Belt Auction

I know nothing about eBay but Im gonna buy a "dummies" book and start a business. Will I succeed?

I'm based in Singapore and planning to sell Chinese stuff like antiques, etc. I need advise... thanks a lot!

Public Comments

1. Antiques? Not a real hot item - try electronics.
2. in this recession ............... no
3. No, the days of making money on ebay are long over. Their fees are ridiculous when coupled with paypal fees, and make it nearly impossible for someone to make a decent profit now. For example, I bought a 1 oz gold bar a few months ago, and had planned to sell it on ebay. I bought it for $1000, and saw that people were buying 1 oz gold bars for $1100 a few weeks later when the price went up. I thought "cool, I'll sell it on ebay and make a $100 profit". Well shipping alone is at least $20 because with an item that is $1100, you kind of want to get registered mail with insurance in case it's stolen or the person you are sending to says they never got it. Then ebay fees are $65 and paypal fees are $33. Bringing the total to sell it on ebay and ship it to $115. So I wouldn't make any profit at all, even though the item I bought is $100 cheaper than what someone is willing to pay for it on ebay. Ebay is slowly declining in visitor traffic. They keep attributing it to the recession, but craigslist increased in visitors during the recession and finally matched ebay in terms of traffic for the first time. It's because ebay's powersellers left and tried out craigslist and most of them went and made their own websites. You can see what sells on ebay and what doesn't sell. Once you are logged in, go to "advanced search", and checkmark the option "Completed listings only". This will show you which items sold and didn't sell. Search for any type of item. You will find that no matter what the item, 80% of them did not sell. The only ones that do sell seem to be at prices that are impossible to make a profit at, so people are just getting rid of stuff or taking a loss to get some money. Ebay is now FEEbay