My Story
Since I didn’t have much money to invest — OK I didn’t have any money to invest, I had to start out very small. I started out with 1 item. I purchased a pair of Abercrombie & Fitch women’s shorts at the local mall. They were on sale since it was off-season. It was February. I bought them for $4.99.
I will assume you are familiar with how to set up an auction on Ebay. If not, go to www.ebay.com and go to their site map for information on this subject. I will also assume you own, or have access to a digital camera. This is a must for selling just about everything on Ebay. It doesn’t have to be high-end. A low-end, lower resolution camera will work just find for web images.
I took a digital picture of the shorts, and proceeded to create a new auction on Ebay. I created a nice description, but not too lengthy. People don’t want to read a novel. Later I added disclaimers and other standard information for all of my auctions, which I will get into later. I always put Abercrombie & Fitch, or Abercrombie in the headline. Make sure you spell it correctly. More on that later – as misspellings in other sellers’ headlines are one way YOU can grab a bargain. I included the shipping cost in the description. The item sold for $15.01.
Hey! That’s 200% more than I paid for them. Listing fee: 30¢. Commission: 75¢. That’s a profit of nearly double. And the buyer was very happy too. Those shorts originally retailed for $39.99.
With that money, I went out and bought 3 more items. And so it went, and the business grew. As it did, it became obvious that I was going to need some way to streamline things. Being unorganized will get you into a heap of trouble. Such as sending out the wrong items, wrong sizes, etc. You want to develop a good reputation, which will bring you lots of repeat business, and lots of new customers that will trust you. I had a 99.995% positive feedback rating! And I was still disappointed that I couldn’t please a minuscule percentage.
A Word about Feedback
You should always strive to please your customers and leave them positive feedback after a completed transaction. When I say completed, I mean after they have paid, received their item, and left you positive feedback. Unfortunately there are a few that will leave negative feedback, before contacting you to try to resolve whatever issue there might be. I think it is a mistake to leave feedback before the transaction is over. For example, if someone pays right away I would wait to leave the feedback. I have sent items out, where the person had changed their mind and wanted a refund. Since I am not a retail store, I do not offer refunds for changing your mind. The person is less likely to leave negative feedback, if you haven’t left yours yet. Because once you leave feedback, you can’t change it. Nobody wants to receive negative feedback. While I don’t believe in retaliatory feedback, if a transaction has gone awry due to the bidder, I would have no choice but to indicate that via feedback.
Back to Getting Organized
Auction Manager
This is essential for a large volume business. It can manage your images, your winning bidder notices, send invoices, and a host of other customer and auction management tasks. They all charge fees for their services and offer quite a few options. The fees are well worth it, but read the options thoroughly. Your volume should determine which plan you choose. Obviously the most expensive plans offer you the most, but your business needs to be such, that it can support the extra fees. I used Auctionwatch, but there are others. I chose Auctionwatch for no particular reason, other than I started with them for their counters. As their features grew I became used to their system and decided to stay with them. The auction managers are fairly sophisticated and once you get used to one, it can be hard to change.
Do the research carefully. Once you decide, you will see how easy and streamlined your auctions become. They practically take care of themselves. You can customize and automate your winning bidder notices, your feedback, your shipping, and many other things.
Counters
Your auction manager usually provides a counter option. This is a good idea, because it will help you see how many hits you are getting. You can use this information to determine if a certain item is just not getting the interest or the price that you want, which can help you decide which items not to restock.
Growth and Organization
As you begin to stock more inventory, you can find it helpful to line a closet with shelves and use it as a stock room. This is really easy and relatively cheap. After measuring, you can buy brackets and press board shelves (you don’t need fancy wood) from a home improvement store. And put them up yourself. This will give you a place to store inventory. Organize it by men’s, women’s, and kids, by item, and then by size. Keep one of those tall plastic shelving units that you assemble without tools for listed items. And one for sold items. So basically, it just keeps rotating. As an auction closes, items move off the listing shelf and onto the sold shelf. Items can be taken from the stock room and placed on the listing shelf for a new auction. All shelves can be labeled with a note taped indicating closing dates. Very important for keeping track of which items go with which auctions.
I generally make a trip to the post office 3 times per week. Most items fit in a priority tyvek bag. I might have 30 or so bags to bring to the post office. I bought a cheap granny cart from a local department store, and carted my bags into the post office. I also used this cart to do my shopping. Since most malls don’t have shopping carts, I’d just whip out my cart, which folded, and start filling it with all my bargain finds.
A Word About Shipping
As a busy mom to 3 young kids, keeping it as simple as possible was going to work best for me. Therefore I decided not to get involved with purchasing boxes, envelopes or other packaging. I only used US Priority supplies. They are free, and the buyer pays for the shipping. It seemed easiest to set up a flat-fee shipping structure. It can get too complex figuring out exact pricing. The flat fee covered priority shipping, miscellaneous supplies like tape and pens, and my time to package and deliver to the post office. Anything over and above the actual postage cost was fairly minimal. I was not out to make money on the postage. This upsets people anyway. It’s not worth it.
