What To Sell On eBay To Make Money

by Brandon | Last Updated: October 1, 2021

Overview

What’s up hustlers? I’m back today to talk to you about what to sell on eBay to make money.

I think by now, everyone has at least heard of eBay.

But there might be some misconceptions around the site still even to this day.

“eBay is only cheap junk” or “That site should be called fleabay cause it’s like a flea market.”

I’ll be showing you it’s definitely not all cheap junk and there are a lot of things you can sell for good money, it’s actually one of my favorite side hustles.

Create eBay Seller Account

Before you learn what to sell on ebay to make money, step one is obviously going to be setting up your account.

Create ebay seller account here.

If you have a business set up already (you should to get maximum value) – then select Business Account.

Now, if you’re just testing the waters here, go ahead and do the personal account.

No worries, you can still sell from a personal account. You can always change it later by doing the following.

Go here.

Under Personal Information you should see Account Type.

Next to Account Type, you should see a link that says Edit, click there.

Type in your business name and click Change to Business Account.

Reselling On eBay

Now that you have your account setup, let’s go over some of the things you’ll need to know about in order to start reselling on eBay.

We’ll cover the fees involved, feedback goals, promoted listings and getting your sales tax exemption set up.

eBay Fees

Despite what some people have to say, the site is not called FeeBay lol.

eBay recently took over the whole payment management structure for sellers and basically kicked PayPal to the curb (yay!)

When they implemented eBay Managed Payments, the fees did get slightly cheaper than they were before, so that’s good news.

The fees are fluid based on category and total order amount.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the categories I’ll be mentioning below.

• Books – 14.55%  of total sale up to $7500 and 2.35% on anything over $7500
• Bullion – 12.35% up to $7500 and 7% on anything over $7500
• Clothing – 15% up to $2000 and 9% on anything over $2000
• Sports Cards – 12.35% up to $7500 and 2.35% on anything over $7500
• Shoes – 0% if sale is over $100 and 12.55% if total is under $100

So, as you can see the fees can fluctuate quite a bit.

The unfair part if you ask me is they do charge you the fee on the total order amount that the BUYER PAYS, sales tax included, even though that only gets charged to the buyer and you don’t make a penny off of it.

Just because you figure out what to sell on ebay to make money doesn’t mean that fees and shipping won’t just eat up your profits.

Anyway, the best way to get your true profit projection is to use an eBay fee calculator.

Building Feedback on eBay

If you’ve ever bought something on ebay before, I’m sure you have seen the feedback system in action.

It’s the number next to the seller’s name, usually accompanied by a colored star.

Obviously, the higher the better and if you’re a new seller I highly recommend you get above at least 10 before you sell anything.

Why?

• At 10 is when you get the gold star.
• Under 10 looks shady to potential buyers (no star shown at all.)

The easiest way to get above the 10 feedback mark is simply to start buying stuff.

If the seller has a lot of feedback, then chances are even higher they’re going to automatically just give you positive feedback when you buy something from them.

Take this seller for example, supplyhut, they sell boxes and packing material and such…if you buy something from them you’ll get automatic positive feedback.

Just don’t buy boxes from them…they’re cheap and flimsy and suck. Stick to Uline or re-using boxes you receive orders in.

Using Promoted Listings

When you get above 10 on the feedback, it will be much easier for you to sell.

Once you get a little sales history going and your account is in good standing, you’ll get to unlock promoted listings.

Basically, this is a pay to play sorta thing to get your listing at or near the top of search results.

You can set the fee you’re willing to pay (ebay will suggest an amount but you definitely don’t have to go with that amount.)

If you have a really popular product that is fast moving, I find it best to leave this off.

When using promoted listings you should be raising your price some to offset the cost…you DO NOT need to be the lowest price.

Getting Sales Tax Exempt

Since some of what I’m about to go over, especially sports cards, will be buying from eBay to resell on eBay later, it’s important you get set up with a sales tax exemption.

Why would you want to pay an extra 7-9% on your purchases to give to Uncle Sam?

You don’t!

If you do pay the sales tax, that also means that your competition who is tax exempt has a much lower cost and can sell for a lot less than you.

Part of learning what to sell on ebay to make money also includes figuring out how to lower your buy cost.

Once you have your sales tax exemption certificate, head on over to eBay’s Buyer Exemption program to apply for your sales tax exemption.

*** Not tax advice. Seek a qualified accountant. Make sure you remit any necessary taxes on your end. ***

Best Things To Sell On eBay For Profit

Alright, finally to the good stuff…what to sell on ebay to make money.

LFG!

Well, truth be told, you can sell almost anything on ebay as long as it’s not dangerous or illegal.

But here are some of the best things to sell on eBay for profit.

Selling Clothes On eBay

Selling clothes on ebay could mean lots of different things.

• Old clothes you have around the house.
• Nice ties from Goodwill.
• Brand new clothes you get from Dollar General (they have some weird thing where sometimes you get marked down stuff for a penny) or TJ Maxx and places like that where the price is super discounted.
• Or, my favorite, a print on demand t-shirt shop.

