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One of the most recent trends for EBAY sellers is to sell strange and weird items.  Whether true or not, many people say their item is haunted or from some famous estate or person to attract more bidders.  As long as they declare somewhere in their auction that there will not be a COA then the seller cannot be held responsible because they are telling you that they are not 100% positive that the item is haunted or from someone’s estate. It is truly amazing how much extra profit the average seller can make with advertising haunted items or an item that was owned by a famous person before.  I have seen examples like a $10 t-shirt going for over $50 because it might have been owned by Tom Cruise or a “haunted walking stick” going for thousands of dollars. 

Another trend on EBAY is to hold ”mystery auctions”.   EBAY does not allow gambling on their site but this is a way to bend the rules.  What you do is advertise some prizes that you will be giving away in certain envelopes.  Now most people will start with 100-1000 total envelopes and then will randomly insert a small gift card or some other prize so someone does win something.  The key here is selling all of the envelopes that you do have to increase the profit margin.  You do not want to give away a $25 gift card if you only sold 20 $1 envelopes.   To attract more bidders make sure you include a pretty good prize so people will not pass you by for another mystery auction

The final trend that has been occurring on EBAY has been selling just everyday items.  Examples of this would be one roll of toilet paper, a black comb, paper clips or razors to name just a few.  What is needed here is a sob story about something personal.  Either describe some financial difficulties that you are under or that you are raising money for someone else with financial problems.  Although most of the time you will not make a bundle with this method, you can definitely earn more than the item is worth.  One example I seen recently was a guy selling a roll of toilet paper who had been laid off and had 10 kids and needed extra cash or he would not be able to feed the kids.  This auction ended up bringing in $8.50 plus the shipping costs for a roll of toilet paper worth less an dollar.  The trick here is to make sure you are sincere with your story…lots of people are catching on to this method and will make up horror stories to sell something.

So, there you have it.  If you are looking to sell some things around the house on EBAY in the near future, you might want to look at trying some of these methods to increase your profit margin.  Good luck in your selling.