Selling a just-bought item on ebay

Ok i just want to know, is it against the rules to buy an item on ebay, then instantly put that item up for auction?

Because theoretically if you play your cards right, you could earn a profit? And i can see how you'd be breaking the law?

It's in fact a prime strategy to have a stream of income.

Arbitrage is the name of it.

[edit on 13-2-2006 by SpittinCobra]

Oh wow awsome. I mean i use Ebay on and off, i was just wondered if there was any policy against that. COOL!!

O yea [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrage]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrage[/url

[edit on 13-2-2006 by Shadow88]

I worked with a guy once who bought old smelly Nikes and sold them to brain-dead Japanese people for insane profits.

Peace

So long as you pay all the fee's there is nothing against it. It’s your risk, not EBay’s. I would think EBay would be for this as they would get double the fees for the same item.


I would warn you however, you aren’t the first person to think about this. World wide auctions tend to have a price "smoothing" effect. Meaning what something typically sells for is really about what it will always sell for, and worth for that matter. Meaning that there may be no room in the profit margin to sell it twice to earn any real money.

My T-Shirt business is about 80% EBay so I have some experience.

Some hints though:

#1 I would only focus on looking at short auctions, the ones that many people may miss. The longer the auction, the more people will see it, you want auctions as few people see as possible.

#2 Be creative with your searches. You want to find auctions people did not categorize or describe properly. I.e. the right customers aren’t finding it.

#3 If you have the cash, price fix. Yes I said it, price fix. If you find an item and all available have a buy it now option, BUY THEM ALL. Then you control the supply (for a short time anyways) and you can dictate the price. This is risky, but the payoffs could be nice.

Good luck!

If you feel you can get more for the item than you paid ... Go for it!

There is nothing in their T&Cs against buying/reselling items.

A good example:
My son and youngest daughter went thru a YuGiOh phase a few years ago. There were many times where we would buy a given card for, say, $10.95 and then put that same card back up and get, say, $19.95. I mean many, many times.

I have found that it's all in your presentation. (i.e. photos, desc, etc.)

As others have stated, for the best deals, keep an eye on the short-term auctions that don't tend to garner sufficient attention to draw the expected selling price. By doing so you will find many good "deals" just begging to be resold, often for a substantial profit (proportionate to the item's price).

Just last night I saw a new, in the [opened]box P4 2.53 cpu w/ heatsink and fan go for $67.67 ... not a bad deal at all. The seller had 1 feedback and no picture. Had that seller provided a more informative listing with quality photo(s), they would most likely have seen the ending price closer to the $100 range.

p.s. be very aware of shipping fees as I've seen many who attempt to pad their auctions with excessive shipping. By using actual shipping fees you will find others tend to appreciate that and will bid higher as a result.

Hope this helps.
Good Luck!

[edit on 2/13/2006 by 12m8keall2c]

nice, very nice thanks for the tips, thats a little bit of extra possible profit for me!

Although there is always the possibility of it being like the stock market. I could make a loss if im not careful. So yea i will have to give it that wow factor in order to produce more hype than the previous owner