Best Products to Sell on Ebay, What to Sell on Ebay? The Millionaire Mindset

If you cannot afford the Buy-in Threshold see my Recommended Dropshipping Wholesalers.

In this article I’ll share with you the strategy I use to find the best products to sell on eBay and ebid. Follow this system and you will make money selling online, in particular, what to sell on ebay. This method works and it costs you nothing. All you need is the millionaire mindset.

Stop Asking Stupid Questions

First I’m going to say something which I probably shouldn’t say, but here goes anyway.

STOP ASKING STUPID QUESTIONS.

Now I’ve heard that there is no such thing as a stupid question, but take my word for it, there are many stupid questions floating around the world.

I don’t mean innocent questions like the type you always get from children, i.e.;

Calvin: Where do babies come from? Is it true a stork leaves them swaddled in a bundle on the front step?
Dad: In most cases yes, but you were dumped unceremoniously down the chimney by a big hairy pterodactyl.
Calvin: Cool!
Dad: Explains a lot doesn’t it?

I mean questions like;

What’s the best products to sell on eBay to get rich?
What to sell on ebay to make me rich?
How can I become a millionaire overnight?
How can I get rich quick?
I know nothing about business. What’s the best business for me to start?

I get asked these very questions quite regularly on this site. Now I can understand a child asking such questions, but lets face it, we’re no longer children.

Just think about such questions for a while. Then tell me, why would anyone with an answer to any of these questions tell you the answer?

No one would tell you. Why would they? Why would they reveal their secret to success? Why would they reveal their best sellers? Why would they give you everything on a plate after they’ve done all the hard work and costly research?

What you should be asking is. “what is the millionaire mindset” and “how can I train my brain to get the millionaire mindset”.

Get Into the Research Mindset

Get rid of the mindset of asking for miracle solutions which will give you a million dollar business or looking for miracle products that will make you rich on eBay. There’s no such thing.

Instead get into the millionaire mindset (the research mindset) and execute the following step-by-step formula to find profitable products to sell on your own online store or auction sites such as eBay and ebid.

When doing your research don’t forget to bring your best tool in the research process, your common sense.

Tips: Proven Sellers Not New Trends

First I’m going to give you a few simple tips before you begin your research;

Don’t try to get in on new trends. You SHOULD NOT sell hot selling items like iPod, digital cameras or GPS Units when you are just starting out.
Sell items that people need in their everyday life, these are the best products to sell on ebay.
Don’t invent your own products to sell.
Popular does not always equal profitable.
Seasonal products can be very unprofitable if stock remains unsold.
Do not buy or sell counterfeit products.
Stay away from Brand dominated markets.
Stay away from cheap electronics imported from China.
The more difficult it is to buy the product offline the better.
Use Google Trends to determine if a product is seasonal and increasing or decreasing in popularity.
The best selling items on eBay fluctuate, based on consumer demand and seasonality.

With the above tips in mind, lets see how to find the best products to sell on ebay. In the rest of this article I’m going to presume you are selling on an auction site and use eBay in the examples.

Brainstorming

To begin you need to brainstorm ideas. So, grab a cup of tea and a couple of biscuits, a piece of paper and a pencil (not a computer), then go to your quite place and;

jot down niche domains where you would like to trade, and
jot down products you could sell in those niche domains.

Don’t think about how good or bad the niche or product is, in fact, try not to think of future possibilities at all. Try to think laterally if possible, i.e., think outside the box.

Niche: Automobiles
Products: Alloy wheels, Car covers, First aid kits, Dog safety cage.
Niche: Sports
Products: Trainers, Clothes, Training equipment, Food and drink supplements, First aid kits.
Niche: Pets
Products: Training guides, Grooming products, Food supplements, Dog tread mills, First aid kits.

I find it’s best just let your subconscious mind wander.

If you get stuck, try a more systematic method and look for product ideas in magazine adverts, Amazon‘s best-seller list or eBay‘s best seller-list.

If you having trouble determining which niche to choose try the Alibaba.com, SaleHoo, Shopify or Worldwidebrands product categories. Each has SEVERAL THOUSAND product categories and sub-categories, each carrying hundreds and thousands of different products. These lists will definitely give you plenty of ideas.

While on Amazon many items in the bestseller lists will be branded products, on sites like Alibaba.com, SaleHoo, Shopify and Worldwidebrands, all top selling items will be un-branded. This means they’ll be suitable for importing from places like China.

