How do you price your product on Ebay to ensure a profit?

[barltrue0]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to selling on eBay and I'm wondering how you price your products to ensure a profit. I don't want to price too high and scare away potential buyers, but I also don't want to price too low and end up losing money.

What factors do you consider when pricing your products? Do you use any tools or strategies to determine your pricing? And how do you handle price fluctuations and competition on eBay?

Thanks in advance for your guidance!

[simba6]

First start small until you build some feedback and learn how things work.  New sellers will attract a lot of scammers if they sell high value items.  Look around the house for items you no longer use. Start with them. Search eBay for items like your planning to sell and see how they are priced.

Clothing is way over saturated here and is a tough sell.    Writing listings, taking photos , packing and shipping can take more time than you might think.   After you have sold several items you will have a better idea of what to expect.       Always check and double check your sending the correct item to the correct buyer.  Mix that up and it an expensive mess.   

[barltrue0]

Can you suggest me products that sell well without violating Ebay's policies?

[chris13]

Explore categories...then do the research math.

Women's Clothing > Jeans (2,919,278 listings)

Video Games & Consoles > Gaming Mice (35 listings)

then compare what has sold

Women's Clothing > Jeans (513,612 sales)

Video Games & Consoles > Gaming Mice (29 sales)

Womens Jean sale ratio: (513612 / 2919278 = 0.175 or 17%)

Video Gaming Mice sale ratio: (29 / 35 = 0.828 or 82%)

This is a SUPER-simplified way to look at categories for their supply/demand ratios

It doesn't say anything about profit opportunities, sourcing products or suggest that supply of a particular category doesnt have a potential for over-saturation at even small levels (it ignores demand limits)

There are people who spend years pursuing college degrees just to answer the question 'what sells well?' and 'why?' Those folks are unlikely to give someone else any magic recipe they may find that works, since that then saturates a market with competition, and it stops working.

Best wishes.

[monroe67]

Gotta repeat the great advice from simba6:  "First start small . . . build some feedback and learn how things work.  Look around the house for items you no longer use. Start with them. Search eBay for items like your planning to sell and see how they are priced."

You may be surprised at what you can find in your home that you no longer use.   My selling ID sold a decorative cake pan that actually had never been used, which freed up some storage space in the kitchen.  Sell things you know about so that you don't put incorrect info in the description.   

You need to know about eBay's fees.  eBay charges sellers a Final Value Fee (FVF) which consists of a percentage of the total sale plus $0.30 (thirty cents) per order.  

Be aware that different categories of items carry different Final Value Fees (FVF).   Do you have an acoustic guitar you might want to sell?  If it sells for under $7,500, eBay's FVF  will be 6.35%.  If you have jewelry (real gemstones or not) that sells for under $5,000, the FVF will be 15%.  Most other categories carry an FVF percentage of 13.25%.  eBay also retains 30 cents per order, in addition to the Final Value Fee percentage.  

Final Value is defined as the Total Amount of the Sale, and eBay specifies that the Total Amount consists of five things.   
This is very important!
A, the price of the item + B, any sales tax paid by the buyer + C, delivery charges meaning US Postal Service postage or FedEx charges, if that is what the buyer chooses (from options given by the seller) + D, any handling charge the seller adds in the listing (BTW, the shipping cost shown to the buyer includes any handling charge from the seller) + E, any other appropriate charge, such as a state's electronics recycling charge, as an example. 

A+B+C+D+E = the Total Amount of the Sale.  

When you are pricing your items and trying to apply the FVF percentage, you obviously do not know most of those numbers.  The postage and the sales tax your buyer will have to pay are the unknowns.   You can sell the exact same things to two or three people:  a buyer in Los Angeles who will have to pay 10% sales tax or more, and a buyer in another state who might be charged 7.25% sales tax, and to a buyer in Delaware or Oregon, two states which have no state sales tax.   

Not only that, but when you sell and send something to Dallas, Texas is one of several states that charges its state sales tax on the amount of postage/shipping cost the buyer pays, whereas your Los Angeles buyer is not charged California state sales tax or Los Angeles County sales tax on postage.  

You simply cannot know, at the time the listing starts, what the Total Amount of the Sale, paid by the buyer, will be.  Therefore, what most reasonable sellers do is keep an estimate of eBay's fees in their minds, and apply that to the item's listed price.  Based on their categories and experiences, some sellers have estimated that eBay will retain between 18% and 33% of the item's listed price.    

Another bit of advice is to come back and read this Shipping community board as well as the Selling board.  You can learn a lot from comments from the experienced eBay users who post here.   

[kensgiftshop]

---

@barltrue0 wrote:

Can you suggest me products that sell well without violating Ebay's policies?

---

You never know what will sell well.

I've had items I though would sell quick and they set for a couple years and items I thought would set awhile, sold within a few minutes, so you never know.

Items that seem to sell good for others, might not sell good for you.

Starting out, stay away from electronics, they are scam magnets.

[chris13]

"Starting out, stay away from electronics, they are scam magnets."

Great advice. All my trouble sales have come from this area. I had a video camera returned because the buyer said 'it didnt SEEM to focus quickly on autofocus'.

Other areas I have sensed were 'expert only' categories include: Vinyl Records of high value and items that involve authenticated brands like Perfume, Handbags, Autographs, etc.

[albertabrightalberta]

@barltrue0 

Sell what you know.

For example, if you don't know designer handbags and can't recognize a fake from authentic, vintage from contemporary or Coach from Chanel, don't venture there, at least until you learn the ropes. 

[12345jamesstamps]

Start out selling low cost items to get the hang of shipping. Remember, this is not a place to get quick cash when you start selling here...will be at least 30+ days to receive funds from selling. And setting up a banking route number and giving a social security number will be needed. You can check what you want to sell on eBay and match that with someone already selling it on eBay. That's how you get your price with shipping. Good luck.