Any of these are good options for selling clothes on ebay.

Definitely don’t sleep on this. I sold over $25,000 of shirts @ $19.99 each with my old print on demand shirt business.

Best Books To Sell On eBay

When looking for what to sell on ebay to make money then textbooks will definitely be up on that list.

Textbooks or highly technical books are definitely going to be the best books to sell on ebay.

(And buy.)

There is a slow and busy season with textbooks.

So, you can literally buy textbooks in the slow season, wait until right before college classes start (usually September/January) and immediately resell for more.

OR…buy them cheap on eBay and send them in to sell on Amazon.

Want to learn more about flipping text books?

Check out Jerry’s course, it will teach you everything you need to know about buying textbooks from ebay.

Sports Cards/Trading Cards

Sports cards have cooled off a little bit recently.

Back in the summer of 2020 it was nuts. Probably everyone was inside and had nothing to do.

There is still a lot of money to be made in sports cards and/or trading cards though.

Money flows to the top, to the greats.

Think Jordan/Kobe/Lebron/Tom Brady/Pikachu, etc.

Yeah, sure Luka or Zion might enter that club one day, but for now you’re more or less speculating on these

Selling Pre Orders On eBay

There are times when you might be able to snag a presell from Disney or the US Mint.

You may be asking if selling pre orders on eBay is allowed?

Yes, it is ok, with a couple stipulations:

You must clearly state it is a “presale” item in the title and description.

Also, you must guarantee shipment within 30 days of the purchase.

If you don’t expect to get the item for longer, you should probably hold off.

While most likely nothing will happen to you if it goes longer than 30 days before you ship, it’s probably better to be safe than sorry.

One important thing you need to do is make sure you extend out the handling time when you create your listing.

Also, don’t forget to communicate with the customer if something changes. Most people are pretty understanding as long as you keep them updated.

What Garage Sale Items Sell Best On eBay

When looking for what to sell on eBay, garage sales and yard sales can be a great resource to pick up inventory cheaply.

If you’re out at garage sales or yard sales and need a quick list of things to keep an eye out for, here are going to be the major ones.

• Name brand (Nike, Adidas) shoes in decent shape. Don’t be afraid to buy them if they’re dirty and you think they’ll clean up.
• Power tools of any top tier company like Dewalt or Makita (and others) will probably be cheap and can resell for a lot.
• College text books or technical books like medical books.
• Vintage pottery or plates or Pirex dishes could do really well.
• Unlit candles like Yankee Candles sell real well.

If you have any doubt, open up the eBay app on your phone and do a quick search to see if you can find anything similar.

Finding Comparative Sales (Comps)

The best way to find true comparative listings is to look at the sold items.

After you do your search go ahead and hit the Advanced link next to search.

On Desktop it will look like this:

If you’re on mobile, it will look like this:

From mobile, the steps will go like this:

• At the bottom tap on Search.
• Enter whatever you’re looking for. Tap the magnifying glass to search.
• When the results come up, tap on Filter at the top right.
• Slide down until you see Show More. Tap on it.
• Then click on the toggle for Sold Items (it will automatically toggle on Completed Items.)
• Then click “Show results” at the bottom.

Listing Your Items For Sale

Everything is fairly self explanatory with listing an item for sale but I would like to point out a few things.

Good images will do a lot for your listing.

Try to take photos in natural light on a clean background.

Alternatively, you can pickup a lightbox kit from Amazon for fairly cheap. This is the little box with lights in it with a white or black background to get that studio quality image.

Honestly, your phone takes good enough pictures. When listing on the app you can even rotate or crop the images.

If you’re listing on mobile, make sure to turn immediate payment required on.

On the desktop version of eBay it is on by default. On mobile you have to turn it on.

Nothing more irritating than waiting for someone to pay. Especially when they don’t and you have to wait like 72 hours and then relist the item and start all over.

One quick trick I want to point out to make listing your items easier:

“Sell one like this” – it is a link or button that will pre-fill a lot of the information for your listing from already active or completed items.

On your desktop browser it will look like this:

From the eBay app on your phone there are a couple more steps.

First, click on an actual listing you want to “duplicate” and then swipe down until you see this section:

Just tap on the button that says “Sell one like this” and you’re off to the races.

Other Selling Websites Like eBay

There are two main players where you can really amp up your sales, that would be Amazon and Walmart. Those work better for new items though.

If you have more used items and are looking for some alternative selling websites like eBay, I’d suggest:

• Facebook Marketplace
• OfferUp
• Mercari
• Poshmark (Clothes Mostly)
• StockX (Sneakers or Sports Cards)

Final Thoughts

I hope by now you have a good idea of what to sell on ebay to make money.

You can definitely make money reselling on ebay with a lot of different items/categories, but I’ve found these to be some of the best.

I will try to do some more in depth write ups on the above from time to time, such as selling sports cards on eBay.