Getting started selling on eBay is a matter of trial and error. There are hundreds of books available on the process of acquiring inventory to how to list your first item, but there isn't a book out there that will tell you what type of inventory is the best for you and how to acquire it. This is where you're on your own.
There are a lot of things to take into consideration about the type of product you choose to sell that most would be eBay entrepreneurs don't think about when starting up. In no particular order, the first thing is the difficulty of finding a wholesaler for the product you want to sell. The second is the price of buying in bulk. The third is the cost and difficulty of shipping. The most important thing is researching what to sell.
A lot of new sellers make the mistake of deciding on a niche and buying a large amount of product without thinking about the difficulty of shipping or whether or not the product will even sell. Then when they go to list the items, the item either doesn't convert well or the price of shipping and packing materials eats away all of their would be profits.
The most important thing you can do is test sell a small amount of a product before you fall head over hills into buying a large amount of inventory. To start, you should make a list of several products that you think you can sell. Then do your research on the average amount you would make by selling them, and find somewhere that you can acquire the item cheaply. Next, calculate the cost of shipping and packing materials for that item. If you don't own a postal scale, then see what other people are charging for shipping on eBay. Then buy a small amount, or even one item, of the product and try to sell it on your own. Using this method will save you a lot of money in the long run.
