Buying from garage sales and selling on eBay is fun, and good getting a few dollars here and there from ebay. Sometimes, you luck out on an item and hit big, but many times it will just be so-so (assuming you can even get the price you paid for it). In terms of fun factor, it is great. But from a business stand-point, it is not. Not sustainable.

If you want to earn serious money from eBay, you need to have a well-thought out business model. Selling on ebay is getting tougher — just look at the number of auctions that closes without a bid. Go to the boards on ebay and you will hear even oldtimers complaining about how stiffer competition plus higher fees make it so much harder to sell on ebay.

The key success factor is: Sell products that people actually want.

Selling on eBay is not as easy as some portray. In fact, go to eBay and check out the number of auctions that end without a single bid. Competition is getting tough, as more sellers go to eBay; even the big boys are joining in the eBay marketplace. Add to that the increasing listing and final value fees.

eBay has several ways for you to determine exactly what the hot items to sell on their marketplace:

Items In Demand = the most popular items currently within that particular category. To see the In Demand page, go to

Hot Items by Category Report = a monthly report that lists the fastest growing categories on eBay for the previous month. Go to and select “Hot Items by Category” from the menu on the left.

eBay Pulse = “a daily snapshot of current trends, hot picks, and cool stuff on eBay”. Go to to see eBay Pulse in action.

Merchandising Calendar = eBay promotes specific categories on its home page each month. Savvy eBayers know that this home page exposure results in more interest in such categories. Go to to view the current Merchandising Calendar.

As for items to sell, you can:

1. Buy bulk liquidation items such as those at Liquidation.com. The capitalization may be big, but the idea is to sell the items individually and profit from it.

2. Find manufacturers of items you want to sell and buy discounted items from them

3. Make deals with retailers in your area, and offer to buy their unwanted items for deep discounts. jayandmarie - the most successful ebay sellers - made deals with music stores where they will buy the entire inventory in the discounted bins, and then sold the items on ebay for 1-cent starting bid.

4. Look for possible partners on the Web, preferably outside of the US. Import items from them and sell them on ebay. There’s huge profits to gain from this approach.

I suggest you read the articles on Success with Auctions

I highly recommend “Insider Secrets of an eBay Millionaire”. You will have in your hands the ultimate eBay business guide that will provide everything you need to be successful with your eBay business.

You can find a lot of wholesalers on line. Research this better though please. Look on line to see what is selling and why. Also see what people are paying for these things. There are classes available for EBay users, as well as books. Make sure before you start with a wholesaler that they are not only will to drop ship, but that you know what the quality of the product is before you start to offer it. Because if the wholesaler sends a defective item you will be the accountable one. Also make sure you have a home page or catalog page people can click on to find more items or buy direct.