How to buy iPhone 5s cheap and resell it for profit?

The best way of finding items with great value is to look for auctions on eBay. Especially if the seller’s rating is quite low, you will get less competition since other buyers might be scared to risk purchasing the item of him.

For example, type in iPhone 5s in search on eBay and select the option: auction. Scroll down until you find phones that are not faulty and add them to the watchers list. It is not worth placing a bid on them since you do not want to the price of the item to go up. Your aim is to get it as cheap as possible. Please find the picture below to see the details of the phone and the seller that I found.  

The con of this phone is that it is locked to EE. However, you can unlock it for £20. I have highlighted the key areas. Even though, the seller only has 4 feedbacks, he has sold 3 items in the past 6 months. Auction is ending at 6:42PM on Wednesday. It is easier to purchase items when auctions are finishing early in the morning or late at night when there are fewer buyers online. What you will need to do is just to log in at 6:30PM and check if the price has not gone up too much. If you research the market, you will notice that the value of locked iPhone 5S 16GB Grey is about £100-£150. You do not want to pay anything more than £100 including the postage fee (£5.50).

If you resell the same phone on eBay for £150, eBay will charge you £15, PayPal fees will be £5.20 and postage with recorded delivery will be another £4.45 if you choose Royal Mail. I would not recommend you using MyHermes since you would have to pay even more if you want to add more than £20 insurance on your item.

That would make you £25.35 profit. If you can sell it on Gumtree for £130 and offer a pick up option – that would be even better.    

You need to be aware that scammers exist on eBay. Most of the time, scammers create new accounts and have low feedback. You need to be especially careful that the item location is United Kingdom. However, you could escalate a case through PayPal and get a refund if something goes wrong and eBay does not help you.

Selling strategies on eBay

You are now a business seller and willing to make profit. You can choose between two selling strategies or do both:

•          High volume, small margin low cost goods
•         Low volume, high margin expensive goods

As I mentioned before the best place to order goods in bulk is Aliexpress. You will need to research the market first, and check the supply and demand. 

You should not miss sales and black Friday deals on Amazon (for example headphones, power-banks, game consoles).

It is a common practice to buy clothes in the high street stores that are for sale and resell them online. There are many sellers who take pictures of clothes, list them on eBay and only purchase the product when it sells on eBay. However, it is quite risky since the products might run out of stock or the price might go up causing a loss in case it gets sold on eBay. People also like buying items in the car boots sales. That is a great chance to get a bargain and resell it on eBay. However, it is very time consuming.

Nowadays used phones (especially iPhones) are in high demand on eBay. However, you are at risk in case the phone you purchase might have been in water and stop working after a few months (it would be a huge problem if you are not fast enough to sell it or even a bigger problem if it stops working when the customer receives it).

There are always customers who pretend that they have not received the item. If you send something worth more than £10, you should consider sending it with a tracking number to secure yourself from unfair customers. eBay never stands up for sellers and asks for a tracking number if the customer opens “item is not received case”. Please find the price list for postage within UK below. 

If the items you sell are big and heavy, you might consider sending it with other couriers who might offer a better price and a proof of postage. I will write more about it in my next blog. I will also provide a full list of items that could be sold on eBay with a shipping guide and profit calculations.

From zero to hero – becoming a business seller and eBay top rated seller.

As a private seller, you do not need to offer return policy and be more flexible with your sales. However, if you start selling in bulk, you will cut your costs becoming eBay business seller.

Please see the picture below for fees that apply to private sellers. 

Once you become a business seller, new rates apply and you can cut your costs down. Please see the picture below for more details. Detailed description of basic, featured and anchor shops will be posted in the next blog. 

Once you have boosted your feedback to at least 50 – hopefully all positive, you are ready to start trading for bigger profits (it does not matter if feedback is received as a buyer). You should check your selling allowance which is increased automatically by eBay every month.  If you are happy about it, you should become a business seller and enjoy additional benefits. Please note that you need to register as self-employed to HM revenues and customs if you do so. The picture below is an example of selling allowances. This seller can sell up 17,600 items or up to £84,000.00 per month. 

EBay can decrease the selling allowance for poor selling performance. However, if selling performance is at the highest standards and the certain criteria are met, seller can gain “top rated seller” status. 

 Top rated sellers get increased listing visibility and 10% discount towards eBay fees. Please check the table below for the requirements to become eBay Top rated Seller.

How to reduce the chance of getting negative feedback on eBay?

If you sell electronics on eBay, you should be ready for negotiating with customers to avoid neutral or negative feedback. The best way is to prepare some drafts for recurring problems.

For example, when people buy cables, the most common problems are error messages and failure to charge the device. However, following these simply steps, returned products rate has been decreased by 90%. It has saved not just money but also helped to avoid bad feedback that might have been a disaster for sales.

I will provide you with some drafts that were efficient solving the problems:

Thank you for your message. I am sorry that your cable is not working. To help you to resolve the issue, could you answer a few questions please:

     What is the model of your device?

     Has an error message appeared when you tried to charge your device?

     Have you tried to turn the cable plug that goes into the phone/iPad the other way around, since these cables are only able to charge the devices if they are inserted the right way in.

Regards,

For error messages:

Method 1:

1. Plug the USB cable to the wall-charger
2. Turn off the iPhone and when you see the loading wheel spinning, plug the charger in the iPhone
3. Let the iPhone be connected to the charger for a while. Do not switch it on
4. After about 15 minutes, turn it on your iPhone. Dismiss the warnings
5. The charging should mostly continue without a problem

Method 2: 

1.  Plug in USB power to wall-charger
2.  Then connect USB cable to iPhone
3. 
Dismiss any warnings
4.  Unlock your iPhone so you get to the “Home Screen”
5.  Dismiss any remaining warnings
6.  Unplug the fake “Knock Off” USB cable
7.  Followed by plugging it back in.
8.  Dismiss warning again
9.  It should now charge.

Let’s start selling but before…

Once you receive your items, you need high quality pictures for your listing. It is advised to find the picture online instead of taking your own picture. Please be careful that the uploaded picture would not violate copyright rules since your listing might be taken down and affect your account in a negative way.

As an example the picture below on the left violates Apple’s copyrights. Your listing would be taken down. However, if you list headphones using the picture on the right, you would not violate the rules unless the customers would complain to Apple and provide the proof (not very likely to happen).

                                   

When you submit a listing, please use the phrase: for Apple iPhone. Do not state that it is genuine when it is not since that is a criminal offence and you might face more serious consequences than just having your listing taken down.

It is very important to add the key words to increase visibility. As an example you can set the title as: High Quality USB Charger Cable Data For iPhone 5/5S/6/6Plus/6S Plus

From the personal experience, I would suggest you selling those items in auction. You should either choose 7 or 10 days until your listings ends. The best day and time for auction to finish is about 9-11PM on Sunday.  You can sell a few items a day as long as there is at least 30 minutes gap (recommended 1 hour) gap in between the listings. You should keep an eye on your competitors by searching through eBay when your competitor’s auctions end. You do not want your listings to end at the same time.

Please note that sellers from overseas are not your direct competitors since your customers want the item quick and they are ready to pay more for it. Please find the picture attached below as a great example of indirect competitors from China and United States.