If you’re thinking of selling items online, now is an excellent time to do it. With so many places to sell electronics online, how do you choose the right website? To do this, eBay might be the right website for you.
eBay is one of the most well-known websites in existence. Each day, users from around the world connect to buy and sell all types of items. You can find just about anything on eBay, especially if you’re in the consumer electronics industry.
In this post, we’re going to learn more about refurbished electronics, the benefits of selling them, and how to jumpstart your eBay sales!
What Are Refurbished Electronics?
It’s understandable to assume that there are only two types of electronics: new and used. However, there is another type of electronics that falls into another category, which are refurbished electronics. Refurbished electronics are sort of like hybrids of new and used tech.
Let’s say that someone buys a new smartphone and owns it for about a year before selling it. After selling it, the buyer inspects the phone’s condition and restores a few parts. While the device is used, flipping phones restore these items to like-new states.
You’ll also want to know that not all refurbished products were ever damaged. Customers can return their items for a variety of reasons. And, considering how generous most company’s return policies are, it’s quite easy for customers to send back items.
Someone might return an item because they changed their minds. Others take advantage of certain company’s return policies by owning an item, using it, and sending it back right before the return period ends.
If the item can’t immediately put the product and its package back on the shelf, it can end up on the refurbished market.
A Closer Look at the Refurbishment Process
Whether you want to refurbish electronics or are just curious, you might want to know about the refurbishment process for electronics. First, professionals will test how the device currently performs.
While testing electronics, testers look for any software or hardware issues. If there are any problems, testers repair the device and replace parts as necessary. Testers also need to remove personal data from refurbished devices and update the software of these items.
It’s also important for testers to focus on how the item looks. Therefore, testers often sanitize and wipe down the outside of an electronic device to remove dirt and other types of blemishes.
Depending on who you’re working with, it’s also possible for certain refurbishers to officially grade their items. This grading system will vary based on who you’re working with. But, here’s a look at how typical grading systems work.
If an electronic device is in the best possible condition, it will receive a Grade A rating. Electronics with a small number of minor defects can achieve a Grade B rating. As flaws increase and the performance of an electronic device declines, it achieves lower ratings like a Grade C or D.
Why Should I Sell Refurbished Electronics on eBay?
So, what makes selling refurbished electronics on eBay such a good idea? We’ve got several reasons that you’ll want to check out. Here are three major advantages of selling your refurbished electronics on eBay.
eBay is a Popular Website
When you’re ready to start selling your refurbished electronics, it’s not good to waste time on websites with no traffic. This might lead to your refurbished product listings getting no views, which means no sales. Fortunately, you won’t have this problem on eBay. As of right now, there are about 182 million registered eBay users.
There’s a Huge Market for Refurbished Electronics
To have an easy time selling electronics, you want to sell products that are in demand. Fortunately, many people love refurbished electronics because these items save people money. Instead of paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for a new device, many people would rather buy something refurbished for a fraction of the price.
Making a Nice Profit
At the end of the day, every successful business needs to make profits. By selling refurbished electronics, you’re buying these items at much lower prices than normal. Because these devices come to you in damaged or defective states, you can get them for extremely low prices. After flipping your electronics, they’re ready to sell and provide you with plenty of profits.
Which Types of Refurbished Electronics Should I Start Selling?
Expert electronics resellers spend years perfecting their sourcing and selling processes. So, understandably, you might not know which types of refurbished electronics to start selling. Fortunately, we’ve got several tips on how to find refurbished electronics without stressing yourself out.
Choose Electronics That Are Easy to Ship
It’s easy to start looking at electronic listings and imagine how much you’ll make in profit. However, you don’t want to let these thoughts provide too much of a distraction. It’s also important to think about shipping.
Where are you going to have your electronics delivered? If you want to store lots of items, it’s best to stick with smaller items like smartphones and tablets.
You’ll also want to think about when it’s time for you to ship goods out. Do you want to spend every week moving and transporting heavy electronics to ship to your customers? Or, would you rather ship out more lightweight and smaller boxes?
Most sellers want shipping to be as easy as possible. After all, if things go well with your business, you’re going to spend lots of time getting goods ready to ship out. To make things easy on yourself, we recommend sticking with smaller electronics.
