Can you make a profit on Ebay?

Originally Posted by miked

"Profit begins when you buy not when you sell"

Truer words have never been spoken.

I recently delved into eBay, and I think it's going pretty well. That said, I do see how someone with unrealistic expectations might feel like he was doing all the work to make ebay, paypal, and UPS/USPS/FEDEX/etc rich.



Case in point, and the reason I got into ebay was that I found an auction lot being sold by a town near me. I can only assume that the items in this lot were seized in traffic stops or something, and I'm pretty sure part of it was from a shoplifting ring. Now, why the city didn't return these pilfered items to the retailer I don't know. All I know is that I bought & paid for them legally. One of the items was a very nice Wusthof 18 piece kitchen knife set. Retails for upwards of $400. I've always wanted one, but there's always something else that needed that $400 more than I needed a $400 knife set! So I went & looked at the lot, and hoped I could either return the stuff to the store or sell it on craigslist. Returning stuff didn't go well, not to mention being just a shade left of honest. Craigslist in Dallas-Ft Worth is nothing but a den of idiots. People offering $20 on stuff I was asking $200 for. Seriously, quit wasting my time.

I paid $449 for the lot.

After listing the stuff on ebay, and making sure I was the cheapest on ebay for the items I was selling, I sold everything for a total of 1181.

So if you're just looking at that you're going to count your chickens as making 732 dollars... but that' not going to be the case!!!

Between shipping, ebay, paypal, and charity donations, that ate up almost $400, leaving me with the knife set I really, really wanted and $337 in my pocket.

I was quite happy with the deal overall, but again, if I'd had to buy the lot for very much more, it wouldn't have been worth the risk.


Naysayers gonna naysay, but without ebay, this whole deal would have been thoroughly unfeasible. Craigslist is useless. Ebay put me in touch with MILLIONS of people who could see my items & bid on them. There's no way I would have ever sold those items without it. Sure they take a hefty cut. They earned it. Very well worth it in my eyes.