ebay...anyone do it full-time?

[dashcounter]

i was wondering if anyone does ebay or amazon or something here full-time. what do you sell? or can you legit make a good living off of selling cards?

[ajscards101]

I assume brentandbecca does ?

[Ajax1723]

Originally Posted by ajscards101

I assume brentandbecca does ?

No they have regular jobs, they just do cards also

I spend a lot of time on eBay, but can't imagine doing it full time yet, maybe one day, I would like to become one of those guys with a million assessments, would be fun.

[ajscards101]

Originally Posted by Ajax1723

No they have regular jobs, they just do cards also

I spend a lot of time on eBay, but can't imagine doing it full time yet, maybe one day, I would like to become one of those guys with a million assessments, would be fun.

really? wow. everyone I talked to said they do it for a living. I didnt think it'd be possible so I am glad you clarified that for me

I also spend alot of time on ebay, but I cant even imagine doing it for a living. Maybe if you own a LCS also?

[dashcounter]

Originally Posted by Ajax1723

No they have regular jobs, they just do cards also

I spend a lot of time on eBay, but can't imagine doing it full time yet, maybe one day, I would like to become one of those guys with a million assessments, would be fun.

i thought they did too lol im really thinking about doing it but obviously need to expand beyond cards

[jimssouvenirs]

Originally Posted by ajscards101

I assume brentandbecca does ?

You assume incorrectly

Brent works at a bank, does cards as a side "job". Pretty awesome. He doesn't sell everything he hits, he keeps stuff as well.

[Ajax1723]

Originally Posted by ajscards101

really? wow. everyone I talked to said they do it for a living. I didnt think it'd be possible so I am glad you clarified that for me

I also spend alot of time on ebay, but I cant even imagine doing it for a living. Maybe if you own a LCS also?

It would be extremely hard. You'd make a living, but not a good one, and you'd be working way more than 40 hours a week.

Much easier to probably do it like Brentandbecca do it, have a full time job, and do it on the side to the amount you feel comfortable with, and can juggle your day job with your "fun" job.

[IronMonkey415]

Nah these days all I have are junk on my ebay page.

[smackvay]

i did it full time for the past eight months and made on mine and my old ladys account over 40 grand the #1 key is having product and a steady supply of it whatever it is the longer you have it the more and more people come to you to buy it. om me if i can give you any advice as i have around 2000 fd back and 100% positive if i can be of any help to you

[Qwasian]

in my opinion it's not really profitable for the amount of work you have to put in.........

you can guess at prospects and rookies and then sell when they are at top value, but? you will miss alot trying to do it............

alot of people have these stories of cards and how they do this & that...... I really don't believe that anyone makes "ALOT" of money on cards..... you can make some, but I think most people end up in the red with ebay & paypal fee's, buying product etc. it's really not a smart biz to be in, if you operate it as a hobby and then have a regular job it's alot better because you have steady income and don't have to worry about it from check to check.... you will get desperate and sell stuff for a loss time to time if you need money.

[Philster15]

I would be super frustrated selling on ebay full time...just based on the few items I sell and seeing how often buyers don't pay or take forever to pay.

[itsinthecards]

The only thing to really make $$ with EBay it is hard to just sell cards. I sell anything I can make $$ on. Best deal was 50 cent doll that we sold and got paid $1026 for it. You can make real money if you know what to buy. I buy and sell so I can open boxes/cases. I just hate taking all the pictures. Listing is not that bad. I just reuse the info I have in my other auctions. Yes you can make a living but it is more then a 40 hour job.

[Imac7065]

I am probably close to "full time"

I do this to raise money to help pay college bills and help out my family. Unless you lived on your own in a 1 bedroom apartment (or with roomates to help cover bills) you probably can't do it full time.

I do have dreams of owning a LCS one day though

[Frankp2311]

Originally Posted by Qwasian

in my opinion it's not really profitable for the amount of work you have to put in.........

you can guess at prospects and rookies and then sell when they are at top value, but? you will miss alot trying to do it............

alot of people have these stories of cards and how they do this & that...... I really don't believe that anyone makes "ALOT" of money on cards..... you can make some, but I think most people end up in the red with ebay & paypal fee's, buying product etc. it's really not a smart biz to be in, if you operate it as a hobby and then have a regular job it's alot better because you have steady income and don't have to worry about it from check to check.... you will get desperate and sell stuff for a loss time to time if you need money.

The most accurate post I've read in a long time.

[solt0131]

This guy has been doing it all his life:

colbytosidney | eBay

He's one of the biggest buyers on the East Coast.

