eBay Arbitrage Opportunities

eBay Arbitrage Opportunities Articles by Avril Harper™ Updated: Tuesday November 24, 2009

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eBay Arbitrage Opportunities by Avril Harper

I've written many times about making money by spotting mistakes other eBay sellers make in their eBay listing which means their products go largely unnoticed and ultimately sell for a pittance to other eBay sellers who buy cheap and relist those items without the earlier mistakes. The end result is money lost for original owners and sometimes fabulous profits for subsequent sellers.

Spelling mistakes are the commonest form of arbitrage, so too is listing in the wrong category, or listing an item as commonplace when actually it is a rare and highly prized collectible.

But there are other arbitrage opportunities to consider as these tips show:

* The most reliable way to profit on a regular basis is to specialise in a niche you know well. By specialising you’ll come to know which products fetch the highest prices, which are commonly misspelled, which often fetch higher prices on specific eBay country sites, and so on.

* The only really effective way to make non-spelling mistake arbitrage work is to constantly check out last minute auctions with few or no potential bidders and determine how much more profit is waiting on the table due to sellers’ mistakes or oversights. It’s a long job but the rewards can be spectacular.

* Once you find a listing with little time to run and no bidders it’s time to do an Advanced Search on eBay to determine what profit potential might exist should you buy the item to relist it on eBay.

Do this by clicking on ‘Advanced Search’ top of any eBay page, key words to describe your product in the search box, tick ‘Completed Auctions Only’. Then search. To the left of the next page you can choose to search ‘Worldwide’ or restrict your search to the UK or Europe, the latter also including the UK. Right of any page you can choose to search items according to highest prices achieved which is usually the best place to determine potential for a current similar product listing.

* When you find arbitrage opportunities, look at other items from the same seller. Many will make mistakes throughout all their listings, such as repeating their spelling mistakes, using poor photographs and incorrect categories, and more. Not only will you find some sellers a regular source of arbitrage opportunities, you’ll also find most give discount shipping on multiple products. So you could obtain several smaller items, normally costing £1 or so to post individually, can be posted in one parcel for a few pounds more.

* The best arbitrage opportunities exist with unprofessional sellers, people who continuously use poor photographs or list in the wrong categories; sellers who list only in their own country and never overseas on potentially a more effective eBay site; people using a template with a spelling mistake or template error that’s existed from day one and was never corrected. Keep careful notes of these sellers’ eBay IDs and refer to them often.

* Look for auctions that end while most of the world sleeps when some amazing buys are possible. As for other mistakes there are some sellers who constantly end auctions when no-one is bidding purely because they are repeating a one-time mistake that has never been corrected. This is an easy mistake to make and all but the most professional sellers may take weeks or months to spot their mistakes. For example, I once listed one hundred plus items on eBay, all on a Friday evening, all with intention to sell seven days later, also on a Friday evening. Friday evening is the end of many people’s working week and the time many people relax by bidding on eBay. I was listing many same theme items that evening and I know it’s a good idea to leave a short time between listings to give multiple buyers time to move between auctions to check their bids. Five minutes is long enough between listings to make sure people can easily bid on subsequent items, so I timed my listings to end at five minute intervals. Starting 8pm, I listed 100 items plus, at five minute intervals, which means my last fifty or so ended long after midnight! Not a good idea!

But this is a mistake you want others to make for you to capitalise upon. Again, it’s all down to physically checking auction ending times for products you might resell and be sure to add all items within a specific time frame to your ‘Items Item Watching’ category. Thankfully, you don’t need to wait up all night to bid on your chosen items, you can use sniping software to bid in your absence.

* ‘Speed’ sniping is the process of seeking BUY IT NOW arbitrage opportunities within minutes of items being listed and long before the seller realises the mistake or someone else has chance to bid. This normally works best for specialised sellers in specific niche markets. You’ll often find items available Buy It Now or Best Offer which regularly fetch far more on auction listings. This is because people get caught up in the thrill of bidding at auction and chase items they don’t really need or want just to prevent someone else winning them. The bottom line is they end up paying much more and having to wait for the auction to end than a similar product being offered Buy It Now and available by return post.

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