I have been selling on eBay full time for the last 6 months – so far I have made over $17,000! It has been quite a ride and I have learned so much along the way. Here’s 6 mistakes I made so you can definitely avoid during your resell journey.
1. Setting my Prices too Low-
In the beginning, I wanted my stuff to sell and sell fast so I figured if I set it lower than the competitors, it would sell. Andddd of course my stuff did sell but I ended up taking a big profit cut because they were priced so low. There were a few items that I sold that I didn’t make any profit on because I set the price too low. I decided to stop setting low prices and priced the items at what I wanted to sell them for – making sure that I would make a good profit. And guess what? My items sold at my prices and not because they were super low.
2. Not listing every day
I used to list once a week to get all of my new inventory on eBay ASAP – then I noticed that my sales were started to slow down a bit so I decided to list at least one or two items a day to see if sales would improve. They did! It turns out that eBay loves new listings so when you list a new item – it helps boost your previously listed items!
3. Not Taking Enough Pics
Due to all the scammers nowadays, buyers need to see all angles of an item before they feel confident enough to buy. When I first started selling on eBay, I would take like 2 or 3 pics just to have pictures up for the listing. I did not take the time to take good detailed pics to show the buyer the whole item and as a result, buyers would ask questions about the item (that a picture could have answered) or they would buy from another seller who’s item was in the same condition as mine but often set at a higher price. Once I started taking more detailed pics of my items, I noticed my sales increased – I even went back over some of my older listings and changed up their pics and they sold within days! Pictures do matter!!
4. Cancelling Orders
So I told you how I used to set prices sooo low that sometimes I didn’t make a profit. There were a few orders that I cancelled because it would cost me money to ship it! The customer was pretty much getting the item for free and I had to pay the difference. I decided to cancel a few orders that were wayy too much in the negative. eBay did not like that at all! I soon found out that if you cancelled a lot of orders, it would affect your selling rank. I cancelled 4 orders and it cause me to become a ‘Below Average Seller’ which meant my listings would be ranked lower (which means they wouldnt be easily found by potential buyers.
5. Not Sourcing Enough
Sourcing or find products is how you make money when reselling. You can not make any money if you don’t have anything to sell. When I first started, I used to source all the time! Walmart clearance, Goodwill and Liquidation Bin stores became my favorite place to find inventory! I started to get lazy and I wasn’t sourcing as much which means I wasn’t listing and I didn’t have items to sell. I had to set a sourcing schedule so I could look for stuff to sell. (If you are looking for liquidation pallets or bins, check out my post on how to find pallets and cheap merchandise near you)
6. Items that aren’t listed don’t sell
I used to take weeks to list ALL of my new inventory until I realized that it will NOT sell if it’s not listed. Otherwise, I’m just sitting on money that could have been sold! So I made it a point to have all my items listed within a week!
These are just a few of my mistakes that I have made selling on eBay! Hopefully this hopes you not make the same ones!
Happy Reselling,
Jackie
