5 Reasons Why eBay Is The King Of The Side Hustles

There are many ways to make a little extra on the side, both online and offline. But for me, there is one stand out option, the true side hustle, often many people’s first side hustle, and now more than ever a side hustle that is becoming very much a full-time main hustle.

I am talking about eBay. The biggest online auction website out there. Of course you would have heard of it, you have most likely used it to list some old junk lying around the house. Or maybe you sold your old phone on it.

Throughout this post I am going to outline reasons why I think that this marketplace is the top spot for the side hustle.

You can switch it on or off whenever you like

A standard eBay account will cost you nothing. This means there are no fixed monthly, weekly or yearly fees to come out of your account. So, you can go hell for leather one month then switch off the next month no problem.

So you can set yourself little savings targets if you wanted. Say you needed $500 you could sell like crazy for a month or so and then when you have hit your target you can simply stop listing items and no use your account any more. It will remain active ready for you next time.

Sure, if you want an eBay shop then these do cost a monthly fee but a small side hustler looking to earn a few hundred bucks on the side will have no need to open an eBay shop.

Note: The fees are calculated per sale and are billed at the end of each monthly cycle, but since you have already sold the item you would have been paid for it so always keep a small percentage back ready to pay eBay fees at the end of each cycle. You can always check your balance in your account.

You are not under contract to have your account open for a certain amount of months, you are not under contract to make a certain amount of sales and there are no minimum payment thresholds you have to hit before you can get paid for your sales.

You can simply sell 1 item a month or 1000 items a month. Its up to you.

Further reading: The Levi Jeans Hustle! Make £200 Per Month With This Easy To Follow Plan!

You DON’T need a computer to use it

Contrary to a lot of people’s opinions you do not need a computer to run a successful side hustle on eBay.

You can run the whole thing 100% from a smartphone or tablet. Everything.

So, literally if you have a smartphone then you can run an entire eBay business from it, and have it with you in your pocket all day.

The photos you can take from a smartphone are good enough quality for the photos in your listings. You can also crop and edit them from within the smartphone app.

You will get notified each time there is a sale or a bid on one of your listings.

You will be able to message and respond to messages from other users (buyers and sellers) on the platform from your smartphone.

Once you get familiar with using the application on your phone you will be knocking out listings in no time at all. You can save listings and list like other’s so it will pre-fill in a lot of the information on items for you making it quicker each time you list products.

You can see what sells and what doesn’t

You literally have all the info right in your hands when it comes to seeing what sells and what doesn’t.

A simple search on the completed listings will show you if what you are thinking of selling is worth doing or not.

If its your own and you just want rid of it then it does not really matter here, but if you are buying stock to resell then here is where you can work out your profits and whether or not the item is worth selling.

It really is fail safe if you do your research correctly.

Here is an example of a completed listings search for some converse trainers:

You can be really specific here, if you know the certain model number of an item then enter it in.

You can also search for prices at buy it now or auction.

Generally as a rule of thumb buy it now items tend to sell for a higher price.

It is easy to learn – no techie skills required

Unlike some platforms eBay is very straightforward and easy to use. If you can take a picture on your phone and enter some lines of text using your phones keypad then you are fit to sell items on eBay.

Even if you have never sold anything on the platform before you will be fine.

And, the more you do it the better and quicker you will get at listing items.

You will quickly learn that details sell and pictures sell. These are the main two ingredients for a successful eBay side hustle business.

Make sure you take the best pictures as you can for your items. Find a good area of the house that captures natural light and use this. Dark and blurry pictures will not cut it and your listings will sit around for longer and the idea around this side hustle is moving your inventory fast.

The second point is also key, make sure you include as many details about the product as you can. If its clothes for example include all the vital measurements in the descriptions.

You do not have to learn any coding with this. Like I said, if you can take a picture on your phone and write a few lines of text describing it then you are good to go. An average listing from taking the photos to being live on the auction site will take you around 15 minutes no more.

Some sellers when listing like to bulk up and do all their photos first, that is up to you how you manage it.

Try it for a month: List just one product per day, these can be items you have around the home or items that you have purchased and plan to sell for profit. One item per month at 15 minutes per day.

Some will sell quick while others will need a second cycle or two, you can play with the pricing each cycle if you want.

It’s good for the body and soul!

Having an eBay account is incredibly good for the soul. Most of humanity will spend their entire working lives doing something fairly routine and quite often not really getting the satisfaction or rewards they feel they deserve.

We as humans are meant to be helping people, putting smiles on peoples faces and connecting with each other.

Ebay can do that for you.

Once the sales start rolling in you will start to receive positive feedback from your customers. If you go the extra mile then some customers will send you a personal note saying thanks. Some people may not care about this part at all but we as humans thrive off positive news and feelings so its all good in my book.

Also as your account grows and your sales become more frequent this means more and more trips to the post office with your stock!

Any increase in your daily steps is most definitely a good thing!

Is There Really Any Other Alternative For The Newbie Side Hustler?

I hope this post has outlined a few reasons why you should consider eBay as a nice and simple side hustle.

To recap the points discussed here:

• It is flexible (you can switch on and off when you like)
• You do NOT need a computer to run it
• You have the market data right there in front of you
• Easy to learn with no technical skills required
• Good for the body and soul!

So there you have it. Whether you want to make a few hundred pounds on the side or have a go at running your own reselling business, eBay is a very solid platform that ticks all the boxes.

Over to you….