Best places to sell your items ?

[busterbay 326]

Without giving away your trade secrets, where do you find the best places to sell your items ? 

[MZ SKEETER 4,709]

Ebay, but you must have a niche' to make it there, I have been selling there since 2006.  That is my full time business.

[JessXEmoji 46]

I recently started on etsy and the traffic is not good at all. People in the forums were happy to have 2 sales a month. Thats not worth it imo. Im doing ok on ebay for the 1st month there.

[busterbay 326]

I've had a little luck on this site besides the fore mentioned: http://www.bonanza.com each one requires a different approach i.e. what I find sells on one doesn't sell well on the other so you have to tailor your offerings. 

 

etsy: home decor 

 

ebay: window decals

 

bonanza: anything odd / unique

 

Artfire: home decor & window decals

 

Amazon: no experience

 

ioffer: nothing sells very well people want an extreme bargain

[dwp99 283]

This is a great thread,

 

I've thought several times of selling on ebay so I just typed Vinyl Decals into the search and it came back with over 3 million items.  I started looking at the items that were listed just to see how it was done. 

 

I've noticed a lot of items (especially wall art) that are listed from China.  Usually listed with a very low starting bid and little shipping.

 

There are also people that have 200 or more auctions going at one time with multiple quantities per auction.  I looked in the items sold for those auctions to see how many and how often they sold a decal.  

 

As far as what to sell there are so many choices from the hottest trend to the old standard flea market stuff.  You could get into reproduction automotive vinyl for instance Mustang 350GT stripes or hood stripes.  the possibilities are endless

 

What Mz SKEETER said about finding a niche' is true.  Since she's been doing it since 2006 she know's.  I'm sure there was a lot of trial and error to find out what sells and what doesn't.     

[OWJones 1,981]

You could get into reproduction automotive vinyl for instance Mustang 350GT stripes or hood stripes.  the possibilities are endless

 

You could also get sued into bankruptcy for violating copyright/trademark and not securing licenses to reproduce other people's intellectual property.

 

It's one thing when you do it for a friend or family member (it's still illegal, even if no money changes hands) and its quite another to post your willful violations on an international auction site that is regularly perused by IP lawyers from around the world...

 

Hopefully your business is an LLC and completely separate from your personal finances so that if you get sued you won't end up losing your house and vehicle along with your business...

 

Yes, there is a metric crap load of copyright/trademark violations for sale on ebay, but that doesn't make it right and doesn't mean you won't be the next one sued...

[dwp99 283]

You could also get sued into bankruptcy for violating copyright/trademark and not securing licenses to reproduce other people's intellectual property.

 

It's one thing when you do it for a friend or family member (it's still illegal, even if no money changes hands) and its quite another to post your willful violations on an international auction site that is regularly perused by IP lawyers from around the world...

 

Hopefully your business is an LLC and completely separate from your personal finances so that if you get sued you won't end up losing your house and vehicle along with your business...

 

Yes, there is a metric crap load of copyright/trademark violations for sale on ebay, but that doesn't make it right and doesn't mean you won't be the next one sued...

 

My mistake.  I was just trying to explain the vast possibilities of making decals to sell on eBay.  I used  the wrong example.  Sorry about that.

[JessXEmoji 46]

Does sales die for anyone else during the holidays?

 

I was doing ok until the last few days.  Etsy is horrible with only 1 view today.

 

My ebay listings are not getting views either.

[Dakotagrafx 7,297]

Things do slow way down over the holidays . . . People buying gifts and trying to pay bills takes away from the small stuff to a certain extent . . . Made for a great time to take a vacation.

[OWJones 1,981]

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote'data-author="dwp99" data-cid="338744" data-time="1387926053"><p>

My mistake. I was just trying to explain the vast possibilities of making decals to sell on eBay. I used the wrong example. Sorry about that.</p></blockquote>

We just need to be careful as a lot of new people read these forums and we don't want to point them down the wrong path...

[MZ SKEETER 4,709]

I have always been very busy on Christmas Day in the past..  Ya just never know...   I have never seen a pattern on selling on EBAY,    Some days busy as crap. other days slow.  Just no rhyme or reason..   I can be here piddling on my computer on a Monday afternoon,  with nothing, an in an hour and a half,, watch 6 sales come in.  Then nothing the rest of the night.  I can go for a couple days, then bam get hit hard with sales.  I get more sales during the week, than weekends..

[OWJones 1,981]

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote'data-author="Jesse989" data-cid="338764" data-time="1387942570"><p>

Does sales die for anyone else during the holidays?<br />

<br />

I was doing ok until the last few days. Etsy is horrible with only 1 view today.<br />

<br />

My ebay listings are not getting views either.</p></blockquote>

Not me, since I do a lot of personalized gifts for customers, I've been taking and filling orders as late as today, Christmas Eve. People like to wait until he last minute and I have no problem charging them a rush order fee... More money in my pocket...

