A look at ebay, and craigslist

eBay and Craigslist are like the holy grail of supplemental income. Whenever you have something to sell, or you have cash and need something to sell, eBay and Craigslist are the places to look. They both also have their inherent dangers. Let's take a look at some of the biggest pro's and con's of these two indispensable outlets.

eBay, as we discussed earlier, is known for not keeping the best eye on what comes over from china, so this can be a huge profit breaker when ordering in quantity. I always order 5 pieces first and check them for quality before making a sizable order. While you can end up with a bunch of useless mp3 players or burned out SD cards, the rock bottom prices that are now on eBay as more factories use eBay to sell directly to Americans are well worth the risk. eBay can also be a hassle when selling. The most important number one rule is: always get delivery confirmation! This will stop 90% of the would be scams on eBay. They just love newbie sellers who don't get delivery confirmation because they claim the item never arrived and eBay almost always sides with the buyer. Leaving you to refund their money and never see your item again.

Craigslist, on the other hand, has a completely different, however still just as annoying, set of dangers. A few of the most common are people selling flat out stolen goods, and email spam. As far as stolen goods are concerned, there's not much you can do except stay vigilant, ask questions, and check out the people your buying from. You don't want to get caught up selling stolen stuff so don't buy stuff that's "too cheap." The email spam is a different story. You can easily stave off most of this by not replying to emails that look fishy(i.e. bad grammar, bad spelling, unrelated messages, messages with links to websites or videos or pictures and many more signs) when you reply they sell your email to other people who will spam you to no end.

Now that we know some of the con's what are the pro's?  eBay and Craigslist together are a perfect scenario when combined with a real world outlet like a flea market or mall kiosk. Even if people know where you got your stuff  they are willing to pay a few extra bucks to avoid shipping or traveling to pick it up. The item is right in front of them and available to test and look at. One great way to make these two sites, and your outlet of choice work together is to buy big ticket items from Craigslist, and wholesale $5 and under stuff from eBay. Remember Craigslist is basically like an online flea market so don't forget to offer low! After you have gotten a comfortable rotation going profits are going to soar!