One way that many people generate miles and points – doing manufactured spending – (and even cash back) is reselling. I know using Fulfillment by Amazon is a favorite to many but eBay also is a nice outlet for selling those items you bought. Here is a tip that can help you save money if you do your reselling on eBay
I had thought this was pretty widely-known but was surprised at the number of people I had spoken to in the miles and points world (that do the resell on eBay angle) who did not know about this. Because of that, I thought it would be worth a short post to show you how to save some money.
1 Money Saving Tip For Reselling On eBay
Final value fees have a way of cutting into your profit line, or even break even, when selling things. The charge for selling is a 10% final value fee. When combined with the 2.9% of PayPal (and $.30), you are needing to have scored an amazing deal just to break even.
But, eBay has their eBay Stores Subscriptions that will cut that down for you. Starting at $19.99 per month, an eBay store subscription cuts your final value fee down quite a bit!
An Example – $1,000 Laptop
The cost for a $1,000 laptop without an eBay store
Let’s look at an example. One of the things I buy for resale is Apple computers. In the case of their laptops, they are small and typically hold their resale value pretty well (not as well as they used to even a couple of years ago, but still). If I were to sell it for $1,000, a typical final value fee for that without a basic store subscription is $100! That’s right – 10% is your final value fee. Tack on the PayPal fees and that is a big cut! Now, with a $19.99 monthly subscription for a basic eBay store, that eBay Final Value Fee gets cut down to $40 – a savings of $60 in just the fee!
Once you factor in the store’s subscription, you are still coming out $40 ahead with just that single item! It will depend on the categories you sell in as to how much money you will save, but in my case with what I typically sell, to just break even with the store subscription, I need to sell $400 in my preferred categories each month. Since I am typically moving much more than that, I am coming out way ahead.
Getting Started
The nice thing is that this is not a contract-based thing. You can end your subscription whenever you want. If you know you want to keep it, you can pay for yearly subscription for as little as $15.95 per month.
It is very simple to get started and get saving. Here is how:
- Go to this page first to see with the calculator how you would do with your typical items for resale
- If you decide the store is right for you, go to this page to get started
- Start selling!
- If you decide to cancel your monthly subscription, go to this page
It is just that easy! When I switched to an eBay store subscription, it helped me save a good deal of money since I was selling higher dollar items. It also helped me to be able to lower prices and move things quicker. Depending on what I am selling, a lot of the time, I am just trying to resell to recoup my costs because of the amount of miles/points I earned with the original purchase. Having lower final value fees means that I don’t have to have a higher price just to recoup my costs and this helps items to sell much quicker.
Summary
With credit card issuers tightening up with how easily they let us get cards again and again, earning miles and points could get a bit harder to earn. But, by being able to buy and resell things that we received through big shopping portal payouts, it helps us to do that without any cost out of pocket – and sometimes even a little profit. By taking advantage of an eBay store subscription, you can save even more and make sure it is not costing you to sell that item you bought for the points!
Make sure you check to make sure it makes sense for you! It has worked out well for me with a lot of my manufactured spending but that doesn’t mean it will save you as much money.
