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Arbitrage and Why It Represents the
Very Best Way to Make Easy Money on eBay
Someone asked me THAT QUESTION again today: ‘What Can I Sell on
eBay?’; someone got their back up again today and complained ‘I work
full-time (also: ‘I am housebound’ / ‘I don’t have transportation’ /
‘I’m a sworn recluse, I just don’t leave the house for anyone!’ /
yada, yada, yada!) and I can’t get out to boot sales and flea
markets, there’s just no way on earth I can travel to buy stuff to
sell on eBay!’
My
usual reply to anything of that ilk? ‘You don’t need to leave
home, you don’t have to give up the day job, you don’t need to spend
hours looking for really fabulous, high profit stuff to resell on
eBay. You can do it all from home, sitting at your computer,
any time of day or night, and it’s never going to get easier or
cheaper than this!’
That’s
because one of the very best places to find products to resell on
eBay is actually on eBay itself. I look on eBay every day for
stuff other people are selling, usually stuff they are selling very
badly, and very often I buy whatever those people are selling and
relist it later on eBay. And make very good profits!
Usually referring to items bought in one place and sold in another,
arbitrage represents a very easy way to make big money fast and is
the process by which many of the world’s top eBay PowerSellers
obtain their entire stock.
But
arbitrage does not mean simply buying at flea market or boot sale
and reselling an item on eBay, or buying from wholesalers or auction
and reselling your acquisitions on eBay. For most eBayers
‘Arbitrage’ means simply buying items from other eBay sellers and
relisting them later, free from the spelling mistakes and
other errors and inaccuracies that caused those items to sell so
cheaply on their first eBay appearance.
It’s a
great way to make money but it takes time, it can be boring and
sometimes very confusing. It can also turn nasty where the
original owner realises they’ve helped someone else to a very tidy
profit.
All of
those problems, and many more confronting the arbitrage newcomer,
have very easy solutions, which I’ll reveal to you now.
*
Don’t waste time checking listings with several days still left to
run which could still attract frantic bidding if the seller corrects
his mistake and revises the listing. Focus instead on listings with
just a few minutes left to run and no bidders. Access them by
clicking on ‘Sort By: Time Ending Soonest’ at the right side of any
eBay selling page, or go to: http://www.noauctionbids.com
*
Use separate eBay accounts for buying and selling arbitrage items.
A disgruntled seller is much more likely to realise his mistake
where buying and reselling takes place inside one account. You
can have as many eBay accounts as you like as long as you use a
different email address for each.
*
Another way to avoid confrontation is to list arbitrage items a week
or two after their original listing or when sellers are less
likely to remember you and have already left positive feedback.
*
The best arbitrage opportunities exist where original sellers
misspell their product title and descriptions and this is the
easiest place for you to profit. But don’t waste time checking
thousands of listings individually when you can check the entire
eBay marketplace in seconds at: http://www.fatfingers.com
*
Look for products other eBayers are selling inexpensively in bulk,
such as entire stamp collections, complete shop contents, and so on.
Dismantle and sell your acquisitions individually with a good mark
up.
*
Sell on a different eBay site to that from which you bought.
This serves several purposes, not just to protect yourself against
unhappy sellers who may get jealous and leave negative feedback.
Selling on different sites also means targeting different people
with greater enthusiasm to buy your acquisitions. A good
example is where you buy British Football programmes attracting
little or no interest on eBay’s China site which sell like hot cakes
later on eBay.co.uk. Don’t worry too much about language
difficulties: ‘Chelsea’, ‘World Cup 1966’ and ‘Manchester United’
will usually be spelled exactly the same no matter where they are
listed.
Avril Harper is a triple eBay
PowerSeller and author of BANK BIG PROFITS SELLING VINTAGE
TOPOGRAPHICAL VIEW POSTCARDS ON EBAY which you can read about at:
http://www.sellpostcardsonebay.com/ and MAKE MONEY TEARING UP
OLD BOOKS AND MAGAZINES AND SELLING THEM ON EBAY which you can read
about at:
http://www.magstoriches.com/
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