Welcome to the Side Hustle interview series! One of Wealthy Nickel’s goals is to help you discover new ways to make extra money. Whether you need an extra $100 a month or want to replace your paycheck, this series of articles will give you an idea of how others make money with their fuss and creativity.
If you have a side job you’d like to share with our readers, send me an email (andrew at richynickel dot com) and we’ll discuss the details.
Nathan Clark from Millionaire Dojo joins us today to share how he makes money through eBay scrolling.
He has some great tips on how to find items worth reselling and how to start your own resale business. He also shared a story about how he made a few hundred dollars off a box of old junk he got for free!
Let’s start the interview…
How to get started with eBay Flipping
What is your job?
I flip stuff, mostly on eBay, but I also own an antique stall and sell larger items on the Facebook Marketplace.
Why did you want to work part-time? Why did you decide to start selling on eBay?
I only make $45,000 a year from my job and want to achieve financial independence as soon as possible, so I decided to look for ways to make more money.
I’ve been trading on eBay since I was 13 and a few months ago I came across a podcast called Scavenger Life which talks about a couple who sell on eBay all the time. Listening to them inspired me to take eBay more seriously, and I’ve been making several hundred dollars a month on it ever since.
How did you get started with eBay?
I started selling seriously back in April 2018. I have been selling since 2006. I didn’t really know what I was doing until this year and I still have a lot to learn.
How to make money on eBay Flipping
How much money have you made selling products, and what can you expect?
From April to the end of October, I made a total profit of $2303.21. So that’s about $330 a month on average, and that number should continue to rise. I did not calculate how much I earn per hour, as it would be very difficult to add up all the factors. Maybe one of these days I’ll sit down and do the math, but since I’m making different profits on each pip, it’s definitely not going to be easy to calculate.
With eBay, it all depends on how much time you put into it. The more items you list, the more you earn. If you know what to buy and can list enough items, you can potentially earn several thousand a month.
What are the costs associated with eBay scrolling?
If you have something at home, you can sell it and use the money to get started. I try to only buy things to sell with the money I make on eBay. I have a few hundred in a separate bank account which is my eBay profit and I can usually fill our car with stuff to sell for a hundred dollars or so. If you shop in the right places, you can get stuff for next to nothing. Some people even dig through the trash and find valuable items to sell.
Being an eBay seller is probably best for people who like to be scrappy. I buy boxes from grocery stores and try to keep my costs to a minimum. I buy plastic bags to send things, as well as tape and ink for the printer. Overall, I probably spend about $10/month on supplies and $50/month for an eBay store subscription.
Tell me about your day to day eBay reselling activity and how you got it to where it is today. What made you successful?
I find my stuff at yard sales, thrift stores, and real estate sales. Once I have something to list, I go to eBay and look for the item and then set the filter to “sold”. This shows me how much the item has sold for recently and what I can expect from it. If I can find the item on the list of items sold, I will click “sell the same” and begin the listing process. I take good photos of the item I’m selling and fill out the description with as much information as possible while remaining concise. The list of elements takes some time, so the shorter you can make the process, the better.
I list all my items as buy now and set the listings indefinitely until the item is sold. So once I list an item, it could be in my warehouse for the next year if no one buys it. I list all of my high priced items and add buyers the ability to make offers on each listing.
I built my store where it is now (about 225 listings) by just constantly posting listings every week. If you can just list a few items each day, you’ll end up making a few hundred dollars a month easily.
As soon as a product sells, I print out a shipping label, pack the product, and stick the label on the box. If an item fits in my mailbox, I just put it there. If it’s too big, I schedule USPS to pick up the item at my front door during their regular mail delivery. It’s free and saves me a lot of time and gas money! However, I’m not sure if the pickup service is offered everywhere in the country.
What is the best trade you have ever made for profit?
I was at a yard sale and just paid a man for what I wanted. I went to my car and they asked me if I wanted this box of things. They said they would just throw it away, so they gave it to me for free. I didn’t think any of the items would be very valuable, but I didn’t know what the items were in the box, so I took it.
A couple of weeks later, I finally looked through some of the items in the box and found that they were vintage CB radio equipment. I put the items up for auction and ended up making over $700 on a box of junk I got for free!
What obstacles did you have to overcome in order to succeed?
I bought a few things that didn’t really cost more than what I paid for them. When you are just starting out, sometimes you have to pay for your education. Even though I’ve only been doing this for a few months, I’ve gotten much better at buying things I know I can make a profit on. You don’t want to buy something for $5 and sell it for $7. You want to buy something for $5 and sell it for $50.
What are your goals for the future of your eBay business?
My short term goal is to get my inventory up to 500 items. My long-term goal is to match or exceed my salary at my day job and potentially do eBay on a full-time basis. I would like to at least get my profit above $1000/month pretty soon.
Is eBay Flipping right for me?
What are the pros and cons of reselling on eBay?
The upside is that selling on eBay is very easy. You just need an item to sell and a way to ship it and you can make money. I think eBay would be a great source of full time income because you can post at any time so the hours are flexible and you can set the turnaround time to over a month so you can take a vacation and still sell stuff while you’re away.
Once you have a lot of items in your store, you can take a break from the listing and still sell things. I regularly sell stuff that I listed a few months ago, so it’s kind of passive income – you do the work up front and can make money in your sleep in the future.
It’s good for the environment to keep things out of the trash and give them new life by selling them on eBay. My most profitable item I’ve sold so far would be in the trash right now if I didn’t pick it up and sell it. I sold a Harley Davidson part to someone in Italy a few months ago, so that’s pretty cool. What was just lying in a thrift store in Georgia is now driving through the streets of Italy.
The downsides are that it takes time to find things and list them. You have to deal with bad clients and you have to keep all the items in your house.
What advice can you give to those who want to start their own business on eBay? Who would be the ideal figure?
I would start by searching for “what’s for sale” videos on Youtube to get an idea of the types of items that are for sale on eBay. Then I went to yard sales and thrift stores and tried to find something for a good price! You can also start by selling what you already own to see how the eBay process works without having to go out and buy something.
You can also check my page with all my eBay tips.
I think the perfect fit is someone who likes to dig through trash heaps to find buried treasure that has been forgotten. You also have to be patient to deal with customers and be content with listing items knowing they may not sell for over a year.
What else would you like to share?
eBay is not the most lucrative side job you can get into, but it is very easy to get started. The amount of effort you put into it will determine how successful you are at it.
You also need to be able to figure out what is valuable and what is not. If you just buy a bunch of junk, you won’t make any money.
If you feel like you have a knack for finding cool stuff and love digging through junk, eBay might be perfect for you! We need more people to keep things out of landfills.
Wrapping Up – Thoughts from Wealthy Nickel
Thank you Nathan for sharing your story! You didn’t mention it in the interview, but I know you’re also busy with a million other projects, so it’s impressive to make over $2,000 and build an inventory of 225 items in just 6 months of getting into the serious business of selling items on eBay. .
There was a lot of great practical advice, but I think what I liked the most was how easy it was to get started. Do a little research to see what’s on sale, but don’t overdo it. Take action and learn as you go.
If you’re someone who’s always on the hunt for great deals and finds hidden treasures, browsing eBay could be the perfect side job for you.
To learn more about additional ideas, check out the following posts:
Andrew Herrig is the founder of Wealthy Nickel, where he writes about personal finance, jobs, and entrepreneurship. As an avid real estate investor and owner of several businesses, he has a passion for helping others create wealth and shares his family’s experiences on his blog. Andrew’s advisory board has been featured on CNBC, Entrepreneur, Fox News, MSN and more.