Payment Methods
This is really a matter of your own personal comfort level. I used to accept personal checks, but after a few of them bounced and I was charged hefty fees from my bank, I stopped accepting them. Money orders are always a safe way to go. I also used Paypal, an electronic form of payment. See www.paypal.com. Paypal is free if you accept payments from a bidder’s Paypal balance, or echeck. If you want to accept credit cards, you must upgrade to a Premier account. You will then be charged fees to accept any and all payments whether they are from a credit card or not. After my business grew, I began to accept credit cards. It is convenient for buyers, and my volume justified the additional fees.
Pointers
You don’t necessarily have to follow all of these suggestions, but here is the recipe for success that worked for me.
Quite often I start the bidding at the price I paid or less. As I said before, the product sells itself. Occasionally somebody gets a steal. It’s part of doing business. But in the long run, you make out better this way. Reserves and higher starting prices only cost you more money, and tend to scare people off. I’m not saying there isn’t a time and a place for them. There is. I’ve used reserves and I’ve used higher starting prices, but usually on bigger ticket items. And even then, I used them sparingly.
Try to leave tags and original prices intact. This allows the buyer to see that the item is actually brand new. And they can see the bargain they’re getting by comparing what they paid, to the actual retail price. So they don’t have to just take your word for it. They can see for themselves.
Items that do particularly well:
Sweatshirts. Especially hoodies, and zippered styles. And XXL – these are rare and very hard to find.
Jeans
Jackets
Handbags/backpacks
Items that don’t seem to do as well:
Men’s Corduroys
Men’s chinos
Anything without a logo.
SECRETS
I’ve tried to give you some background. Here are some little secrets I have learned along the way:
Secret #1. Buy off-season
This is critical. You may not feel like buying 50 pairs of flip-flops in November. BUT here’s where you can really clean up. You might be able to get them as low as $2.45 a piece. Their original price might have been $29.99. Next March, when Spring Break rolls around you, can turn around and sell them for $20-$25. And if the stores are running low in season, you might even be able to get more than the original retail price. I’ve seen it happen.
Secret #2. Buy discontinued items
All the name brand stores, such as GAP, Old Navy, Abercrombie & Fitch, are constantly changing their stock. Many items have been discontinued. But sometimes they reappear under a different style name the following year. For example the Abercrobie ladies Isabel sweater was the same as the Colleen sweater so popular awhile back. Sometimes these overstocks are shipped to a different store in a different part of the country. You can usually pick up a great deal on these items. And sell them when their popularity resurfaces, or market them as “hard to find.” Many folks love the older styles, but can’t find them anywhere except Ebay. They are just looking for that obscure item that you may have, and are usually willing to pay a good price for it.
Secret #3. It must have a logo on it somewhere besides the inside tags or labels.
Only buy items with a logo attached or sewn to the garment. If it only has the logo or the words on the inside label, it will be difficult to sell. I have been stuck with perfectly good quality fleece, A&F; sweatshirts that didn’t have logos on the outer garment somewhere. Even just a small tag sewn onto the sleeve or hem seam will attract higher bids.
Secret #4. Buy from brand name discount warehouses
This is an excellent resource. There are several of these around. Many of these items are overstocks. Some of them have the labels removed or cut. You have to look for this. If this is the case, you must disclose that in the auction. I got a great deal on a load of cargo shorts. They were perfect, except some of them had labels with a small box cut through them. Didn’t affect the look or wear of the shorts whatsoever. Of course this was in my description. I doubled my investment. You usually find them in strip malls plazas. And they usually have the word Warehouse, Label, Outlet, or Brand Name, in the name of the store, but not necessarily.
Secret #5. Buy from other Ebay sellers
Here’s an interesting concept, but it can work to your advantage. For several reasons a good item goes off at a super bargain price. Great for the buyer, not so great for the seller. I will name some of the more obvious reasons, but still there are times when the same item will sell for cost or below, and the following week it rakes in 4 times what I paid. There have been many times where I’ve had to take a loss. Especially when you consider fees on top of the purchase price. But when you’re selling volume, I simply chalk it up to the cost of doing business. Avoiding the following however, will minimize your chances of taking a loss. By the same token, learning the following will allow you to take advantage of getting a bargain yourself.
Auctions closing at off-times.
Most people are home at night. Particularly in the early evening. I ended most of my auctions at 6:00 pm Pacific Time. That meant the latest the auction would close is 9:00 pm on the east coast. Giving me a 3 hour window in the entire country. However, you should be looking for bargains – auctions ending in the morning on a weekday, or very late at night, even the wee hours of the morning.
Bad Pictures
You’ve heard it a thousand times – a picture is worth a thousand words. You don’t need to have a high-end camera to take a decent picture. There are plenty of websites to help you learn how to take a good picture. I offer some simple suggestions:
·Don’t shake the camera. Blurry pictures don’t sell.
·Get as close or as far away as needed to make sure the picture is in focus. I repeat, blurry pictures don’t sell.
·Take as many pictures as necessary, but take the minimum you can get away with. Some folks still use a dial-up with a slow modem and a lot of pictures take time to load. If your page takes too long, the bidder will skip over your auction.