These are all good, very easy to use and free ways to find products for your list. Admittedly, to trade using the above sites you have to register (which costs a fee) but for research purposes there’s lots of data available for free. If you want to simplify and quicken your research you’ll need more advanced tools (not free). I can’t recommend Terapeak highly enough, 35% of eBay’s most profitable sellers use Terapeak.

Terapeak analyzes over 2.4 billion transactions per year and over $68 billion in online consumer spending worldwide. This summarization of data provides online merchants with the market intelligence needed to make money online.

Terapeak analyzes over 2.4 billion transactions per year

This summarization of data provides online merchants with the market intelligence needed to make money online.

Brainstorming Results

At the end of your brainstorming session you should have quite a few ideas written down.

At this point you might like to start charting your data, a spreadsheet or database would be ideal for this. If you need either try, Apache OpenOffice.

Apache OpenOffice is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.

Secret: How to Become a Millionaire, the Millionaire Mindset

With your brainstorming over you now need to determine the best products to sell on ebay, which products will make enough profit to be worth your while. This is where the hard work and long hours come in to play. Terapeak can help with your research enormously but it’s generally a long tedious pain in the neck. Those that persevere and get it right are the ones making the millions.

Wow, is that the secret?
How to become a millionaire?
The millionaire mindset!
Research, perseverance and the guts to take action = millionaire!

Gathering Market Data

For your market research you need to discover what to sell on ebay which will bring you the greatest profit. Start by gathering the following data.

Niche
The selected niche in which the product is to be sold.
Product
The name of the product you intent to sell.
Total Sales (n)
The number of sales made for this product in the last 30 days. This shows how big the market is. This data can be gleaned using Terapeak or eBay’s search tool, just select completed listings.
Sell Through Rate (%)
The ratio of sales to completed listings over the last 30 days.
i.e., (completed sales / completed listings) x 100
= (2000/3000) x 100 = 66%
Anything above 50% can be considered good.
Sellers (n)
The number of unique sellers competing with this product over the last 30 days, i.e., there may have been 3000 completed listings but these were placed by a total of 20 unique sellers.
Average Seller Sales.
This is a calculation of Total Sales per Seller, i.e., if total sales for the last 30 days were £200k and there were 20 unique sellers this would result in an average of £10k per seller in sales volume (£200/20 = £10k). The higher this value the better.
Average Sold Price (£)
A wildly inaccurate idea of the selling price over the last 30 days. It gives you an idea of the price you can expect on average and your competitions potential profits/losses.
Target Price (£)
This is the actual price you plan to buy your products for inclusive of all taxes, shipping costs, etc.
Buy-in Threshold (£)
How much capital you will need to buy your stock. For example, if the inclusive product Target Price is £10 and the minimum order quantity (MOQ) is 100 then your minimum Buy-in Threshold would be £1000 (£10 x 100 = £1000).

Which Products are Worth Selling?

Now that you have your market data you need to determine which products are worth selling. Ideally you are looking for items that have a high profit margin (100%+) and few competitors (0!).

Total Sales. If the total sales for a product is “too low” then you can consider this product a no go area unless the reason for poor sales is lack of supply, i.e., everything sells, there just isn’t enough product. You need to determine what you consider to be “too low” to sustain your lifestyle.

Sell-through rate. Delete any products with less than a 50% sell-through rate. This would indicate too many competitors chasing too few sales.

Average Seller Sales. This is an indication of your average earnings. You need to be careful with this figure though, especially if one or two sellers have captured the market. In such cases you need to discover what they are doing right and everyone else is doing wrong.

Buy-in Threshold: How much capital you will need to buy your stock.

When ordering products directly from a manufacturer or wholesaler there is always a minimum order value. When ordering directly from China etc. larger quantities will usually incur reduced shipping costs per item.

If you cannot afford the Buy-in Threshold the only other option is to use dropshipping. Click this link to see my Recommended Dropshipping Wholesalers.

Determine Product Trends

If possible try to determine a products sales trend over several years. Look for trends such as seasonality, increasing (good) and decreasing (bad) sales trends. The best products to sell on ebay will have linear, upward trends. This would indicate the potential for regular, increasing sales. Here are some examples using Google Trends.

This trend shows that lawn mowers have a regular but seasonal trend. High sales in summer, low sales in winter, as you would expect.

This trend shows iPad sales increasing dramatically for a couple of years, stabilising, and then trending downwards.

This trend for bread sales show a healthy, regular, increasing demand all year round.