How to Crush Out eBay Garage Sale Squatters and Sleep in on Saturday Mornings

Posted at April 29, 2009

I talk to people who sell products on eBay, and they sell products for other people who go around on Saturday mornings attending half a dozen different garage sales in their neighborhoods. I don’t recommend this as a viable part of your repertoire of good eBay tips and tricks. I think there are other strategies to successful eBay selling you can follow that will benefit you more.

One thing you can add to your list of tips for selling on eBay that’s a lot easier is to open up the Yellow Pages and look up “storage auctions.” Take a good look at these listings under “storage auctions.” A friend of mine who recently retired made $8,000 off of a $120 auction bin he bought at a U-Haul storage auction. Now that alone should put this suggestion at the top of your eBay tips list.

That’s to say that storage facilities have auctions, usually in six- to 12-month intervals. Simply pick up the phone and call them. Understand you can go to an auction and bid on what we call a bin. A bin is where people have stored stuff and it’s expired, or they’ve missed or not made their payments. So use these simple strategies to supply your eBay selling inventories with minimal risk and yet extremely good returns as tips for selling on eBay that make the most of your time investment.

Storage facilities that hold storage auctions are profitable when buying is done correctly. Besides being one of several great eBay tips, it’s actually fun to go out there and bid, but you must be prepared to take calculated risks. It’s another form of auction somewhat different from eBay selling, but it’s a very powerful tool that so many people don’t talk about it because it’s a secret too profitable to share.

Another auction type is the police auction. What are the benefits of police auctions as part of your list of tips for selling on eBay? Police auctions are good. The majority of items sold at police auctions are vehicles that have been impounded so if that’s your area of expertise, it can be a good venue and should be added to your smart eBay tips collection.

Police auctions work, but you may not get the variety of products to choose from that you get from a storage auction or mail auction, and again we talked about other auctions that are good eBay selling tools you can use. I’ve been to police auctions, storage auctions and real estate auctions. As part of my catalog of tips for selling on eBay, however, I’ve found real estate auctions to be OK but more often than not, it’s hard to get into them, you have to put up a lot of money up front and the competition is fierce.

Other eBay tips to remember are that there are things you can do to source products for resale and not get caught up in trying to sell commodity items. The fact is that consumers are just inundated with so much information and as they become more and more inundated, you may find a bunch of rare or unique items at an auction ideal for your eBay selling strategy.

You can call these buying tips for selling on eBay “guerrilla sourcing” if you want. But, before I forget, you should bring your business cards and try to offer your eBay selling services to others who may not know how to use eBay. Here is a killer gem from excellent eBay tips that succeed:

Imagine losing an auction bid, but being right next to the person who wins it.

This is the perfect opportunity to promote you and your eBay selling skills, and to give yourself and the tips for selling on eBay that you’ve learned a chance to make money, acquire new customers and get the word out to the auctioneers and the storage facility manager that you can help their customers clear their bins and convert them to cash through you and your newly learned eBay tips.

Now that’s real knowledge for smart eBay selling and if you apply it, you’re going to know right off the top that there’s minimal risk, and you can make some good money using tips for selling on eBay that spell profits for you..