Ok, I know, we all just have to face the fact that I am not blogging that much anymore. I am vacationing in TN with the family and trying to limit my computer time. Since the blog is more for fun than for profit I have to keep my time on the blog site to a minimum.
Yes, I am still an eBay seller! Things are going well. Still doing the Drop Shipping Sucks stuff. All is well. In fact, even though I STILL have my day job the eBay sales have allowed us to take this little vacation.
I have come to the conclusion that eBay is not going to make me rich or even able to retire. I am doing well, but the stability still isn’t 100% there. But this is very good for now. Doing eBay is fun and if it earns me nothing more than a couple of vacations and some extra spending $$ each year, I can live with that!
It has been a long time since I have posted here and I am sorry. I am continuing on my journey through eBay and I think I have peaked. I am doing well. I am making money. I still give great praise to Drop Shipping Sucks (please use my affiliate link).
The problem I am having is expanding. I am at a critical point. If I want to expand my eBay adventure I am going to have to work much harder and many more hours. I am going to have to look for new niche items and I am going to have to really ramp up my sales.
As I have played with in the past, I am SERIOUSLY considering venturing outside the bay. I think this would be the easiest next step. Looking where else I could sell, not what else.
I really have not established a solid niche for myself. I have kept with selling anything I could buy cheap. But I think the light in that is that when buying cheap I can sell just about anywhere. After all, if I can sell on eBay I can sell on Amazon and other places, right?
I have been out of town for a while helping some friends with some tough issues they were facing. Not only have I not been blogging, I have not been eBay selling either.
I hope to post some updates soon for my handful of readers. I am jumping back onto eBay now!
Did you think I was dead? No, I was just busy! But I have some time now because this is a slow time for me on eBay. After an amazing Christmas season where I think the slow economy actually helped my sales, things have dropped off considerably. But I am not concerned. I am using my dropshipping sucks skills to buy what I can and be ready for March!
Last March is when things really took off after the holidays. I did pretty well after the holidays last year too. But this year with the economy what helped my Christmas sales is hurting my post Christmas sales. During Christmas time everyone was on eBay because everyone wanted a DEAL. Everyone wanted to save some money and spend a little less. Now I think everyone is shopped out. Everyone is in savings mode.
It is a little painful, but again I will be able to ride it out and really cash-in come March.
I have been able to find a few great items to resell:
4GB SD Cards for $1.66 which will be great to sell to people who got Digital Cameras for Christmas and want to use them for the summer.
7″ Digital Photo Frame for $16.40 which I can sell along with the SD cards
A huge lot of 96 various Nintendo Wii games. Some of them are not as popular, but I got all 96 games for $504. This is a big investment for me, but I see me easily doubling my investment.
As you can see, I am ready and I am not just using the dropshipping-style techniques Christopher taught either. I am still using the techniques for buying products to sell on ebay, but I am not just buying one item at a time after it sells anymore.
I just wanted to give my fans a quick update and to let them know that I still have a heartbeat. WISH ME LUCK!
I have always been a fan of halloween, but this year I love it more than ever.
If you have been following my blog you will know that I have been using, praising, and promoting the Better Sources Guide ans an affiliate for a while now. It quite simply has been the #1 factor in my eBay success. And this Halloween is no different.
Using the techniques in Chris’s guide I have been able to really cash-in on this halloween. I have stayed away from costumes but have been selling stuff such as dancing skeletons, headless butlers, crystal balls, and other mostly-animated props. It has been going very well! I am sorry to see the season ending. I have 3 auctions ending today and I think this will have to be the end of my Halloween push. Getting too late to sell now as Halloween is just 2 weeks away.
The good news is that right after Halloween is the CHRISTMAS season! The best season by far. I fully expect to make an additional $7000 this Christmas. Maybe it is a lofty goal, but it is something I think I can achieve. Of course I would be happy even with an additional $3000, I don’t want to get too greedy.
So, anyone who is considering selling on eBay along with me, now is the time to get started! With the current economic slump more people than ever are going to be looking for a deal on eBay. I have a feeling that retailers will see a big slow down and that eBay will have a big increase.
Oh, and here is a big tip, if you’re going to start selling on eBay this holiday season do not start by looking what a bunch of other people are selling then trying to find the same stuff so you can sell it too. It is not fair to copy other’s auctions.
Well, wish me luck and I will do the same for you!
I had a bad week recently. Really bad. I barely made a profit on eBay for the week and was feeling pretty lousy.
I was unsure if it was my items, eBay, or the failing USA economy. As it turns out, it was me as I had expected and hoped. I just got greedy and went for some bad products. Problem corrected.
I was recently asked about my intentions to quit my day job since I have considered this option in the past. I am not currently considering it. Especially after my recent low-profit scare! I still need the stability of my real job and, quite frankly, with the economy they way it is I would just prefer make all the money I can while I can. Who knows where we will be 12 months from now.
Wish me luck!
And remember, use this link and go buy DropShipping Sucks. It is what I used to get started and you should too. Plus, when you use my link I earn money. [smile]
In my last post I mentioned that I got some software from Christopher Bernard the guy behind the Dropshipping Sucks website. This software allows me to find products on different wholesalers and other places with great speed and ease. It also allows me to research products which I must admit I have not done yet.
