The $10,000 Garage Sale eBay Challenge is over and it fell nearly $2000 short of my announced goal for the project. Ultimately, whether it was a success or a failure is something that each reader will have to decide for themselves.

Personally, I view it as a resounding success because I had several other, unannounced, goals set for The Challenge as well. I believe it either reached, or went beyond, each of those unannounced goals. Here is what those goals were.

1. Show That It’s Entirely Possible For Anyone To Bootstrap An eBay Business Using Garage Sales As An Inventory Source

If you go back and look at the first week of The Challenge, you will see that I spent $61.15 for an initial inventory of twenty-seven items. Fifteen of those twenty-seven items sold the first week for a net profit of $255.70. Twenty-two weeks later, I had turned that $61.15 into a net profit of $8143.39.

Think about that. In essence, I started out with $60 in my pocket, and twenty-two weeks later, without investing another cent, I had a little more than $8000 in that very same pocket.

Anyone can do this! I don’t care who they are, or where they live. If they can drive a car, have Internet access, are willing to do a little research, and then get out of the house a few hours a week, they can do it. They may only have $20 to invest the first week. They may have $200. They may only make $4000 the first twenty-two weeks. They may make $12,000 the first twenty-two weeks.

There are very few opportunities today that allow someone to make a small one-time cash investment and turn that investment into a several thousand dollars in less than six months. With eBay and garage sales someone can do that.

2. Show That Anyone Can Do This Part-Time

To me, eBay is a full-time business. But, in reality, I didn’t devote that much time each week to The Challenge.

Although my investment of time varied each week, during the busiest part of the garage sale season, I spent eight hours a week going to garage sales on Fridays and Saturdays. Add a few more hours a week for taking pictures, writing ads, answering questions, packing items, etc., and, at most, I probably invested 18 hours a week into The Challenge.

If someone can invest three to five hours on Saturday going to garage sales, and another one to two hours a day during the week, they can build a profitable part-time eBay business within a relatively short period of time. All that is required is the desire to do it and the willingness to devote a few hours a week to it.

3. Show Why, For Most People, Their Best Chance Of Succeeding On eBay Is By Selling Used Items With The Potential For High Profits

Lets look at The Challenge totals shown on the bottom line of results table.

I spent a total of $901.18 for inventory. Not all that inventory sold, but what did generated $11,081.11 in total sales. That means, that for the twenty-two weeks of The Challenge, my overall return was 1230%.

Many people who talk about selling on eBay tell you that you if you double your money you are doing well. The truth is, for most people, if all they do is double their inventory cost, they are going to fail.

If I had doubled my money, my sales would have been $1802.36. Granted, my final value fees and PayPal fees would have probably only been around $75. But, my incidental fees to list the items - listing fees and mileage costs - would have remained the same. So it would have cost me roughly $1220 to earn $901.18, meaning I would have lost roughly $320.00.

With very few exceptions, if you can’t expect a reasonable chance of getting an absolute minimum of a 300% return on your inventory cost, you shouldn’t even think about buying buying something for resale. In truth, you need a higher return than that to really succeed.

There are only two ways to get returns on inventory cost of 500% or more on a regular, ongoing basis. You can sell used items or you can get your inventory off the back of a truck. No matter what anyone tells you, you don’t do it with drop-shipping lists; you don’t do it with wholesale lists; and you don’t do it by selling ebooks for a penny each.

Popularity: 14% [?]

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!