How I price and resell items on eBay for Maximum Profit

 How I price and resell items on eBay for Maximum Profit

You want to make some money, 

so you try out eBay. 

You carefully craft your first listing:

write a description that would make George R. R. Martin envious,

take elegant pictures, and hit upload.

You are eager to sell your item, but it has yet to sell. 

One week passes after the other and now it has been 5 Months already, but still… nothing.

Confident that your item is cursed, you decide to lower your price by 50%, and then after another week of waiting, it finally sells.

The profit is nothing to write home about, but at least you got rid of it.

Every day resellers leave money on the table.

But what if I told you it does not have to be this way?

In this post, I will share the way I do my pricing research, so I can make sure to:

1. Get Great Deals

2. Sell The Item Quick

3. Make A Decent Profit While Doing So

I didn’t know this the first time I started reselling, but there are 7 major steps for every item you choose to sell.

1. Finding the item

2. Market Value

3. Condition

4. Pricing

5. Buy it

6. List it

7. Sell

I used to skip most of these steps when I first started. For some reason, I thought I could play the game better than anybody else and didn’t need a strategy.

Countless unsold items and thousands of $Dollars of unrealized profit later, I realized that not having a system stopped me from making the profit I wanted.

So here are the 7 steps that I use to resell items on eBay with a focus on getting the pricing right.

1. Finding the item:
   
   First, we need to find something to sell.
   
   Items are abundant and can be found anywhere:
   
   - Facebook Marketplace
   - Garage Sales
   - Flea Markets
   - Thrift Stores
   - Auctions
   - Alibaba
   - The Trash on the side of the Road
   
   My favorite place to find items nowadays is at auctions.
   
   Auctions are wild.

You can get both the best deals and worst deals of your life there.

A few days ago, I bought a 2007 Mitsubishi Pajero GLX NS for $4800 ($3200 before other expenses), worth around $10-12k here in Adelaide in 2024.

But be careful, I often see people getting into “Bidding Wars” and paying more than the Retail Price for an item!

It’s a hit-and-miss, but to make sure you don’t wreck your bank account,
you need to do your research.

2. Research the market value:
   
   If you like profit, don’t skip this step.
   
   You have to do your market research.
   
   Here is how I do it.
   
   1. eBay:
   
   eBay is great for small to medium-sized items that fit in a box and are easily shipped. It offers great tools for sellers but also has some hidden functions that we can use.
   
   First, figure out the value of an item.
   
   Open eBay and search for the item. In this example, I’m looking for a PlayStation 5.
   
   Take note of the amount of search results for your item. This will be important in a second. 

And ignore the listing prices you see, they are not what we are after.

Next, go to the filters on the left and scroll to the bottom until you find the “Sold Items” checkbox.

Click on it and check the prices.

Write down the lowest price and highest price.

This will be your price range, in this example, it’s $500-$800.

Also, note the number of search results for the “Sold Items”.

In this case, it’s 827 sold item results (this refers to the sold items in the last 90 days).

I hope you took note of both search results and sold items.

Now we calculate the probability that the item will sell. I use this formula:

Search Results / Sold Search Results * 100 = Sale Probability

Now let’s pop in the previous numbers:

1300 / 827 * 100 = 63.6%

Our PlayStation 5 has a 63.6% chance of being sold in the next 90 days, as long as we create an average listing and price it between $500 - $800.

This is a rough estimate but will give you a solid idea of how easy the item is to flip.

But there are still other forces at play, that will affect your flip.

3. Check the Condition:
   
   The PlayStation 5 I looked up sold between $500 - $800 and the price difference comes largely from one thing: Condition.
   
   If you have a dirty PlayStation with a broken controller that is scratched up from a cat using it as a nail-sharpening device, it will be worth closer to $500 or even less.
   
   However, if it is in pristine condition with a controller that still has all the knobs working, and comes with a game or two, you might be able to sell it closer to $800.
   
   Condition is essential for pricing.
   
   Don’t overlook it.
   
   So make sure to check the condition of whatever you want to sell BEFORE you buy it. Especially when you buy expensive items like cars, you should inspect them to ensure you are not buying a lemon.
   
   And depending on this you can price it.
   
   

4. Price the Listing:
   
   The selling price determines your profit.
   
   Choose a price that is too high and it won’t sell.
   
   Choose a price that is too low and you will leave money on the table.
   
   Price the item just right and you will sell it quickly with a decent profit.
   
   In our case, the researched price range is $500-$800 and the price should be chosen in this price range. I try to stay clear of both extremes of the price range, as I don’t think it’s beneficial to be the cheapest, or the most expensive seller.
   
   So for a $500-$800 price range, I price it between $550-$750, depending on the condition.
   
   We are ready to buy the item.
   
   

5. Acquire the item:
   
   Buying the item should never be the first step.
   
   Beginners buy first, but this is a mistake.
   
   Purchasing before knowing if a deal is worth it, is the same as putting everything on red on the roulette table.
   
   Be smart, do your research first, then buy the item.
   
   And the most important part comes right after that.
   
   

6. List the item:
   
   You can’t sell an item if you don’t list the item.
   
   And like a quality book, your listing has 2 parts to master.
   
   1. The packaging
   2. The content
   
   The packaging is your thumbnail, title, and price.
   
   Make sure to take a clear picture, have a detailed description with good keywords and the price is correct.
   
   The content is the other pictures and your description.
   
   Take pictures,
   like nobody will read the description.
   
   Write descriptions,
   like nobody will look at the pictures.
   
   This is the secret to a great listing.
   
   

7. Sell the item:
   
   Look, You can’t make a person buy your stuff.
   
   You can only improve your listing and sourcing skills in hopes that more people will decide to buy your stuff.
   
   Want to improve profit margin? Learn to find better deals and improve your pricing.
   
   No views on your listings? Take better thumbnails, and write better titles.
   
   Need more money? Buy and list more items.
   
   Learn how to tell a story in your description.
   You want to make it worth it for someone to purchase your item.
   
   

This guide was not meant to be a detailed instruction on reselling as a whole, but rather an introduction to reselling on eBay.

I appreciate you taking the time to read my article.

If you learned anything, please let me know!

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Thank you, and I’ll see you next time.