·Use an imaging program (there are plenty of shareware options) to crop and rotate your image. Nobody wants to see your dishes piled up in the background. Plus, items in pictures that are too busy get lost. I can’t believe how many pictures I’ve seen that haven’t been rotated. It’s hard to visualize a sweatshirt that is laying on it’s side.
·Make sure your lighting is good. The flash on some low end cameras makes the image look washed out. Outdoor lighting is great. If not, use bright indoor lighting with the lighting behind you if possible. Try to eliminate glare. You can adjust (slightly – don’t go overboard with this) your contrast and brightness in your imaging program. Dark pictures, or washed out pictures don’t sell.
·Emphasize contrast. Dark items on light backgrounds. Light items on darker backgrounds. You want the item to stand out, not fade into the background.
Example. Here’s a case where a large volume Abercrombie seller caught a bargain with me and resold it at 3x the price he paid. I purchased a nice men’s wool sweater. It was perfect. Unfortunately my picture was not. He scooped up the sweater for $9.99 plus shipping. I saw from his auctions that he sold a lot of A&F; so I watched his activity for a little bit. And sure enough, in a few days the sweater with its tags and all showed up on the auction block. Only his picture was gorgeous. The sweater sold for $31.99! He made a nice profit, and I learned a good lesson.
Secret #6. Buy from the Outlets if you can find them
Often times you can get great deals on discontinued or overstocked items at an outlet store.
Secret #7. Buy from the website from the on sale pages
Check websites frequently. They change all the time. Go to their sale page and browse the items. Be careful though, not everything on sale there is that great of a sale. If you do find a worthy bargain, buy it all up quickly. They don’t last long. And sometimes certain colors or styles are sold out. Even if you’re not looking to sell children’s clothes, check the accessories. Very often the girls handbags can be sold to women. They can me marketed as a cute little handbag for women or girls. I’ve seen them on the website as low as $7.90, and I’ve seen them sell on Ebay for up to $40.
Secret #8. Buy irregulars (and fully disclose flaws)
Buying irregulars or damages can be an excellent way to pick up some great bargains. Of course you fully disclose any flaws in your description. This is not fine print – flaws must be described along with the rest of the details. However, many of these so-called flaws are very insignificant, and buyers recognize this. For example, I picked up a $50 sweatshirt for $9.90 because it had a tiny rip in the sleeve seam. I sewed the sleeve, and put in my description: “Was purchased new with a tiny rip in the sleeve which I repaired. No longer noticeable.” The sweatshirt brought in $41. The buyer was happy and said so via positive feedback.
Secret #9. Give your name and phone number to the store manager.
If you are willing to buy in bulk, the manager will very often call you if he gets a shipment in. I once got a call that 300 sweaters came in. They were either discontinued, overstocks, or slightly damaged. He said he planned on putting them out on the floor within an hour. I got a jump on all the other customers. I picked out about 200 of the best sweaters. The rest were gone by the next day, as I returned to see if I missed any good ones. They were all sold out.
Secret #10. Buy it On Sale
This may seem obvious, but here are some guidelines to follow to make the most of a sale:
Just because an item is marked down, doesn’t mean that you can make money on it. I’ve seen items go on sale from $59.99 to $49.99. That kind of a sale isn’t worth it to a reseller. Even a 50% off sale may not be worth it. For example a $59.99 pair of men’s corduroys on sale for $29.99 is not going to make you any money. I can pretty much guarantee you that. However, if the item has already been marked down, and then they are advertising 50% off that, you might have yourself a bargain. Which brings me to my next point.
Redlines.
Redline sales usually indicate a significant savings off the original price. Usually. Not always. Ordinarily a sticker with a red price is affixed to the original price tag. This allows you to see what the item normally goes for. Where you can really clean up, is a 50% off sale on ALL redlines. So let’s say you have a pair of ladies jeans that originally sells for $59.99. After 2 markdowns it is now redlined at $19.99. Add a 50% off sale on redlines, and you can grab the pair for $9.99. I’ve seen ladies jeans go for $50.00 on Ebay. Why, when these same customers can get the jeans on sale at the mall? First of all, there are several styles that are not available anymore, except for only a few stores in the country. Many people have found they like a certain style, and are willing to pay even more than original retail to get them. Secondly, styles are constantly changing. Many are very rare and hard to find. Lastly, all the sizes may not be available.
Epilogue
I hope I have given you the tools you need to get started in your own reselling business. You can apply these same principals to other products as well.
One thing I want to mention is how much fun it is to sell on eBay. In addition to making a lot of money, I have developed plenty of great relationships with my customers, the personnel at the stores I have shopped, and the post office staff. And of course it is so much fun checking my email and getting yet another electronic payment. Or checking my mailbox and finding a bunch of money orders addressed to me.
What a super business this is for stay-at-home moms, retirees, or those that simply want to supplement their income, like I did to save for my kids’ education. And as a side note, I’m still doing it on a smaller scale now.
Good luck to you! I know you can do it. What are you waiting for?
