subject: Revealed: My Favorite Source For Items To Sell On Ebay [print this page] One of the easiest ways to start earning money quickly online is to buy from eBay and then sell on eBay. Some people refer to this as flipping or leveraging, but many call it "arbitrage".
Arbitrage relies on your ability to find and buy the best deals. If you don't have a system, this can be a time-consuming activity. Someone who is diligent can find a deal every now and then, but it takes a professional to consistently find deals on eBay worth flipping.
Step 1 to being a successful eBay arbitrager is to snipe all of your purchases. Sniping is simply bidding on something at the last second so that no one can bid against you. There are two basic types of sniping tools; one is based on software and one is from server-hosted scripts. I use esnipe.com but there are numerous options, many of which are free.
Step 2 look for people selling the wrong way. Look for auctions with no gallery pictures, look for less-than-perfect feedback ratings, items with weak descriptions, poor ending times (like 4AM), or high shipping prices.
Step 3 look for misspelled keywords in titles. If an important keyword such as "playstation" is spelt "paystation" the auction will remain invisible to anybody searching for the correctly spelt word, consequently it will receive far less traffic and sell for a lower price than a correctly listed item. I use the free tool at bargainchecker.com to sniff out misspelled items in my favourite niches.
When someone approaches arbitrage on eBay, there are things that can speed up the money-making process. Searching for items that end in the middle of the night is a good way to find bargains. Fewer bidders means more profit.
Sometimes sellers don't do their due diligence when researching how much to sell their item for, and they list it too low. Finding buy-it-now items for less than the going price is like finding money on the street.
There are other methods to making money using Amazon and eBay together. It would seem that the free market would make both sites very similar in price, but that's not always the case. Occasionally, you'll find great deals on one of the two sites, and then resell it on the other site.
Amazon frequently has one-day sales on hundreds of items. Do your research and snap these up if the item is selling well on eBay.
This is a case where knowing how to do basic "completed listings" research on eBay will be helpful.
Doing a "completed listings" search on eBay is as simple as clicking on "advanced search" on eBay and then selecting the "completed listings" option box. You can then see all recently-closed auctions and listings for any given item and note the typical sell price for the item.
These arbitrage techniques are a great way to find new items to sell on eBay after you have sold off all of the surplus stuff lying around your home and garage.