As your business grows, you’ll have plenty of time to work with larger items in the future.
Find Profitable Electronics
One of the most important things to keep in mind when finding electronics is making a profit. Under normal circumstances, you might need to visit an online pricing guide to make sure a seller lists items at fair prices.
Don’t be afraid to spend a decent amount of time checking prices. If you don’t enjoy numbers, it might take time to get used to this. But most buyers and sellers love checking price guides. This is the only way to find all of the potential hidden treasures out in the world.
Since you’re finding electronics to refurbish, you’ll be looking at lots of broken or defective items. This means that most of these items will be priced extremely low. The key to finding profitable electronics is by learning how much these items are worth in refurbished condition.
Select Items You or Your Refurbisher Can Fix
While this might sound obvious to some, it’s easy to forget the importance of only buying what you or someone else can repair. To avoid this problematic situation, make sure you’re checking listing descriptions closely.
In these descriptions, you should find detailed explanations of why a seller’s electronics are defective. If you or someone you’re working with can only refurbish smartphone screens, you don’t want to buy 500 iPhones with charging port issues.
How to Start Selling More Refurbished Electronics on eBay
You might be wondering how some eBay users are able to sell so many more items than other sellers. If you’re a little intimidated by the thought of becoming a new eBay seller, we understand. This is why we’ve put together a few tips to help you start selling refurbished electronics on eBay right away.
Choose Between Auctions or Buy It Now Listings
The first decision you’ll need to make is whether you want your items up for auction or direct sale. To help you make this decision, do you have a set price you want to sell this item for? If so, it’s probably best to take the direct selling or “Buy It Now” option.
On the other hand, you might have electronics that you’re wanting to get rid of quickly. For this situation, it’s best to put these items for auction. You’ll also find that auctions can work well for items in your previous Buy It Now listings that aren’t selling.
We understand if you’re worried about letting something go for too low through auctions. Fortunately, eBay allows you to set a minimum bidding price. When someone wants to bid on your listing, they’ll have to place a bid that matches your minimum bidding requirements.
Look at Sold Listings From the Past
One of the best ways to learn about anything is to study those who have done it. This same principle applies when it comes to increasing your eBay sales. If you want to sell more items, it’s time to look over eBay’s sold listings.
Finding this option is easy. While you’re browsing eBay listings, find the Advanced link in the upper-right hand corner. After clicking this link, you’ll go to a page that has more search options. On this page, look for the checkbox by Sold Listings and click it.
Now, when you search for an item on eBay, you’ll only see sold listings. This is important because it’s a goldmine of information on how to price your electronics. It can also be helpful for deciding whether sellers are charging for shipping or offering free shipping and factoring it in their prices.
Creating a Great Title
There’s no doubt that advertisements are almost everywhere we look. However, you’re seeing more advertisements than you think. Shockingly, research shows that the average person sees 5,000 ads in a single day!
What does this have to do with eBay? The previously mentioned statistic shows how important it is to appeal to customers fast. Fortunately, you can grab an eBay user’s attention with a well-written title for your listing.
Besides your listing’s pictures, the title is one of the first things someone sees when browsing listings on eBay. Considering that, it’s important to place your best pictures at the front of your listing for everyone to see.
Our first piece of advice is to include relevant keywords in your listings. While you might search for a product using certain keywords, there’s no guarantee everyone else will type your exact search into eBay. By including as many relevant keywords as possible in your listings, you’ll get more views and that means more sales.
Another important tip is to use every possible character in your title. You’ll have an 80-character limit, so be sure to make every word count.
Going back to our previous tip, check out sold listings for inspiration. Look at the titles of these listings and see if you notice any patterns. More often than not, you can find a few good words to add to your title.
Be Honest About an Item’s Condition
The next part of creating an eBay listing is writing a description for this product. To start growing your wholesale business, it’s helpful to be as detailed as possible in your listings. If your products have any flaws, this is where you’ll mention them.
If you don’t list important information about your items, and someone buys them, it might not lead to good results. If this keeps happening, you could find your user profile begins filling up with negative reviews. On eBay, nothing scares away a buyer faster than seeing negative reviews about a seller.