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Can I ask you a question? What could you do with an extra $1,000 per month? You could pay off debt, go on a vacation, buy new furniture, build up an emergency fund, make home repairs, etc. The possibilities are endless. For a lot of people, and extra $1,000 each month would change their world. Did you know you could make this extra cash as a stay at home mom selling on ebay?
You can! It is totally possible!
Selling on ebay has made it possible for my family to pay off debt, cash flow emergencies and home projects, send our children to private school and even survive a government shutdown. It has been a huge blessing to my family, and it can be to yours too.
I know that crunching numbers can make your head hurt if you are not a math whiz (and I’m not!), but there are a couple of easy formulas that will show you just how to make it all work.
I’m going to show you how it’s possible. It’s not as hard as you think!
Table of Contents
How to make $1,000 per month selling on ebay:
Selling on ebay can be hard work, but it’s fun work. If you’re not currently selling on ebay, but you love to bargain shop or thrift, this could be your dream job! This method can also work if you’re selling Poshmark or Mercari as well!
Can you make money selling things on eBay?
You can! So there are several things that make you a successful ebay seller.
You have to treat this like a business.
Start with that mindset in the beginning. If you start selling and see it going somewhere, you need to open a separate checking account for your business. It can be a person account at first. Just keep everything separate from your personal account, no mixing money.
Before you get to that point though, you really need to set up a bookkeeping system. You can use a notebook, a spreadsheet, or an account program. It doesn’t really matter which. You just need to keep track of your income and your expenses, and save your receipts.
There is a common misconception that you do not have to pay taxes as a casual seller or even a part-time seller. It’s true that PayPal will not send you a 1099-MISC form until you reach $10,000 in transactions.
This does not mean that your income up until that point is not taxable.
Contact an accountant to find out what the income threshold is and what expenses you can deduct. I am not giving you tax advice here, just a friendly heads-up. 🙂
Start selling things you have around the house.
You don’t need to start buying a bunch of stuff to resell. Start decluttering and see what you can find.
You can get rid of clutter and clean out at the same time. This way you don’t time up a bunch of money in something that you may not like.
What kinds of things can you sell on ebay that are lying around your house?
- Baby equipment & accessories
- Small kitchen appliances and/or parts (blades, lids, cords, attachments, etc)
- Sets of children’s books
- Clothing and shoes
- Video games & consoles
- Musical instruments
- Toys (new & vintage)
- Anything new in package
- Collectibles
- Board games
- Electronics (old iPods, cell phones, scientific calculators)
- Textbooks
- Scented candles
Take really good photos of your listings.
You don’t have to be a professional photographer to take good photos. I take most of mine with a piece of foam core board and a science project board from the dollar store. I just use my cell phone to take the photos.
Take your photos on a surface that is not cluttered and has some natural light. It doesn’t have to be complicated.
Make sure that you are pricing your items correctly.
I find that when most people quote ebay prices, they are talking about the active listings. You can ask anything that you want for something on ebay. That doesn’t mean that it will actually sell for that price.
To find the true value of an item, you have to look at the sold listings. You can read all about how to do that here.
List items on ebay on a consistent basis.
This is probably one of the most important parts of this whole equation. You need to be listing on a regular basis. If you are only listing five new items this week, list one every day.
Ebay loves consistent activity. Spread your activity out over the day and over the week.
Related post: 7 Small Items You Can Sell on Ebay for Profit
Here’s how to make $1,000 per month selling on ebay:
We need to think about all the costs associated with buying and selling on ebay. These are rough numbers, just to give you an idea.
Ebay’s final value fees are 10% and PayPal’s or ebay’s managed payments fees are roughly 3%.
So 13% comes off the top first.
Let’s say that your shipping averages 20%.
(Obviously, this is going to vary and we’re not talking about free shipping vs. paid shipping because we’re basing this amount off of the total revenue you get. Whether you charge shipping or not, it amounts to the same thing.)
Cost of goods generally runs about 10%.
Add in your ebay store fees, shipping and supplies, you are basically at 50%.
This means that you need to sell $66.66/ day to make $2,000 a month in gross sales/ $1,000 a month in gross profit.
If your average selling price is $17, you would need to sell about 4 items per day to meet your goal.
You can determine what your current average selling price is by following this simple formula.
$ value of listings / # of listings = average selling price
You can use this formula for your current active listings to see your current ASP, but you can also do it for your sold listings (it will be over a 90 day stretch).
The $$ amount of items that you need to sell daily will be different for everyone. It if doesn’t happy immediately, and it most likely won’t, just put your head down and list. The more that you list consistently, the more you will sell. It make take a week of listing daily, but you will gain momentum.
This is totally doable! The more you list, the more momentum you will gain.
