Note: Only 15 days in and I've abandoned £5 to £1000 challenge for a more challenging experiment to make a million. Lets see how I do.
This is going to be a fun little big experiment.
I’ve spent many years working in marketing and ecommerce, and I’ve sold bits and pieces on eBay, Amazon, and Etsy before. Not recently though. It’s been a long, long time since I properly listed things, packed orders, watched prices, and tried to make a small margin.
I was recently asked by a mate, "how easy is it to make money from ebay?", from previous periods in my life when I have flirted with eBay sales, my answer was "Easy, and not easy".
You see it is easy to put stuff on there are selling, odds and sods can sell fairly easily, but doing it consistently isn't always easy.
So, an little experiemnt for myself, from today and from virtually a standing start, how easy would it be to make £1,000 on eBay, starting with as little as £5?
The idea is simple enough. I buy something cheaply, sell it for more, then reinvest the money back into the next purchase. No big stock buy. No pretending this is a business empire. Just a small rolling pot, a few sensible buys, and a bit of patience.
There is one extra wrinkle, though. I’m not doing this with a brand new eBay account, but I’m not exactly starting with a fully active seller account either.
The account I’ll be using has been dormant since October 2021, so eBay is treating it cautiously and at the moment, I’m restricted to 18 items and no more than £190 in sales each month. In practical terms, that means I’m pretty much starting from scratch.
I started by spending £5 in Tescos this morning on some hosepipe connectors. They feel like the sort of product that could work well on eBay: useful, small enough to post, not too fragile, and the kind of thing someone might search for when they need one rather than when they’re just browsing.
From previous experience, there are a few things worth remembering about eBay. It isn’t Amazon. The buyer mindset is different.
eBay buyers are often looking for value, something specific, something a bit unusual, or a replacement part they can’t easily find elsewhere. They’re also more aware of the individual seller. Feedback matters. Photos matter. A clear description matters. And I think interaction matters too. A quick, human reply can still make a difference.
Another key thing for me is postage. I’ll be offering free postage wherever possible because, rightly or wrongly, listings with free postage often feel simpler and more attractive to buyers.
Of course, free postage isn’t really free. It has to be built into the selling price, along with packaging, tape, envelopes, fees if they apply, and the original cost of the item.
That’s the part I want to track properly.
If I spend £6.50 and sell the items for £10, that doesn’t mean I’ve made £3.50. I need to take off postage, packing materials, and any selling costs. Only then do I know the real profit.
The challenge is to see whether I can grow a tiny starting pot into £1,000 by buying carefully, selling clearly, and reinvesting the profit rather than taking it out.
It might work. It might crawl along painfully slowly. I might discover that hosepipe connectors are the new Bitcoin, although probably not.
Either way, I’ll keep track of what I buy, what I sell, what I spend, and what the running pot looks like each month.
Before you start, please investigate your tax implications for a side hustle.
How I’ll Track It
I don’t want this to become a vague “I think I made a bit of money” sort of challenge. If I’m going to do it, I might as well track it properly.
The important number isn’t sales. It’s the running value of stock and cash, which I'll report on at the end of each month and comment on what I bought and sold, simple as that ... now let’s see what happens.
Monthly Tally
Stock and cash in hand
Lessons Learnt
Small, light, useful, non-breakable, easy-to-post items feel like the best place to start.
I did do some promotions, and even at 2% (if a sale comes from a sponsored link in eBay, you only pay 2% of the sale price in a commission), by the and of the month I had 4 extra sales this way.
Slightly overthink the Titles and fill them with keywords that potential buyers might use to find your product, so for example instead of "Easy-Fit Adjustable Garden Hose Adaptor for Round Mixer Taps", it should be written as "Universal Adjustable Garden Hose Tap Connector Mixer Adaptor 15-19mm No Thread".
Don't over think the eBay description, but have enough info on these that a potential buyer knows exactly what the are buying. I kept adding things like "Please check your tap size before ordering. This connector is suitable for taps from 15mm to 19mm in diameter." because I have had occasions in the past when buyers haven't checked the listing too well and ended up getting refunds because products didn't fit.
In eBay postage, exclude the following areas as they increase postage costs (Northern Ireland, Isle of Man, Scottish Highlands / North Scotland, Scottish Islands / West coast, Isle of Wight and the Isles of Scilly.
Don't think that products have to sell in a day or two and fiddle with the price, bringing it down until it sells, if have put it on eBay for a fair price that gives you the profit you want, leave it, it will eventually sell.
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Comments: The experiment has started way better than expected, just 3 weeks and made lots of sales on eBay, towards the end of the months some day I was getting 3-4 orders, so had to keep reinvesting the cash straight away. The account is still restricted because it has been dormant since October 2021, so the early aim is not just profit, but proving the account is active, reliable, and worth trusting again, it's like starting off from zero.
The current value is based on what eBay is showing, along with stock and cash in hand. I’ll keep tracking this each month to see whether the small starting pot is genuinely growing, or whether postage, packaging, and slow-moving stock quietly eat away at it.
The hosepipe connectors sold very well and gave me some cash to buy some products from the clearance aisle in my local Tescos (definitely an aisle worth checking out). I bought some Oral B brush heads that sold the same day and that allowed me to reinvest and get another pack the same day, that sold quickly again (both bought for £8 and sold for £13).
I had a few small odds and sods of drill bits and small cam buckle straps in the shed and not used, so I added them too, effectively cost me nothing, but worth adding for a tiny profit after postage to show eBay that its a trading account. Spend just £4 on some small padded envelopes and this kind of plastic envelope, but I bought from Home Bargains!