Finding Hot Products – Sourcing Strategies

If you have gone through your house and have been listing off your odds and ends, by now you should be mostly sold out of them. Now it is time to start searching for items to go out and buy to get listed. You should now be a master at completed item research, and as you go out and hunt for deals it will prove to be invaluable.

Now is the time to go to the mall, outlet malls and storefronts on an inventory hunt. The ideal situation at this point is to find inventory from a store that is having a clearance sale. Stores that are already discount orientated such as outlet malls, TJ Maxx, Ross, Marshalls and Nordstrom Rack are the perfect stores to visit when sales are taking place. Take a pen and paper and as you spot deals, write them down. Take quick snapshots if you have a camera phone. At this point, you are just seeing what's out there. Already having a good idea of eBay Pulse will give you a good idea what to start looking for in the store.

When you go home, make a list of deals that you found while browsing around. With your list, you are now ready to find out which deals are keepers and which ones are not. Go through each item on your list and perform some completed item research on eBay. This will tell you if the items are selling or not and what they sell for on eBay. Once you have determined which items are profitable to buy (after listing fees), then go back to the stores and pick up the items you want to start selling.

Buy multiples of the profitable items if possible. Selling multiples of an item you only have to list once makes you more money and saves you time.

Can this be profitable or is it just a waste of time? Doing this same strategy we found a $9 pair of jeans at Marshalls and sold them on eBay for $100.

Once you get the hang of it, you really get to see what you can sell on eBay for a profit. Start making relationships with the store managers and clear out old inventory for them. Usually they are more than happy for you to move their old stock for them if they still sell well on eBay.