Anyone drop ship on ebay/etc?

Looking at several home based things to supplement my future income.  We're basically cutting everything out of our family business that i've been doing forever because of my health, and focusing only on one non labor intensive area.  This is a winning plan in the long run, but i have basically not worked since march and as this plan moves forward there will be some lag time in my income returning to what it was.  I have thrown a few things at the wall, including using my cnc plasma table to make money, and another that keeps popping up is drop ship selling on ebay.  
 

If I set something up, I want it to be as automated as possible, and I've been looking at platforms like AutoDS where you can research your targeted items, pick your price, and the program does the rest be it handling sales, placing drop ship orders, notifying customers of tracking, etc.  

I'm looking for something that won't support my family, but coupled with my other work and selling car parts and other things I can find locally online for bigger exposure that can supplement my income and maybe grow into its own deal or that Carli and myself could work on to build together as the company she works for is currently a sinking ship.  
 

in the past I've made good side hustle money buying estate sale auction lots locally and selling them piece by piece online as well as buying clearance items at stores and being able to sell them for 90% of retail and plan to continue to do so.  

Any other brainstorming is welcome.  

I'm interested to hear if anyone else does this as well, because it seems to be either a zero sum game (ie you have to constantly be looking for the products that make money, which everyone else is doing too, and then it is a race to the bottom cost wise on each product while you frantically search for the next profitable product) or a pyramid scheme (all the ads you see on youtube for "I bought this lamborghini making money on amazon" bs). 

In business, the stable money follows the true value add. What value does the drop shipper add? You're connecting a customer with a manufacturer. But if it's as easy as placing an eBay listing or filing something with amazon - that doesn't seem like a huge value add and there are probably zillions of people willing to do it for less money than you. 

Find where you can add the most value to the right people. <-- easy to say and hard to do. 

Totally agree Robbie, that's why I'm asking GRM.  It was brought about because I purchased something on ebay for $16.99 and it came in a walmart box in one day.  I refuse to walmart, so I did not even look to see that I could have had it from them for $13.09 shipped.  
 

My biggest side action has always been buying lots and dividing or buying bulk direct when people had no idea it was available.  Way back when i used to buy gm strut tower bars in bulk from gm parts direct for average of $5 each shipped and sold them on ebay individually for anywhere from $40-55 each after shipping and fees.  Out of the tons sold one person bitched once they looked up the part number.  

How much work do you want to do to get items to sell ?

And also adding on the shipping eats the profits , 

One thing to know is what can be sent Media mail , which will save you $$$$

There are guys at my local swap meet buying books, magazines , CDs , video games  and selling them on Ebay. But you need to know what sells....

One guy had an app on his phone and scanned the barcodes of all the books , I think it was set up to see what they sold for on Amazon , the App would "Ding" when there was enough profit to buy and ship it.....

I know for you back east its the wrong time of the year for swap meets and yard sales , but its an idea.

This is now a few years ago - I seem to remember that it around my wedding, so in 2015ish - but I put probably about 15-20 hours of research trying to figure out if it would be worth it. I found that, long story short, it is not worth it, at least as a side gig. I came to the following ways for it to work: 

• It will work if you have the time to be searching "all the time" for arbitrage, i.e. it is $5 on aliexpress or Amazon, and $10 on eBay
• For most things, the return just isn't there. You're competing against Amazon and WalMart for common items. How many transactions do you need to make $1?
• For the things where the return is there, it is probably a niche item, and you'll only sell a few. This is actually where it makes the most sense, as one sale can fund all of your expenses for it, but your profit won't be too much - after all, how many people want a coffee mug with 4x100 lugs?

This is not to say it can't be done. I just never saw where the juice was worth the squeeze. This probably would have been amazing to do even just 10 years ago, but I think the internet has caught up. 

5-7 years ago, this would have been a lucrative idea when not many people were doing it. Now, the best way to even make a meager amount of money is to make something original, sell it on Amazon, and hope they buy it from you when they see it's profitable and make an Amazon basics version. 

Unless you have all the time in the world to really bust ass in SEO while trying to stay a step ahead of trends.

I appreciate the input, this is why i asked.  I figured at this point it's over saturated and that my model of find local cheap and sell online high is the path to stay on for now.  
 

I used to drop ship a couple of niche items using eBay and my own site.  One was valves, the other was specialty plug wires. The valve guys were great in every respect and I still deal with them.  The plug wire shop was a family business and they were a nightmare to deal with. After trying for a couple years I eventually dropped the line having never made a cent from his product. 

