There are a lot of amazing things about being able to sell things online. I love the ability to pocket some extra cash when I find an item that I don't use any more. There are a few things to know about selling online before you just jump right in because if you are not smart you may end up losing money instead of making some when you sell on eBay. It happens all the time and it is not because people are dumb, but because no one told them what actually goes on when you sell online and how things work. There is a lot to take into account and if you don't run a business, you basically are about to do it on a tiny scale when you sell on eBay. So today I want to go over some basics from how it works to getting shipping supplies so you don't find yourself losing money when you should be making some extra running around cash.
The first thing to know is that eBay is not free. Well it certainly looks like it is free to log on and even post your item. But when it all comes down to it. eBay makes a fee from every single item sold. Most of the items are listed for free up to a certain point, but then they take 10% of the sale price. That means that if you sell an item for 100 dollars that eBay will charge you 10 dollars at the end of the month. So now what you really made was 90 dollars. But wait there is also more. There is a 3% fee from PayPal for every single transaction. so now your 100 dollar sale only gets you 87 dollars. That is on every single sale that you do. So make sure that you are taking that loss into effect. But not only do you lose money on that end there is also another fee that always occurs as well.
When you finally sell your item you now have to ship it. This means that you have to pay the post office or UPS to go and ship your item. But how do you do that? Well, now you must actually package your item to ship safely. This costs money as well. You must get shipping supplies to package your item up and get it to the buyer. So this could be 10 dollars in a box, 10 dollars, in shipping fees, and a few bucks for tape and labels. Wow did you just spend 33 dollars after the purchase? That is a 33% loss. That is a lot of money and if you do this every single time you may end up spending 33 dollars on an item that you only sold for 30 dollars.
Get it, it could cost you money to sell on eBay. So be knowledgeable about those fees and try to find shipping supplies at a lowered cost in order to be able to sell happily. Use old boxes that are lying around and try to find old stuffing or newspapers to fill the gaps so the items do not get destroyed in shipping. These are all important things to know and to prepare for when you sell online.
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