord has been doing it for years, making thousands on Lego/other toy collectibles, to the point that lots of retailers black listed him as a trader. Never had a sniff from HMRC.

An update....

It seems that the manufacturer is limiting each transaction to 2no of this thing in their retail site.

There appears to be nothing limiting how many transactions you can make.

There are legitimate reasons why somebody may wish to buy large numbers of this thing, so I may contact the manufacturer to see about a bulk order.

I do just exactly this, with something that you can buy in shops and on ebay in the UK for a few quid, or you can buy 50 from china for a few quid more. Only stumbled across it as I wanted some for myself but I also knew there was a market as people were buying the UK ones. Also, they're very small- so, easy to store, and easy to post.

Worth it? Yep, since the hassle level is absolutely tiny. So is the profit, but it trickles in all the time and helps pay for bike stuff and all the other things I waste my money on. And even if suddenly I could never sell another one and I was left with all the ones I have in stock, I'm still well up on the whole thing.

I do it with Lego, buy it in bulk from the wall of Lego in the shops or when sets are discounted and sell it on EBay, thinking of setting up a brickowl store. Dont make alot, but more than covered my costs and made a bit.

Just ring the mfr, open a trade account.

They will sell to you in bulk much cheaper than rrp.

They might stop supplying you when they notice you selling at inflated price.

You see a lot of sellers offering an item and it says X amount sold, 1 remaining. I see it on more expensive tools, like festool or makita and such, and it strikes me that they dont actually have the item, but either bought it and send to you, and at the speed things come in, it has to be coming either direct from the maker, or more likely from a main distribution point, and they just supply the delivery address.

Just make sure you do your sums beforehand, if the amount of profit outweighs effort, why not. My take with ebay is that it will sell eventually. I do something similar and make a few quid out of it that makes it worth while. Just make sure the item is something that does not perish or has a best before as it will eventually loose value. Sums need to include; Ebay fee, currently 10% including what you charge for postage. Paypal, for most items, is 4.5% including what you charge for postage + 20p per item transaction. Postage, packaging (box and packaging material) and distance to post office other courier if you need to drive, it all adds up. Also worth shopping around for postage; royal mail and UPS are my general go to. Its surprising how fee's add up, if I sell a large item and delivery costs me £10 you need to charge £11.65 just to draw even with postage or have enough profit margin to suck up the extra £1.65. Good luck.

Thi is exactly what's happening with Brompton bikes just now - Brompton B75 is £750 in the shops - going for £1250 on ebay!! I've been thinking about scouring retailers and buying them all up - but that's exactly what someone has done and Brompton themselves are out of them - some serous profiteering going on at the mo!

You see a lot of sellers offering an item and it says X amount sold, 1 remaining

New sellers are limited to the amount of items and value they can list so it could be this.

Or it could be that they're sat on a pile of them but they sell more by making out there are only a few/one remaining so a buyer doesn't think they've got time to look elsewhere and come back later. As soon as one gets sold the stock level is immediatly updated.

An update.........

My mystery item was Logitech C270 webcams.

Couldn't find them in stock on any major online retailer, or argos, currys etc.
They were selling for around £40 on eBay, and I noticed that they were available directly from Logitech for £25.99 if buying more than one at a time.

I bought six as a test.
-One for me
-One for a friend
-One sold on eBay auction. Net profit after postage (counting my time as free) £4
-One still on eBay at fixed price £39, today I've reduced it to £33
-Two sat in a drawer as I've not got round to listing them as have been a bit busy with other things.

So there we have it. A bit of effort for not much reward did not make it worth my while.

Anyone want to buy a Webcam? Cost price plus postage.

Arthur Daley you are not 😃 Fair play for having a go though!!

I've done similar a few times, when I've seen Lego cheap (in the supermarkets, just before they bring the new sets out occasionally you get the outgoing ones for a silly price). Sit on it for a year or two then you can generally sell them for RRP +postage. Barely worth the effort though with the faff of wrapping them up properly and then trundling off down the post office! I think that kind of eBay selling (trading, rather than just clearing out unwanted stuff) only makes sense if you can sell at a very high margin or massive volume.The fees are a killer otherwise. (Although, if you do it on a weekend they're running a low-fee promotion, that helps a lot actually!)

I do just exactly this, with something that you can buy in shops and on ebay in the UK for a few quid, or you can buy 50 from china for a few quid more.

Yeah I noticed this recently - my girls wanted some of those little LED lights to go in bottles (the 'cork' being the battery pack).They were around £3 a set on Ebay and £3 for ten sets on Joom.

We bought 30 sets (so total cost to us of £9) and put them in empty J20 bottles, sold them on a little stall on our street to raise funds for our local NHS charity and made £170.

It was so obviously webcams. Very covid 19

I think if you play this game you need to work out what you make per hour allowing for all costs. I know some one who bought bikes from the local tip and sold them on Ebay. Easy to loose track of the cost and time spent driving around, listing, taking photos, packaging etc..

I paid a few months mortgage with £12.99 argos Wahl hair clippers at £39.99 on ebay over lockdown 🙂