Choose your suppliers wisely

In reply to Patrick (Forum Supporter) :

I've got no solid answer on easy money but here's what Im seeing in my neighborhood that I don't really understand.  

In 2019, this couple bought 21 acres about 1.5 miles from me and put up an impressive 4,000 sq ft house.  They run the business out of a small strip center.  The specific spot used to be the old Goodwill Store in Huron, OH before Goodwill built a new store.  The space is probably 20,000 sq ft or less.  Really not that big.  Though it is retail space, they do no retails sales out of the space.  They use the space as warehouse space.  I just read recently they have acquired land in the local industrial park and will be building. 

I admit that I don't really understand.  It's women's clothing but the products seem poorly presented and high priced.   https://shopmoco.com/

Also, living near to the people above on 20 acres and 5,000 sq ft house is this guy.  The house is set back in the woods  but I know he is building a garage-mahal back there too.  This will be to house the G-wagon, new, wild 911, Audi S7, Ferrari, etc.  These guys too have a free standing building of maybe 20,000 sq ft in the same industrial park area.  It seems that the business is on-line curriculum for kid-learning with a subscription model.   https://www.n2y.com/   It sure seems like they guys are just printing money.  

In reply to Patrick (Forum Supporter) :

I'll expand a bit on some of your & others' comments:

• You need expertise to make it work. Obviously you have tons of GM-specific & other automotive knowledge, so that area should work well for you. You just need to keep up on what the current hot used parts are & their present value.
• Regarding the estate sale stuff, when I was doing that in our shop back in IL the one thing I never even considered is how trendy that whole market is. Basically whatever is in "Contry Living" magazine this month(or whatever it was called) and/or HGTV is going to drive what's in demand. If you can find something that's more abundant in your area, but in demand elsewhere, you can ride that out for a while - as long as you're one of the first to jump on it. 

Where I found the most success relative to timing was at that time so many people thought they were going to be the next American Pickers. I always bought cheap junk & had many customers who were buying it to resell. I could have done that myself too, but I had zero desire to manage an eBay store or similar.

Lastly, I remember a story from the 1980's that you may be able to get some inspiration from, though being pre-internet it was certainly much easier then...

There was an antique dealer who went around buying up as much Griswald cast iron skillets/etc. that he could find for a few years. Then he wrote a couple books about it, including a price guide. He started selling off his vast collection - mostly anonymously - and raked in the $$ for a few years. Find a way to do the modern version of that. 

In reply to Patrick (Forum Supporter) :

Think bigger Patrick. Almost every business that distributes products or sells retail has left over inventory that isn't worth the companies time to liquidate so it sits. I've Ebayed products like that with no investment and no storage. Get a list from the business of the inventory and what they'd charge you for each item with them providing the shipping and warranties etc. as they would normally. You list the items anywhere appropriate you can, trade journals, forums, Craigs, Ebay, or any other place you think that product might move. The company gets rid of the product and their investment back along with their storage space and reduced inventory expense without taking away from regular sales or their sales force time and you figure out a percentage you'll make on whatever you can sell. When you sell an item, you send the company the agreed price and shipping fees after the customer pays you. The company then ships.

I did it for a fluid pump company. Large pumps that could be used in municipal water systems, mining operations, paper mills, etc.  Think big pumps that have to be moved with fork lifts. The old inventory wasn't being promoted by sales reps because of the limited quantity left over after new models were introduced (so not quoted for new contracts). However someone needing to replace an existing unit quick or only needing one or two of a pump with certain specifications for some oddball project would jump on a discounted pump kinda like selling left over brand new 2 year old cars dirt cheap. Pump prices ranged from several hundred to several thousand dollars. More total profit for time invested without all the hassles of lots of little transactions. 

Keep in mind if you start to do a lot on Ebay they will report the income to the IRS.

I have a friend who is an Amazon reseller. He has consistently made 6 figures for the past 3 years WHILE he maintains his full time job in the medical field. He routinely has $100K in his PayPal account. 
 

I tried to get into it, and he opened his books and techniques to me broadly. 
 

He viewed it as a nearly automated process. Amazon has great tools to scan products and price them, his iWatch sings all day with sales coming in,  and every evening he packs up a few things and shops them. 
 

However after watching him closely for several weeks, I figured out there was absolutely NOTHING automated or simple about it. He made money because he was good at what he does, and works his ass off. 
 