[JessXEmoji 46]

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote'data-author="Jesse989" data-cid="338764" data-time="1387942570"><p>

Does sales die for anyone else during the holidays?<br />

<br />

I was doing ok until the last few days. Etsy is horrible with only 1 view today.<br />

<br />

My ebay listings are not getting views either.</p></blockquote>

Not me, since I do a lot of personalized gifts for customers, I've been taking and filling orders as late as today, Christmas Eve. People like to wait until he last minute and I have no problem charging them a rush order fee... More money in my pocket...

You can make your own hood decals to sell ,same as body graphics that go all over the car.  unless he means trying to pass racing stripes off as factory ones. 

[JessXEmoji 46]

I have always been very busy on Christmas Day in the past..  Ya just never know...   I have never seen a pattern on selling on EBAY,    Some days busy as crap. other days slow.  Just no rhyme or reason..   I can be here piddling on my computer on a Monday afternoon,  with nothing, an in an hour and a half,, watch 6 sales come in.  Then nothing the rest of the night.  I can go for a couple days, then bam get hit hard with sales.  I get more sales during the week, than weekends..

 

My wife thinks I'm crazy for wanting sales every day since my main goal was just to put a few decals on ebay and see what happens. Ive gone 30 hours now with no sale and I feel bummed lol.   Think I'm expecting to much to soon. Maybe I need a break.

[MZ SKEETER 4,709]

Until you get a much higher feedback,  you cannot really depend on your sales.    If your just selling smaller decals, it is very hard to make a living on Ebay. This is why I have a 30" cutter...  I do make a living off of EBAY.   I sell large vehicle graphics. /sets

[JessXEmoji 46]

Until you get a much higher feedback,  you cannot really depend on your sales.    If your just selling smaller decals, it is very hard to make a living on Ebay. This is why I have a 30" cutter...  I do make a living off of EBAY.   I sell large vehicle graphics. /sets

 

I'm not trying to make a living on ebay now. I have a full time job.  my plan was to slowly work my way up. For now I need more sales so that I can keep investing the money into more vinyl etc.  I'm trying not to use anymore of my own money to keep going. So with no sales means I'm in a waiting game.

[MZ SKEETER 4,709]

I had a full time job of 30 years also, until it went to Mexico,  That is why I went to vinyl.  You never know what is going to happen.   I really didn't plan on it.  It just kinda fell my way. So, then I had to make it support me.

[Dakotagrafx 7,297]

We'll I can tell you for sure that when you close down for a holiday vacation that sales plummet. Just sayin. ;(

[skarekrow 1,842]

Have a read at the 'Hand Made at Amazon' License Agreement;

(WOW... who would sign up with that?)

 

 

 

My wife was green-lighted for an account but again, you've got to be kidding!

[pshawny 410]

I read that as they want the right to use your pictures in online, TV, and print advertising. Doesn't Facebook do the same thing with uploaded content? I'm sure if we read the small print nobody would sign up for anything these days. But the again, people would sign up anyway because they want to use the service.

[skarekrow 1,842]

The pricing is another downside. 12% of sales plus 50cents per, mandatory Amazon shipping at about double normal rates and,

starting August 2016, $40 per month additional.

[pshawny 410]

A lot of categories on the main Amazon site have seller fees of 15% + $1, unless you have a pro seller account which is $40/month, but it removes the $1 per item fee. The pro seller account makes sense if you sell more than 40 items per month.

 

Does the $0.50 per item fee go away once you have the $40/month seller plan?

[Dakotagrafx 7,297]

I thought all those sites were bad - place a few items at  a local auction site $50 sales netted $20.80 check.    needless to say i am done with them (non vinyl stuff)

[skarekrow 1,842]

Don't know about the 50 cent going away after the $40 a month kicking in... the info I provided came from my wife's looking at

the details after they ok'ed her account. She backed away because of her already decent Etsy sales and reasonable rates there.

[efimage 42]

Amazon also has a habit of screwing 3^rd party sellers. I have read stories of people closing down there amazon “shop” but amazon keeps there items up but unavailable and links to their own version of what you were selling or another 3^rd party.   So if you move off of amazon to your own site not only do you have to try to rank against other sites for you keywords you will be competing against your own items still showing up on amazon and amazon’s SEO is pretty good.

 

I believe Etsy has a similar licensing agreement but I am not 100% sure. I also have been accepted into handmade at amazon but just have not had the time to play around with it. I might give it a go with some pretty generic items that sell good on Etsy for me and see what happens.   Amazon has 250 million shoppers compared to Etsy’s 20 million that’s a big difference. I am willing to pay a little more in fees if I sell more items.