Unless you already have a business and are using eBay as an additional outlet, deciding what to sell and sourcing products is possibly the biggest stumbling block for anyone starting out on eBay.

It is a personal decision which only you can make, but here are a few things to take into consideration.

You will enjoy the eBay experience far more and probably have greater success if you have some interest in what you are selling.

Small, lightweight unbreakable items are far easier to pack and carry to the post office than larger more fragile items.

You will need to take the size of your budget into consideration. If you are intending to sell used goods you could get started for little or no cost and expand by reinvesting your profits.

If, on the other hand, you want to sell new goods you will need to have money available to buy stock. If you choose an inexpensive product you will obviously need a smaller financial outlay to get you started than you would if you were selling higher ticket items.

However, generally speaking, the higher the cost of your products, the higher your profit per item is likely to be. Therefore, you would need to sell far more low cost items to make a decent monthly income than you would if you were selling higher priced items. This, of course, means more work to do in the form of listing, packing, trips to the post office etc.

Another thing to consider if you decide to sell new goods is that you will need to find a supplier who will sell to you in bulk at a price low enough to give you a worthwhile profit margin. Due to the amount of competition on eBay, this is unlikely to be an easy task.

A third option is selling digital products such as ebooks, mp3s and downloadable videos. Some people take a look on eBay and see numerous sellers listing ebooks for pennies and assume that the market is over-saturated and too competitive. However, a glance at the listings does not show the true picture, far from it.

Selling digital products gives high percentage profits, there is no huge capital outlay needed for stock, and an ebook can be sold again and again, unlike tangible goods which need to be constantly restocked. Also many of these cheap ebooks are just being used as lead generators, a subject which we will be looking at in more detail in future articles.

Over the coming days and weeks we will be taking a more in depth look at various products to sell on eBay so please be sure to make regular visits.

Posted in Getting Started, Selling Ideas