I've been selling stuff on Amazon online as a side gig for years. Used to sell on ebay as well but didn't find it to be worth the extra hassle, Amazon FBA is where it's at if you want to move any real volume without having to commit to real work on a day-by-day basis.

It's definitely harder than it was. Margins are nowhere near where they were as everything is up across the board (raw materials, freight/shipping, tariffs), and the proliferation of Chinese sellers on Amazon means any easily re-creatable idea without IP protection (which I don't mess with) is going to be cloned a million times with race to the bottom pricing. I move enough volume that I just pretty much let it ride on auto pilot these days for the credit card points and little bit of profit.

jwoodmd said:

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62strat said:

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FAT SEXY said:

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My I'm talking about as a low level, one man operation using a 3rd party site like eBay.

When you make a sale: The online marketplace gets their cut.. then there is shipping costs. After those slices are taken, you will still have to report earnings to the IRS for their pound of flesh.

The cherry on top is that the customer is always right and you will have to factor in a percentage on return costs from dishonest or regretful customers.

I'm not considering creating an online business, just more or less thinking out loud on the subject.

Outside of finding some perfect product with considerable margin, I could imagine 90% of low scale online stores on eBay/Amazon etc etc just aren't worth the hassle.

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My neighbors started an online store selling baby products. a few years later, they buy a $1m+, 30 acre property about 15 miles out from where we live, while still owning their current house (non contingent sale), AND this was after buying a several hundred thousand dollar parcel that they ended up not using (were wanting to build).

So they owned 2 homes and property all at once. Oh yeh, and they were late 20s when they did all this.

Seemed to work for them.

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How do you know the online store was responsible for all that - million other factors could have been at work there.

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He was in finance at first, bought a used truck, made comments now and again that led me to believe money was tight, like when she quit working after third kid.

I also see how they hired 2-3 people pretty quickly, started selling on Amazon, and telling me when they reached 100 skus and along with that outgrew their garage storage and needed real storage. They also started a second business a few years in (tall men's clothing… but not 'big')

Not a hard puzzle to put together.

Sure. But that's not much different than saying Bucees has turned into a billion dollar company so just start a convenience store. Some people have a great idea for online selling and are good at the aspects to be successful. Lots of people are bored at home with a cricut machine and think they can make 6 figures…..

I followed a guy on Instagram for awhile who scours through garage sales looking for items to resell.

His approach appeared simple: When something caught his eye, he would look up the product on Ebay or another site and note the price differential.

One of the items that he scored with was one of those old Igloo console coolers that sat between the seats in a car or truck. He bought it for like $3 and sold it for $90, I believe.

Of course, he only highlights his success stories and I would imagine that the margin on most garage sale stuff is low. You have to be somewhat savvy to ID products that might have a market out there.

htxag09 said:

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Sure. But that's not much different than saying Bucees has turned into a billion dollar company so just start a convenience store. Some people have a great idea for online selling and are good at the aspects to be successful. Lots of people are bored at home with a cricut machine and think they can make 6 figures…..

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But we're talking about selling stuff online, not starting a retail operation and growing it to hundreds of locations.

My neighbors literally buy chinese stuff, brand it as 'Parker Baby', and sell it for a large profit.
It basically looks like chip and joanna gaines stuff.. but it sells apparently.

Only sell things that fit in a flat rate envelope or box. Even then, it has to be more than $35.

62strat said:

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htxag09 said:

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Sure. But that's not much different than saying Bucees has turned into a billion dollar company so just start a convenience store. Some people have a great idea for online selling and are good at the aspects to be successful. Lots of people are bored at home with a cricut machine and think they can make 6 figures…..

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But we're talking about selling stuff online, not starting a retail operation and growing it to hundreds of locations.

My neighbors literally buy chinese stuff, brand it as 'Parker Baby', and sell it for a large profit.
It basically looks like chip and joanna gaines stuff.. but it sells apparently.

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That's the same business model a bunch of drug dealers use these days.