eBay
I was reading an article that was listing side-hustles to supplement a person’s income. I am all for side businesses or a side-hustle. I have a few businesses beyond my CPA practice myself. Hell, you get enough side businesses going and they call you a multipreneur.
One of the items on the list was sell stuff on eBay. I have a store on eBay for one of my businesses this is the main outlet, while I procrastinate on getting a better website platform going for the full e-commerce experience.
But selling items on eBay can be easy, hard, cheap and expensive all simultaneously. If you are getting started, you can set up an account and use the free auctions that they allow you. You can list 50 items with no listing fees, but with a higher final value fee. This is the cost of using eBay they take 10% of your sale and postage off the top. So, you only get 90% of the transaction. If you are using PayPal, then you lose anther 3% to them for the transaction as well. So now you are down to 87%.
If you pay for a monthly store you have a fixed fee for a certain amount of listings, your final value fee is also reduced, based upon your store levels and there are five store levels. I view my monthly eBay store fee as rent to make it more palatable. With a premium store I typically and paying at least $150 a month to eBay in fees.
If you have a few items around the house that you want to sell, yes, can be easy and cheapish if you look at the 13% as cheap.
With a store is gets harder, to keep the listing in compliance with eBays constantly shifting standards. I can list up to 1,000 things and when they have another required category that needs to be filled, I have to typically go into each item to edit. The mass editing tools don’t always work. I have 4 items that still require feedback because the mass feedback tool, does not like those listings.
If it will be a planned side business, you will need boxes, a scale, packing materials and definitely tape. Luckily, I run this from my office, so I don’t always have to run to the post office, they pick up the packages daily.
eBay can make you some money, but it will take some work and effort on your part to make an income.