10 Reasons Why I Love eBay

BY Ben Lang Jun. 18, 2010 23 Comments

One of my first posts on this blog was about my frustrations with eBay and why eBay sucks. I decided it’s now time to balance things out. Here are some reasons why I love eBay for sellers and buyers.

Sellers:

Great Business

eBay selling is a classic way to start a business. It’s relatively easy, requiring being able to read tutorials and a few resources. All you need is a computer, internet, boxes, a printer, ruler, scale and “stuff” and you’re ready to launch your business.

Side Income

Looking to make a few bucks on the side, here and there? You could try some odd jobs, blogging, working in a restaurant or just selling some of your belongings that are lying around on eBay.

Experience and Lessons

Aside from financial benefits, eBay can provide you with valuable experience. I mainly learned about customer relations, sales and promotion.

Opportunity

Starting an e-commerce business at 14 would never have been possible for me without the existence of eBay. It provides an incredible playing field thats open to everyone who’s interested.

Exciting

It’s surprisingly stimulating to watch your auctions play out. At first it may go slowly with only a few bids but towards the end, with a few hours left, it goes crazy. Buyers enter “bidding wars”, raising the price every second, making you sit on the edge of your desk chair.

Buyers:

The One Cent Phenomenon

The greatest items that I’ve ever discovered on eBay were the ones priced at one cent with free shipping. After filtering for a long time, I found a few items, such as iPod and phone cases that were being sold from China at exactly a penny. Meaning that I could buy a whopping 100 for only one dollar!

Huge Market

It’s almost guaranteed that you’ll find anything you’re looking for. There’s such a massive and vast array of items that almost everything in existence is there.

Crazy Finds

If you’re looking for a laugh, sometimes eBay is the place to go to. Here are some of the craziest things I’ve seen for sale: The internet, a UFO detector, the meaning of life, a Russian space shuttle, a real shrunken head, a vampire killer, a Falcon Missile, a tattoo of you. Check out Dumb Auctions or Auction Humor for more.

It’s Fun!

Buying on eBay may not be as fun as shopping at Target or Gap, but its certainly more fun than shopping on Amazon or Buy.com. Auctions simply are way more fun than just purchasing. It brings competition and suspense into buying.

eBay Bucks

Register for eBay Bucks free and you’ll receive 2% of each purchase you make in credit. Combine that with Bing Cashback (which unfortuntely is ending July 30th) and you could receive another 8% back.

What do you think? Does eBay suck or do you love eBay?

Making Money, Online Business

eBay

http://www.making-your-own-website.com Nabeel | Create Your First Website

Well I have never tried eBay, so I cannot give a judgement on it.

Anyways, nice information you give there. I wanted to know that can we do a business on eBay from any country or is is only available for certain countries?

Also: “Starting an e-commerce business at 14 would never have been possible for me without the existence of eBay.” you mean to say you have an e-commerce store at age 14?! Man if that’s true, then that is quite an accomplishment!

Mind telling us which site is it, so that we could find something of interest and buy from there?

Nabeel

http://ben-lang.com Ben Lang

Oh really. It’s available in many countries, at the bottom of eBay.com there’s a list.

Yes my first business was eBay selling, watch the video in the top right corner of the home page to learn more about it
http://www.ebaybusinessideas.biz alex johnson

It’s great to read a post praising the benefits of eBay for a change. I love eBay, it has enabled me to make a lot of money over the years.

Nabeel. All I can say is “Give it a go”. It’s a great way to make money, and the easiest online business strategy that I know of.

http://www.murlu.com Murlu

I really love eBay – it has the Wiki effect where you end up going off on these crazy tangents. You start off looking at movies and soon you’re looking at rare collectible buttons from the 18th century.

There’s so much out there that it’s mind boggling!

As for income, eBay is awesome because there are so many people with various hobbies converging on the site. You’re almost guaranteed to find someone to buy your item as long as you set it up right.

Which reminds me, I need to list a few things this weekend
.-= Murlu´s last blog post: How To Over-Deliver With Every Blog Post =-.

http://ben-lang.com Ben Lang

Cool, haha yeah looking up crazy things is very fun. Good luck listing things this weekend!

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http://www.treatguides.com KS Chen

I never try ebay before. Basically is because i do not know much of it. After reading your article above, i have the urge to know more about it. Thanks for your sharing!
.-= KS Chen´s last blog post: 5 Ways to Attract Free Blog Traffic =-.

http://ben-lang.com Ben Lang

Oh really, try it out see what you think

http://www.bloggingaccess.com Felix | Blogging Access

I am still trying to learn more information and techniques on selling products through ebay.

I hope I will many things about ebay from you…

- Felix Albutra
.-= Felix | Blogging Access´s last blog post: Blogging for Profit Series #2: Targeting Niche Market! =-.

http://ben-lang.com Ben Lang

Cool, I hope so too. Feel free to ask me for advice.

Dan P.

I would have to say eBay is not great at all. Sellers have a lot of fees and so does Paypal. It’s just my opinion.

http://ben-lang.com Ben Lang

I actually wrote an article about why I hate eBay before. Look it up you would definitely enjoy it.

http://www.dennisedell.com/about Dennis Edell | Direct Sales Marketing

FYI – if your product is mainstream (mass produced) do not spend much before starting. There already are 492,000 others selling the same thing.

Ben – you give courses on selling with eBay?
.-= Dennis Edell | Direct Sales Marketing´s last blog post: Noticing Comment Replies – Part Two – The Flip Side =-.

http://ben-lang.com Ben Lang

Oh really, very possible. No I don’t. Feel free to ask me though for advice if you wish.

http://webdevstar.com Anwar

Ebay has many benefits and draw backs. I used it back in 07 and made a few hundred dollars…maybe over a 1000. I sold mostly designer jeans that I bought locally. They were probably knock offs, so I got them cheap and sold for 3 or 4 times more.

Things went badly and I had to stop. But considering selling there again. Thanks for the tips
.-= Anwar´s last blog post: Rapid Website Setup in Only a Few Hours =-.

http://ben-lang.com Ben Lang

Very true. That’s great, yeah thats what happened to me, at first it was great, but eventually I ran into many many problems.

http://Millionaireat24.com Aaron Darko

Hey Ben, eBay is great and a lot of people overlook it. You should maybe do a post on PayPal too?
.-= Aaron Darko´s last blog post: Derek Johnson Interview – 24 Year Old College Dropout Makes It Big With Group Text Messaging =-.

http://ben-lang.com Ben Lang

Glad you think so. That’s a good idea. Would be much harder to do though, Paypal is really just practical and easy. The fees kill you though.

http://www.moneymolder.com Andrew Goldie

Can someone please sell some stuff on Ebay for me. You can take commission!

Email: admin@moneymolder.com

Thanks,
Andrew
Tyler

My friends and I love eBay so much we put up a cool instant search site: http://InstantEB.com

It makes wandering around eBay listings fast and fun.
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Sucky

As a buyer, ebay definitely was a good site to go and shopping.

As a seller, ebay not really a good site to sell due to the fee deduction( listing + ebay commission + paypal commission).
http://www.icybid.com Daniel M. Ryan

I think it’s deliberate policy on the part of eBay to tilt the field in favour of buyers. That’s why so many seller complain about high fees and favouritism, but still come back to eBay.

It’s hard to argue that eBay is bad for buyers! It won’t be until enough sellers vamoose to lower the selection there.

I myself have got an independent auction Site – http://www.icybid.com – but I still have to go to eBay. That’s life in the big city.

Given the high fees and field tilt, there’s one thing that can be said about eBay selling. It’s like the New York of legend: if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere!