Ah…The million-dollar question! “What can I sell to make money?” After well over 25 years of experience in buying and selling rare and collectible books, and then having moved into buying and selling to make money with general collectibles and antiques – I get this question quite a bit. Especially from people who really want to jump on the eBay bandwagon and make some money on eBay.
The short answer is… It depends. It depends on a LOT of things. It depends on the market for various items. For example, 10 years ago, I could sell every single book in my house for anywhere between $10 and $1,000. And I did. I sold a LOT of books. In fact, I broke my hip, left arm and elbow back in 2001, and was completely unable to work at my usual job, which was building and carpentry. Hard to do from a hospital bed and wheelchair.
Fortunately, we had a computer by that time, and also the internet. And 2 years experience on eBay. So, every day, I would sit in the wheelchair at the computer for as long as I could physically do it, and I listed books. I listed book after book after book…
And for a total of about 6 months, I paid the mortgage with the proceeds.
Today? I’d be lucky if I could sell 25% of those same books for 1/10 of what I sold them for then.
So what changed?
The market changed.
That’s all. Books began to lose popularity to other items which began taking over the marketplace. Today, the Kindle is the newest best-sliced-piece-of-bread. For how long? I don’t know.
What I DO know is that we need to go with the flow of the market instead of trying to resist it. As Wayne Dyer once aptly described it in one of his audios where he and his little daughter were floating in the pool and singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” He said – in effect – was to notice that the song says, “row your boat GENTLY DOWN THE STREAM…” not “struggle to row UP the stream…” which means to be non-resistant. Learn to work WITH the current instead of fighting it.
So, for people like us who are buying and selling to make money and who are aksing “what can I sell to make money?”” we answer – Whatever people are buying at the moment.
We do our research. If you research eBay and find that no one is buying 1980s baseball cards right now – put ’em aside and find something else to sell. Learn to watch trends. Go over to eBay and click on eBay’s “pulse” to see what is trending.
You May Want to Consider Drop Shipping
We’ve had a lot of experience in drop shipping over the years. And it’s not quite as easy as saying just check out InventorySource.com or subscribe to SaleHoo and find some stuff wholesale to sell. I’ll talk more about drop shipping in another post, but before you decide to try that business model, remember that you STILL have to figure out whether or not the stuff you intend to sell has enough demand to warrant your efforts.
It’s a complicated question – with no simple answer. So, having said that, please stay tuned here and look at the articles and videos in this section that will hopefully inspire you and give you some new ideas.
We are all learning here. You are not alone. So… start with a couple of the links below, and let’s move on from here! To start the ball rolling, have a look at this short video I made for you, where I offer a little information about how to help yourself determine what an item is really worth on eBay at any given time. Enjoy!
What is it REALLY Worth? Advice on How to Sell on eBay for Beginners