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How to make loads of money on eBay. I'm not serious, of course. I sell magazines on eBay. But over the years, 7 years, I have received 1600 positive feedbacks. 99% of those are from magazines I've sold, and I don't solicit feedback at all. I ignore the process completely, and still get 99.4% good feedback. I get feedback on about 1/4 of my sales. This means that I've sold about 6,000 items. On average the price has been about 10$ per item. Many items are my minimum which used to be 5 (4.99) but is now 3.99. Still a lot of my magazines are Vogues that went for 50, some 100. And some old Bazaars and Vogues recently that went for as much as 40. My average is still closer to 10 for this reason, although most of my valuable magazines are now gone and the average will now head down towards 5. At 10 x 6000 I have grossed 60,000 or about 10,000 a year. Where did the money go. Actually most of it went to ebay. I saw perhaps 20,000 in profit. Here's why. Ebay charges an average of 50c for a good ad on a 5.99 magazine. Currently I can easily spend .85 on an ad. Then recall that at a sale rate of 33%, I need to run them 3 times before they will generally sell. That's 2.50 per magazine, to ebay. Now I used to get mags cheaply but once bought out a used mag store for 6,000 getting about 20% of the bulk of inventory they sold. ut not spending as much as some did on choice small lots that were worth much more to them. Some spent 6,000 on just a few. Anyway, this left me with 6,000 magazines that I spent about 1$ each on on average. It would take a lifetime to write the ads for them. But I've written a few, even bought a few ads from fellow magazine sellers. bay Then eBay takes a cut of the sales. Let's give an example. I have every issue of Vogue 1999, from January to December. They will generally sell at a rate of 33% if I only try to sell once every few months, and I don't happen to hit a week when others have just sold the same lot recently. I sell one mag at a time. Selling the whole lot is risky. People usually lose money but there have been many exceptions. Now my price will be $5 for the 12 each. that's potentially 60 total. But I will sell 33% or 20 dollars worth, and on average one of them will get two or three bidders due to a piece of news or something about one of the issues. (Jewel will have been on the cover of one and just came out with a new album running it up to 8.00 another will have an extra bid and go to 6. This can tend to bring the rate up to 40% of the expected money. as if I had sold 5/12 instead of 4. So now I have spent $1 each on the magazines, that was 12$ to own the inventory. I don't count storage but there is a cost. I spent $10 to put the mags on at .85c each and $22 is the cost so far. When 4 or 5 ebay takes another 2.50c on commission. Almost all sales go through PAYPAL that takes another 2.50. So I spend 27$ and sell 25 if I continue to sell this way. What doesn't sell however, doesn't cost me the dollar again, so the next time I put up 12 magazines only 4 new ones cost 4 dollars to replace the 4 that sold. If I wait long enough and time it right I can get teh 33% all over again on the same magazines. Although I have probably thinned out the multiple buyers who bid on the 2 exceptions, So now on those same sets, assuming I have replacements for the ones that sold before. I get the folowing results. I am -2$ on the first week of auctions. This week (8 weeks later) I try again and replaced 4 mags. I am minus 6$. But my sales are are 20 this time. (no multiples) a lower percentage, or if there are it's offset by a lower rate on the fact that these same mags were just offered 8 weeks ago and buyers were already tapped on these ones. Still it cost me only 4 to own the inventory, and still cost me 10 to put the mags on. -16. ebay took 2.00 on the sales, and 2.00 in Paypal. that's only 4 which is 20 total. I made 20 and this time I broke even. No loss and I built up a couple of positive feedbacks. This makes it easier to sell against another seller who has a similar price. Remember that most other sellers will not have the ability to sell at a low price, possibly b ecauase they paid more for the mags and also because they recognized there was no profit in teh prices. So next time, if I time it right, I replace another 4 magazines sold last time -4, sell another 33% or 20$. I pay the 10 to put them on, And ebay takes 8. I'm now keeping 33% because of low price and positive feedback as competitive advantage. I now made $2 on the transactions. That paid for my time. No but now I feel confident to try this with 1998 sets 2000 sets, and all my other straggling sets of 12 which may cover several years. I already have the ability through past sales, a name, low price, combined shipping, feedback rep to attract sales that might have gone to competitors. For