pe7e Posted March 30, 2005 Report Share Posted March 30, 2005 'I find lots of buyers worldwide on EBAY, but if you do not play it smart the fees will eat you up , especially if you have items $100 + up that will not sell everytime' Thats where working smart comes into play, you really need to do both. Firstly you need to set your sales web site up with a name that is obvious as to what you are selling i.e. cheap_dvd_sales.com then register with ebay with your email address (which is allowed) as your 'user name' say for instance 'buy_it@cheap_dvd_sales.com'. Then you sell your cheap items on ebay and make sure you include in the description that you have huge stocks of related items on sale at bargain prices, and set your sale period to the maximum, the point is to get visitors to your site to sell the higher profit items without incuring fees, it's not to sell your cheap item! but if it does sell then it's a bonus People will visit your web site to look, and this is where you will sell your more expensive goods, you need to do it this way since ebay do not allow hot linking, but people are usually savy enough nowerdays to find their way to you from your email address :: now go forth and profit! and buy me a drink or two with the extra cash you will make Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThaiHome Posted March 30, 2005 Report Share Posted March 30, 2005 Flashermac said:p.s. Just checked Thailand items on eBay. Somebody is offering 5 brand new 100 baht notes with a minimum bid of US$16.99. Huh? The exchange rate right now is closer to US$20! How NOT to make money??? Uh, at an exchange rate of about 38 baht to the dollar, 500 baht is just over 13 dollars, which would give the seller a profit of over 15%. Sounds like a pretty good way to make money to me. TH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.. Posted March 30, 2005 Report Share Posted March 30, 2005 Well, Frash is an *English* lecturer... Hey Grandpa Frash , I'll be back in town for the April 8th Gullible's meet. Think you can find yer way into the city that evening? Cheers, SD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buffalo_bill Posted March 30, 2005 Report Share Posted March 30, 2005 pe9e, ** nd buy me a drink or two with the extra cash you will make ** And I won't . the special charme of an e-bay sale is that you have nothing to do with the customer in person. we do not even issue a tel number on the bill and are nowhere in the tel book. Once you got them ringing you it becomes boring and expensive. They must communicate by mail or fuck off. The complete process is fully automatic, we reckon about 10 to 13 % illiterates who are unable to fill a form or cannot spell their adress . These cases the software cannot identify and does not print bill and UPS label. BuBi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buffalo_bill Posted March 30, 2005 Report Share Posted March 30, 2005 By the way, rather than torturing the world with again the same junk from Thailand I recommend to take a short trip to Canton and visit the big trade shows , 1000 opporturnities for the greedy tradesman. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OCgringo Posted March 30, 2005 Report Share Posted March 30, 2005 well I put 150 items om Ebay Motors yesterday, 50 cent listings all day , Thats one way to "play it smart" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buffalo_bill Posted March 30, 2005 Report Share Posted March 30, 2005 Hombre, the most shattering thing on Ebay is that with a proper software you can peacefully analyse what your future competitors have been selling over the last 90 days incl. realised prices and quantity. A nice tool to develop a strategy . I spent part of the summer only over this feature . Unfortunately I am now one the ones who can be x-rayed. BuBi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 31, 2005 Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 Have been reading this thread with a lot of interest. The idea of selling Thailand stuff on eBay hit me back in 1999; brought back a few items, they paid for the trip (assuming my labor cost at zero, which is part of the rub), and have been doing that on trips ever since. Bids in my area and bid-ups are WAY lower than the go-go days of 1999-2000, and it's probably a bad sign that eBay is so widely known these days. Have definitely not found the formula to riches, just subsistence. Part of it may be that too many of my items are bought in the $1 range and sold in the $10 range (BTW, I think the average sale price for everything on eBay is about $17). At the turn-$1-to-$10 level, your problems are needing to sell too many (i.e. too labor-intensive) and the fees, which have really gone up. eBay has gotten greedy with those in a big way; the recent changes to the buy-it-now fee really take the cake. Interestingly, of my two most direct competitors, one is U.S. based (bulk ship, then close to market), and the other is Thai, operating from Thailand. The Thai is taking a price-undercutting strategy, though his shipping is too high and he's working like crazy and losing an awful lot of his margin to fees. He's limited the upside on some of my items, but I've gotten a lot back by checking his completed auctions and cream-skimming the most popular items. The American is smarter and trying to compete on scarcity rather than price, but I undercut him on competing items. (MORE) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OCgringo Posted March 31, 2005 Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 From what i see its the locals that will hurt you, If the Local Thai makes $5 on an item he is happy, probably does not even own it , just goes over and buys it once he has payment, you have to pay for , ship and wherehouse all your stuff. To make any money you need to be in the $50-$100 range and make at least 5 times your cost. Its not easy , but you can make a few extra bucks pocket money Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 31, 2005 Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 (CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS) So far I've sided with those who say the advantage goes to sending it home and operating from there, but I've certainly had second toughts over it and ruminations about the what-ifs of operating from LOS instead. There's the "working on a tourist visa" fear; showing up at the post office with gobs of stuff every day won't do. Written English and marketing savvy is so important to the business that few Thais could do it, but Immigration may not see it that way. Maybe there are work-arounds, like getting someone else to do your shipping or going through some middleman like Mail Boxes, Etc. You would be closer to supplies if you were in LOS. OTOH, it seems the shipping times from there just get longer. The big question mark to me is how much customers will tolerate and how many sales would be lost by being there rather than here. Comments about container shipping were spot on. Beware the hidden fees once it gets to the port in your country. I have been very pleased with the service from Thai exporters, but no matter what they tell you about this or that being prepaid, you can still get surprised with hidden fees. It's getting so that surface mail is again becoming an alternative to think about. Have not broken the code on handicrafts yet, but in the auctions I've searched it really seems like a feast-or-famine thing. Would venture to say that if you're envisioning easy money you're about 5-6 years too late, though there are still niches to fill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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