[Imac7065]

I personally know about 10 "full time" ebay dealers.. but most have /had money their entire lives so it doesn't matter if they work or not

[Coug46n2]

Ebay and COMC is a way to supplement my hobby addiction. I think it would be incredibly difficult to make a living at this. I basically use ebay/COMC to sell what I don't want in order to buy more of what I think I need and want. I've sold $800 on COMC which I know is not a lot. But it's $800 less that I had to pull from my own pocket. Win win. Same on ebay. I don't have huge sales, but what I do sell I use to buy more PC items and singles. There is nothing better than having a few hundred in the paypal account from junk sales. Basically free money!

I think it's possible to make money at ebay over a short period of time (hit a nice string of lucky wax breaks, hit a few prospects timely, grade and flip a few high end cards at the right time) but I think over the long run with the amount of time you'd have to spend and the fees involved making a 'living' at ebay would be incredibly difficult. At least in the sports card arena it would be, not sure about other avenues or items for sale on ebay.

[solt0131]

It's not hard at all, you travel to shows, you buy smart, you buy big, you don't rip unless it's a product that you have made money on before and know you'll make money on again. You take no chances and you put all your effort into it like you would any full time job. The reason people fail at this is they have no boss staring over their shoulder to keep them rolling all the time. They get distracted at home and lose focus.

[Coug46n2]

I forgot to add one thing, which IMO is the most important factor. In order to be successful you can't collect AND make a living. I would want to keep too many items for the PC which would mean I don't sell and couldn't make a living. In order to make a go at this you'd have to be willing to sell everything and keep nothing. Personally, I'm too much of a collector to make a living selling.

I asked my LCS owner this once and he said it's not possible (at least for him). He has to be 100% committed to selling everything and not collecting himself. It's like how you can't be a "little bit of an alcoholic". The temptation to keep and collect cards would hurt profit too much.

[auctionjmm]

Originally Posted by solt0131

It's not hard at all, you travel to shows, you buy smart, you buy big, you don't rip unless it's a product that you have made money on before and know you'll make money on again. You take no chances and you put all your effort into it like you would any full time job. The reason people fail at this is they have no boss staring over their shoulder to keep them rolling all the time. They get distracted at home and lose focus.

Perfectly stated. This hobby is a form of gambling for many so it's easy to say that there is no money in cards when you are the one who is "gambling" and losing on eBay.

The guys who do it full time treat their business like it's a Fortune 500 company and run it as efficiently as they can with tons of discipline. The guy I do shows for is a full time card dealer and he has not ripped a single pack of cards in the two years I've known him. He is disciplined and only strikes when the deal is good. You wouldn't believe some of the stuff he gets and the prices he gets them at.

I think this hobby can be very profitable...but it probably takes the type pf person who would rather sell than collect and rather buy singles than wax (even though a few very successful case breakers do quite well on the wax. It's not nearly as consistent as buying and selling singles).

I love ripping cases, but I'll be the first to admit the gambler in me has hurt at times. I'll do well on something like Series 2 and then go "gamble" the profits on Triple Threads. I've cut most of that out but I can easily see where someone could lose focus.

[mnvikingstwins]

I'd assume that's what BigBadShiller does with his ebay account, spend 80% of the time selling and the rest of the time is bidding on his stuff.

[refuse24]

Originally Posted by itsinthecards

The only thing to really make $$ with EBay it is hard to just sell cards. I sell anything I can make $$ on. Best deal was 50 cent doll that we sold and got paid $1026 for it. You can make real money if you know what to buy. I buy and sell so I can open boxes/cases. I just hate taking all the pictures. Listing is not that bad. I just reuse the info I have in my other auctions. Yes you can make a living but it is more then a 40 hour job.

Wow what kind of doll was it and who ever sold it to you must of been blind....LOL

[slugger3469]

I was laid off about 3 years ago and went full time on ebay to pay the bills. Or should I say attempt to pay the bills. IMO, there's only 3 ways to make big money on Ebay:

1) You have to sell more than cards.

2) Have a MASSIVE amount of stuff to sell that you picked up for next to nothing, sell it for a ton and have an insane amount of time to manage it all.

3) Get REAL lucky.

I'm by no means saying its impossible to make a big paycheck on the Bay, but you certainly need 2 of the 3 things I mentioned to happen to make it work.

[Vincesanity]

Pretty sure Brent stated that about a year ago he quit his bank job to focus on cards full time.

Originally Posted by Ajax1723

No they have regular jobs, they just do cards also

I spend a lot of time on eBay, but can't imagine doing it full time yet, maybe one day, I would like to become one of those guys with a million assessments, would be fun.

[Ncbrowe]

Doing eBay can be done full time, but you ca not do it just selling cards. I use eBay as a hobby fueler and Vegas fund. I could live off what I make some months on eBay. Then other months not so much. I put in 30-40 hours a week but it's like a hobby to me. I do card shows For this reason too. I am glad I chose not to do that full time either, in my area card shows are not very frequent any more.