Over the years I have sold thousands of dollars of items online. This is a great way to make some extra cash and also help people out who want to buy something you have and that they need. It is a fun way for me to essentially have a garage sale and make real money before throwing stuff away. But it is not all good and awesome. To be honest I hated it the first time I sold an item online. That is because I was young, and did not do my research. I now see people in their 50's and 30's losing money hand over fist by not understanding what is happening and that is what I want to help everyone out. There are some basic things that lots of people don't think about before they end up selling online and let me tell you the first sale I lost money on. That was a valuable lesson and one I don't want anyone else to go through. So let's dive in.
What you need to know is that if you are selling an item online that you have to get that item to the buyer. Sounds simple, and sounds easy, but have you thought about the cost of doing this. Did you know a roll of tape can be from 5 to 10 dollars? What if you don't have a marker or a label to put on the package. Well then now you have to go out and buy one of those labels or a sharpie as well. But you say I already have that. Ok, but now you have to buy a box or a bag to secure your item to send to the buyer. You may also have to end up buying stuffing to put in that package in order to make sure the item arrives safely. What I am saying is that shipping supplies can cost you a lot of money and if that costs 10 bucks for each item then you need to factor that into your selling.
You not only have to pay for shipping supplies but also the shipping of the item. If that box takes 10 dollars to ship to the client and you spent 10 dollars on the packaging, that is twenty dollars that you lost on that item. Make sure you factor that cost into the cost of selling, but that is not the only cost that comes with selling online.
Most platforms charge 10% and sometimes 15% of the cost of the sale just to use the platform. So every single item sold loses 10% or 15%. Make sure you can take those losses. So if you put an item up for 100 dollars and it sells. The platform takes 15% and that would be 15 dollars of the item. Now you spent 20 dollars to package and ship that item to the individuals. That is now 35 dollars of losses you just took and you are only getting 65 dollars back from that sale. Wow, that is a lot less than 100 dollars. So make sure you know what you will lose and that is not all. There is an extra processing fee from the credit card or digital processor. This is usually 3 to 5% of the sale. So you may now be down to 60 dollars of profit. How much did the item cost you? Don't lose money, be smart and charge accordingly.
