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I am looking for a secondary, possibly soon to be primary, income source, and wanted to know a bit more about drop shipping. I know what it is, and found a good bit of general advice on the forum. What I need to know about is specifically Ebay drop shipping. What can anyone tell me about getting a decent income from the auction site?
Good job on research. You’d be amazed how many people come on to the boards asking about the basics of drop shipping, when there’s pages of threads talking about drop shipping just by itself. As for drop shipping through auctions sites, I’ve been doing it for several years now, and make a monthly income in the higher four-digit numbers.
First, unless you’re incredibly adept at doing research and keeping the information sounding fresh, original, and engaging (and if you can, there’s other jobs you could get doing that), then you want to sell something you’re passionate about. There’s a supplier and an eBay category for pretty much anything, so you’ll likely be able to find just about anything you dig a lot.
If you love the product you’re selling, then you have a considerable amount of information already at your disposal, and a much better understanding of the product than someone just managing with Wikipedia and the forum. Customers will take note of your passion and understanding in the item listings, and will appreciate that knowledge later down the road when they have questions.
Even if you’re one of the foremost experts on, say, off-label cast iron cookware, you want to do market research. You don’t want to get yourself into a market that’s already been cornered. You want to find a demand that isn’t just completely saturated already, and only research can tell you that. There’s several tools online you can use specifically for eBay research-
● eBay Labs, especially the BayEstimate. You plug the auction title of a given item, and it shows you just how successful that title will be on the site.
● eBay Pulse, eBay’s main trending analysis site culls the most-used search terms on eBay, and it’ll give you an idea of what’s popular, and will definitely show you what markets are saturated.
● terapeak, an online market research tool specific to ebay. Closer to actual market research than eBay Pulse or most anything in the Labs, but subscription-based.
Use common sense. There’s a thread on the forum, here, that goes into detail about a number of other, not specific to eBay tools. Every little bit helps.
Competition on eBay is brutal. In the auction categories you’re likely to find whatever market into which you want to nudge, but that market is likely going to be loaded with competition just by virtue of being an eBay category. That is, most of the markets on eBay are very busy, because it is eBay, a very busy site. That said, if you’re determined to hit up ebay, you could definitely do worse than gamerfan’s tips.