Ebay and the Object lesson from my perspective:

(Yes, iv'e gone through and did grammar improvements!!! thnks.)

What is the profitability on EBay sales?

Here is an example of a typical article and how it is handled by sellers -- from my perspective. (reality)

You go to a public auction and begin to bid on articles that are selling for low bids. A box of stuff appears up for auction and you figure that it is good value for around ten dollars at close. The box contains a Stanley brand thermos (no glass insert) and you figure that you could potentially sell it online, on EBay, for around ten bucks.

If you were to go to a store such as Wal Mart you might easily find them, construction thermoses selling on the shelf for roughly $14-$17.. However, you figure that this particular unit is highly sought after by baby boomers and it features a strong steel construction, routinely found at job sites.

After you arrive home, you find that there are several other thermos selling online, at auction, during a search with the EBay's mechanism. And they are the older and used varieties too! The kind that were manufactured, here, in the USA.

So far so good, your on the right track without any problems, yet to be discovered!

However, let's take a deeper look around this process and into the potential transaction that is likely to occur, or will really go down.

Let's assume that you paid two dollars for the thermos because the rest of the articles in the boxed lot didn't really pan out very well for the EBay marketplace. And, you figure that starting bid of $7.95 is good, but you see other similar thermoses selling around the same amount of money at finish for or less than $7.95. Got it?

However, you do notice that there are no other auctions ending-up within a day or two of your auction's close. This is important so that there is competing bids on your lot(s), don't forget to look things up online: equalling more labour time invlolved.

So go ahead, you post your thermos at the open bid already noted: $7.95, and chance putting a buy now price around $10.95! Your auction takes about seven days to complete so there is a strong likely hood that somebody could hit 'buy now' and take the auction immediately at $10.95. And they do, that action earned you an additional $3. bucks w/o waiting for the auction to complete by an auction time-out (7 days), if you were lucky enough to grab a buyer.

By-the-way, when I tell people this story in person -- I usually do it in a teasing way -- expressing all the errors that could happen upon execution. We'll continue....

So what is the object lesson all about?

You bought the thermos for two dollars, if you were lucky enough have bought it so low, and it is really important that you attend sales where people really under bid, so that there are minimal counter bid to yours! It can be troublesome to have to stand for six hours at a public sale or auction, and even if you were to pick up great treasures at incredibly low prices, you would have to figure your time management into the formula (That is 6 hrs. X $10. = $60. as minimal labor costs.)

At least, you would have to buy about ten collectables or more with the same potential for profit as the thermos offered.

Really, I think that constitutes hard work because it's unlikely that you will sell all of them the first week on EBay! Unless, the bidding started so unbelievable low enough to encourage hits, then you would stand to take risk in not getting the bids to rap-up in good margins.

Therefore, you would be required to buy more than ten pieces to get adequate sales and your spending even more time putting them on the auction service. (carrying them, pictures, storing, listing them and decisions etc.)

Plus, we haven't actually even figured in the amount of fees those (10+) lots would cost you on EBay's billing to you. The fees that are to be paid two weeks after listing your auctions and selling your auctions too! You are charged twice if item is sold! So, you are forced to handle even more offers to make up the expenses, that's more sales.

Hopefully, you were to earn about 6-10 dollars on the objects that you were lucky to get in the first place but labor & fees tended to take away the financial greatness! Yikes!!

And think about this newbies, if i had mentioned the amount of labor/cost for putting it up there in the first place, for activation, you might feel a little too concerned about not getting involved.

O.k., let's assume that you were to be successful in selling the auction on EBay at the buy price of $10.95; that's only about $9 gain over the price paid for acquiring it! But let's continue without worrying over all the factors....

Next, you have to pay yourself for putting the completed stuff into a shipping box. And, don't forget that you would have to buy a few extra boxes for that, unless you take them out of trash. (recycled) You're still confident because your postal office is conveniently nearby your place of residence. I mean that you could not possibly pay rent for a facility in the Metro area, so close to mail services, could you now? And you must have enough articles on the trip to make it worthwhile -- with-in a few days of selling the lot(s). You could charge a dollar or two in the shipping/handling charges -- and that's good idea.

But whatever the handling amount might be it will be computed and added to the EBay's final decision making process. Another words the people considering to bid on you sale might not want bid high if it increased the overall cost beyond what is reasonable to them. So you keep your opening bids low enough, and suffer weak bidding action -- or take a risk of loss! I would rather sell something that really sells, and start it off a tad higher but a lot of good selling-stuff would be required.

Now that we have cycled around the routine of buying and selling a thermos at online auction -- i am going to ask you question. Wouldn't it have been better if your buyer went directly to a hardware store and bought the Stanley Chinese equivalent for about $17., after they had to paid on the shipping charges with yours? Because they could do it on the way to the grocery store, and get it immediately for Monday morning.

Also, did i remind you that you would have to pay Federal taxes. And here's the object lesson -- that of getting paid to handle something -- and that's all you really done -- worked on something. Thus, your paying your taxes on labour. (That's if you were lucky enough to find a thermos to sell in the first place. (and enough of them.))

In a long round about way -- EBay acts as the auction house and you are the buyer, dealer and shipper. I've experienced this and I really do know. Might I suggest this idea -- be a Power Seller or do nothing else, otherwise it's a good hobby to dabble with!