We just had a great eBay flip sale this week and wanted to share it with you. We’ve encouraged you before to earn extra money by selling items on eBay and we hope these real life examples get you motivated to give it a whirl. (Did you know that we sell on eBay and Amazon full time?).
The back story
About a month ago we went on a two day adventure to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The weather was cold and cruddy so we weren’t able to get outside much. We did however drive from St. Ignace to Sault Ste. Marie and while we were there we hit the Salvation Army Thrift Store.
We love a good plunder through a thrift store and we managed to find some decent things at this store. It was really clean and organized which made it a pleasure to shop at. We happened to get there about an hour before they were closing so we worked quickly. Just before they dimmed the lights and announced that they would be closing in 5 minutes we spotted a large piece of fabric in their housewares department. We have had good luck with selling fabric before and since this was a large piece and we could tell by the feel of it that it was high quality, we put it in our cart. It was $8 and it seemed like there was a large quantity of material there.
While waiting to check out I checked the selvage edge and was thrilled to see this was Tommy Bahama fabric! Score! This was definitely expensive fabric and this brand name would make this all the more valuable to the right person. Hooray!
Once we returned home I measured the fabric out (there was just over 10 yards x 52″ wide!), took some photographs and listed it on eBay for a high price of $122.
You can see the eBay listing for yourself. We turned on the “best offer” option, allowing potential customers to make a lower offer if they are interested. If they offer we have 3 options: accept their offer and sell the item at that price, counter their offer with another price or decline the offer. Part of our pricing strategy on eBay fixed price items is to put a higher price on the item knowing we will more than likely receive a lower offer.
The details on the eBay flip
Earlier this week we received an offer for $90 for the fabric. We accepted the offer and after shipping the fabric (we offered free shipping and this easily fit into a flat rate Priority Mail box) and paying eBay and Paypal fees, we profited $58+!
Here is the fee breakdown:
Sales price…………..$90.00
Cost of fabric………-$8.00
eBay fees……………-$8.10
Paypal fees………..-$2.91
Shipping…………..-$12.05
Profit………………$58.94
Sweet profit for an item that was easy to photograph and list. It only took just over 2 months to sell, so it was a pretty quick eBay flip.
We love to sell on eBay. It is amazing the items that will sell for big profits on eBay. We have published other stories about items we have sold on eBay if you are interested in reading more.
Excited about this story? Give selling on eBay a try; the process is simple and eBay is very user friendly. Give us a shout if you have questions.
Happy selling!