combined shipping someone who could have gotten cheaper somewhere else will go for mine, to save in the total. I now start out with $2 profit on every 12, I put up 120 and make 20 profit. I put up 1200 and make 200, and over the years I put up 6000 and make $1000. $1000 over 7 years is over 114 a year. But if you have kids you've given them a real life example of making money, with costs of inventory, advertising, competition. It's a lesson that might have been worth the cost of the first year of business school if they paid attention. They may learn not to listen to the ads "I made a million on eBay" or they may see through tem quickly enough to know that they need asomething more to make such profits. Even the millions might have been made if there was an audience big enough to support selling 60000 magazines which would be 10,000 at the rates described. If there was time to sell 600,000 magazines a year there would be 100,000 dollars a year in profits. If the margin went up double, some do this by adding a dollar to shipping. then they instantly got nearly another 90,000 after ebay's and paypals take. If they managed to get those magazines at a per cost of only .50c instead of $1 then they could make 250,000 a year on sales of 600 000 magazines. But one must consider that ponly 600,000 are sold by EVERYONE. and it involves a lot more work at keeping repetition. This would imply a monopoly of every sale. Many of those magazines cost the dealer 1000 and sold for 2000. You must work in higher profit magazines to do that, But my point was to prove that even a bum on the street could potentially walk into the 2nd hand shops of NYC and pick up a handful of well selected magazines at $1 each (typical average) and go to the library and sell their magazines on a computer borrow someone else's ad if a previous issue was sold. Without ads the front cover. could still sell mags at a rate of 15% TO 20%. Part of the game is to see if a profit can be eked out of such a small profit margin item. For example, let's say you know how to buy and resell magazines on eBay. You buy them from a newsstand for 3.95. You believe you have a 50% chance of selling it sooner or later on eBay for 6.95 + shipping. But it may take you 3 attempts before the right person sees it and finds the issue appealing enough. You may take 2 hours of reading and summarizing the most marketable points about the magazine, taking a few choice pictures, and then writing up an ad that makes the resell possible. How do you do it? Simple. You watch carefully what other people sell on eBay. If Paris Hilton is in the news Links thecomicnerd is a seller who has put up some great descriptions | Sites with Magazine focus... Some of these magazine sites will only have a piece of what I want. Then I should also link to my documents wherever (Google) so that I can do this work anywhere . When this one is up it's great. Has a lot of mag descriptions that people have copied for their own ebay ads. No pix or very few This one on the other hand is lots of pictures, but not all, and almost no descriptions. all the articles from 1993 to now in art in america also has PC mag from Feb 99 Interview from 1994 Arts & Entertainment
Art in America
ArtForum
Interview
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Automotive
Automotive Finishing
Tire Business
Ward's Auto World
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Business & Finance
Black Enterprise
Business Wire
DSN Retailing Today
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Computers & Technology
Baseline
The Channel Insider
PC Magazine
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Health & Fitness
Men's Fitness
Natural Health
Psychology Today
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Home & Garden
Essence
Flower & Garden Magazine
Girls' Life
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News & Society
The Independent (London)
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
National Review
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Reference & Education
African American Review
Christian Century
Georgetown Law Journal
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Sports
American Handgunner
Golf Digest
Guns Magazine
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The Sporting News The Advocate from 1997 W Esquire 1997 millionmagazines.com | Pictures and the like. Several ebay users are the best... ebay is still the best source for ebay. Someone else is already selling something like yours if not yours exactly. parisvoguebazaar is a user who had this one for example: seems to have borrowed a bunch of the mag descriptions used by other canadians in the past. This one is new has a bunch of similar mags but will probably be gone soon. Also need to find that esquire guy to steal his descriptions. |
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