Finding Products To Sell On eBay

The great thing about eBay is it’s an online marketplace for all types of sellers—from beginners who casually sell items around the home, to experienced sellers who regularly sell various products. You’ll even find big name brands selling products, such as Toys”R”Us, Sony and HP.

But no matter what type of eBay seller you are, you first have to source products to sell. This article will cover three basic ways to find products…

1. Selling Extra Items From Around Your House

If you’re a new seller on eBay, you’ll want to gain experience by selling items you own, particularly things sitting around the house or garage that are collecting dust. These can be older items you no longer use (old clothes or electronics) or old jewelry and collectibles such as antiques or vintage toys (barbie dolls or hot wheels).

If you are selling items from around your house, a good way to determine their value is use eBay’s Completed Listings. The Completed Listings will show products that have been listed and sold on eBay over the last two weeks. Pay attention to product descriptions and pricing for sold items, as you can use them as benchmarks for your products. Terapeak.com is another great service that can help you price your items. It provides eBay marketplace research on category trends, popular products, competition, keywords, and more. Overall, when selling products from around the home, brand name items that are new (or like new) and trendy vintage items typically sell well on eBay.

2. Selling Products From Yard Sales And Flea Markets
Most all sellers on eBay get started by selling old items sitting around their house. The challenge is you have a limited supply of old products in your home, which means you’ll run out of product to sell. Once you sell all of your supply, you’ll need to find other old or used items.

A good way to find old or used products is to visit yard sales or flea markets on the weekends. Start by looking for items that are similar to products you’ve previously sold. Why? You’ll have experience listing, selling and shipping those items, which makes it easier to sell and determine your revenue potential.  Products found at yard sales and flea markets can usually be purchased at very low price, so you have a good chance of making a high profit when you re-sell the products on eBay. Another option to find old, used products is at thrift stores, estate sales and storage auctions. These channels can provide an ample supply of products you can sell on eBay.

While sourcing old and used product is a great method to selling on eBay, keep in mind that there is a lot of footwork involved. Yard sales aren’t always available, and thrift stores have high volumes of traffic and competing buyers. You may find it challenging to keep a sufficient inventory of products.

3. Selling Products From A Wholesaler or Manufacturer

If you’re looking to sell new items on eBay, there are many different options you can use to find products. But first, you’ll want to identify in-demand products that are selling often and quickly. While researching this may take a lot of time, it’s well worth the time investment as good products sell themselves. Your first step should be to review eBay’s Completed Listings. Another option to find popular products is eBay’s Pulse link. It shows the top ten most popular eBay product searches by category within the last 24 hours. If there are a lot of searches for a particular product, that means there are a lot of buyers.

Once you have identified a popular product to sell, the next step is finding a manufacturer or wholesaler to purchase from. Here’s how you can find them:

Drop Shippers: Many drop shipping companies have catalogs where you can pick a product in bulk to purchase. Besides selling you the product, these drop shippers will also ship the product to the end consumer. If you decide to drop ship, you’ll only have to market the product and list it on eBay.

Trade Magazines: Most products are fall under a specific category, and that category will be tied to a trade magazine or an association. Use the trade magazine and association communications to find wholesalers or manufacturers.

Trade Shows: Most industries have a trade show once a year that will include many product manufacturers.

Liquidation Sites: Sites and stores that specialize in liquidation can often be good sources for new product, such as Liquidation.com.  You can find many good deals on the site, and while their products are usually in limited supply, they do have large quantities of new products.

Google Web Searches: Finding a product manufacturer could be as simple as typing a product name into Google along with the word “manufacturer.”  But make sure you do lots of research – many companies claim to be manufacturers on their sites, but are in fact distributors who sell product at a marked up price.

Word-of-mouth: Use your connections to find manufacturers and wholesalers.

Companies Going Out Of Business: You can find large quantities of a new product from businesses closing their doors.