I love the software. It is very cool and I find myself using it even to find products I buy for myself. It is just very good at finding products for cheap.
However, there has been one downside. A little while ago I bit the $299 bullet and invested in a company called WorldWide Brands. I was and am still happy with it as clearly a lot of thought and time has gone into the development of their product. I am just not using it anymore due to my using Chris’ software.
I read through the user agreement and I cannot resell my login to anyone else. So I guess I am stuck with something that I no longer use. I will not call it a $299 mistake because as I said, before I got this software I was using WorldWide Brands somewhat to find products for my eBay sales.
On that note, I do seem to have peeked somewhat. I am consistantly selling and making money on eBay but I do not seem to be able to take it to the next level. I am almost certianly going to try selling elsewhere maybe on Amazon or on my own website. Yikes! I would have to build a website!
I suppose it is goodbye forever to my $299 but I have benefitted from the experience. Now I must get back to eBay. And, unfortunately, to my real job which I STILL have.
My eBay success has me terrified! Why you might ask? Because now after many months I am really nearing the point where quitting my real job looks like a possibility.
I have been using the methods from the Drop Shipping Sucks guy, Chris, for months now and it is to the point where I really have convinced myself that I am a pro. But am I just fooling myself?
My eBay feedback just today hit the 600 mark. The point when I told myself that if I was making over $400/wk I would consider quitting my job. But, $400/wk is not enough really. Right now I am used to $350 – $400/wk from eBay but also another $512/wk from my job. If I stop working my job now I will lose $512 AND my benefits.
However, if I do not quit now I am not sure how much further I can take my eBay business. I am trying to find as much time as I can but with a full time job it is tough.
So I am asking the advice of my readers, if any still exist. From my experience now I am very confident I can double my eBay profits to $800/wk in under 2 weeks if I had full time to work on it. I also feel pretty sure I can get that up to $1500+ per week if I go at it full time for a month or so and then beyond.
But I am very afraid to take this leap. I could fail and end up with $512 less per week and no eBay business as I spend my time searching for new employment.
PLEASE HELP!
My friend has advised me to take my 2 week vacation from work and try to increase my eBay profits then and if it works then give my 30 days notice. But I don’t have another vacation coming until 2009 so that is a way off and also, once I get the full time eBay started I don’t want to pull back for 30 days.
Well, I had planned on writing something much sooner but I just haven’t had much time lately. Aside from still working full time I am still selling on eBay of course. And, as things pickup there my time is being fully consumed.
I will say this. eBay is making it more and more difficult to turn a profit. Although I still use the methods from DropShipping Sucks to find products really cheap I am getting sick of eBay deciding to keep more and more of my profits.
Sure, I am making a profit which was all I wanted from the start when I was trying using regular drop shippers. But I have gotten greedy and have gotten used to making decent money. I still am, but as I plan to expand and grow, my growth seems to be stunted by eBay and their endless need to make millions of more dollars by increasing fees!
The one good thing is that there seems to be less competition on eBay these days. I think many people have already abandonded them for greener pasture. Wherever that may be.
I might too take Chris’ advice of starting my own website and not relying on outside companies such as eBay and Amazon.com to staple my business.
What are your thoughts? Are you guys going to dump eBay? Have you dumped eBay? Is there somewhere else besides eBay (and Amazon.com) that you like?
Let me know! I am really interested. I am especially interested in hearing from other Drop Shipping Sucks customers like myself and what you are doing outside of eBay.
This is working! I am not seeing any $1000 days yet but I am actually selling on eBay and seeing some positive cash flow.
WHOOOOOOPEEE!
This has not been an easy task. I was over $150 in the hole before this and although I have not really erased any of that hole yet, once some more auctions close I will have officially started crawling myself out!
I am selling mainly gift sets which I made myself using the techniques from the Drop Shipping Sucks guide. But I am already seeing a decent profit on all but one of my six listings. One of them has no bids yet but I am still optimistic. I think the keywords of the products in that set are not very strong.
Using the non-dropship methods from the DSS guide I have been able to find good accessory items for ipods and those seem to be selling well so I can laugh as others try to use drop shippers to sell mp3 players and make no money while I am selling the accessories in a gift set which I got very very cheap (thank you Chris). The mp3 players are still selling for less on eBay than they were at the drop shippers. The ones I found anyhow.
But if you believe Chris’s talk about market value decreasing then there will be no drop shipper who offers a lower price on mp3 players or mp3 video players than eBay. The eBay price will always be less than the drop ship company can compete with because of the massive competition on eBay.
I will let you know how it goes in the next few days. I am hoping any success I generate now will continue after Christmas and according to my email from Chris (I bother him every few days) the sales will decrease in gift items but increase in other products. So, I am optimistic as it has worked so far.
Wish me luck! Hopefully next time I write it will be with the news that I am almost out of the hole I dug while trying drop shipping. But who knows, with this wild eBay game maybe by next week all I will be doing is using drop shippers. I doubt it!
