Selling Low Cost Items on eBay Profit Calculation
I wanted to find out if it was possible to make any profit selling low cost items on eBay, so I listed an item that I sourced in bulk for about $0.20 cents total after all costs and sold it for $1.99 + $0.50 shipping. The item is small and light and can be mailed in a standard envelope with a postage stamp, no tracking. I add an optional upgrade to the buyer to select first class shipping if they want tracking but after shipping about 10 of these in envelopes, I haven’t had a buyer complain yet of not receiving the items. Here is the breakdown of costs and fees that you will pay to eBay and paypal to generate this sale:
| $2.49 | Item price $1.99 + $0.50 Shipping |
| -$0.50 | – Postage Stamp |
| -$0.38 | – Paypal payment processing |
| -$0.20 | – eBay final value |
| -$0.05 | – eBay shipping fee |
| -$0.20 | – COG (Item, envelope for mail) |
The brings the NET Profit down to a grand total of $1.16 this isn’t going to cover the time investment in setting up the listing for individual items, but if you can sell an item over and over this way from the same listing, it’s possible at high volume that this could be an almost passive income stream, a small trickle at least.