More importantly, he has an amazing skill that I do not have. His success was based on the skill he has at finding local bulk lot deals and negotiating them well. He's a natural. He's been doing it for 25 years- he doesn't even realize how good he is at it. 
 

Patrick, THAT'S your skill set. Build on it. There isn't any magic about some automated Amazon process that is a money machine. Take what you do well now, and marry it to the systems that are there. 
 

You make money when you BUY, not when you sell. 
 

My friend's garage became overrun with electronic gizmos like iWatches and FitBits (because that's what he is good at). His girlfriend is good at ladies shoes and accessories. Once that stuff hit the garage ceiling, they started building a warehouse. He doesn't buy stuff he can make 10% on reselling. He buys stuff he can make 500% markup on. 
 

THAT's where his money is. 

Oh, and read the book "The Millionaire Next Door". 
 

You'll find the vast majority of millionaires in this country are people like you, not superstars, or people who inherited money. Wealthiest profession?  Auctioneers.
 

The value comes from the skills they develop and the knowledge of the products, and learning how to be specialists in their fields.

NOT A TA said:

Keep in mind if you start to do a lot on Ebay they will report the income to the IRS.

This shouldn't matter.  Anyone running a clean business should report their income to the IRS themselves.

It also increases your borrowing power when you need it  

One side project I enjoy is finding more niche items for sale on surplus auctions, regardless of their original market, and selling them on to more niche buyers.  Look for low volume but higher margins.  I once bought a medical device from the local university medical school.  It cost $30, looked old, but powered on and settled into a "ready" state.  That's all I knew.  So I googled the product  and came up with a handful of forums chatting about it.  I joined a forum, introduced myself and was up front about wanting to sell this magic box.  3 guys pm'd me and one guy from the middle east somewhere paid me $1200 for it and paid more to have it professionally crated and shipped.  I still don't know what it was and it took up 4 feet cubed in my garage for 2 weeks, but just the cursory research to see the margins makes some markets very attractive.  Labx.com is a great secondary market. 

Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) said:

There was an antique dealer who went around buying up as much Griswald cast iron skillets/etc. that he could find for a few years. Then he wrote a couple books about it, including a price guide. He started selling off his vast collection - mostly anonymously - and raked in the $$ for a few years. Find a way to do the modern version of that. 

I have had a few friends do that  and it worked very well  for a few years  of selling items  , but the books kept selling , 

Also you can print a calendar to keep it going for another year !

Lotta good points already being made.

• Retail Arbitrage is a race to the bottom, super competitive, and violates the ToS of most if not all online retailers.  You can do it, but the successful people are script kiddies who can write their own mining, listing, and auto-shipping system.  Unless you can write your own scraping and listing software or want to learn how, forget it.
• Buy low, sell high put me through college.  Back then it was cars and jetskis.  Right now I am using those skills to buy nice bicycles or upgrade them.  The most money I have made is the same way as you, buying complete bikes and piecing them out, meanwhile keeping the parts I want to get them essentially for free or get paid to take them.  The bike market is stupid hot right now so its easy.  I focus on just one type of bikes and that also helps out a lot.
• If I had to start a side business that I would hope would turn into full time, I would look at a site like Diesel O-Rings.  https://www.dieselorings.com/.  They check a lot of boxes
  • "problem solver" parts for vehicles that are new enough to be kept on the road but old enough that most of their repair is done at home or at indy shops
  • bundling of all common parts together so you just buy one "kit" and its everything you need to address a simple issue instead of having read through parts diagrams and guess that you got all the right bits ordered up
  • Reseal kits for parts that are typically not rebuildable meaning money saving option for people willing to do extra labor (DIY or indy garages)
  • Small items with a relatively high value for easy shipping and handling and warehousing
  • No part numbers listed meaning not easy to reverse engineer the kit.
  • Easy enough to manage or at least start all through an excel spreadsheet
  • No real competition - cant get these parts from Advance, Autozone, or even the dealer without doing some research.  
  • Look at their fuel bowl reseal kit  https://www.dieselorings.com/7-003-1999-2003-fuel-bowl-reseal-kit-7-3l.html - this is maybe $5 worth of o-rings.  They did the research, bundled them up, wrote a nice description, and make 75 points on it.  
• Also its really nice if you can keep off Ebay or Amazon.  Those guys take 10-15% right off the top and consumer practices will screw you as a seller.