eBay Jewelry Reselling for Beginners: The $100 Strategy! - Episode #63

[00:00:00] Desiree- Welcome to the Jewelry Resellers Podcast, your go-to source for all things shiny, sparkly, and of course profitable. I'm your host Desiree and I'll be your guide on this dazzling journey through the world of reselling jewelry.

[00:00:15] We'll be diving deep into the art and science of reselling, uncovering valuable tips, insider secrets, and sharing stories from successful jewelry resellers. We'll explore market trends, industry news, and even discuss how to find those hidden gems just waiting to be discovered in thrift stores, estate sales, and beyond.

[00:00:37] So if you're dreaming of turning your hobby into a hustle or if you're a seasoned pro looking to stay at the top of your jewelry reselling game, join me each week for insights, stories, and more on the Jewelry Resellers Podcast.

[00:00:54] Desiree- Hello and welcome to another episode of the podcast. I am your Jewelry reselling bestie. My name is Desiree and today we are going to talk about how to get started selling jewelry on eBay with only $100.

[00:01:10] Now I was having this conversation with someone a couple weeks ago and someone asked me Desiree if you had to start all over and you only had $100 and you wanted to be a jewelry reseller or you wanted to start a jewelry reselling business, exactly how

[00:01:26] would you go about doing that? And so I've been thinking about this for a couple of weeks now and I think I have a plan and I'm going to share that plan with you today.

[00:01:38] So if you are a beginner or if you've been thinking about this but maybe you don't have a lot of money to start, maybe you don't know exactly where or how to start, I'm going to give you a step-by-step guide to starting a jewelry reselling business

[00:01:58] on eBay with $100. So that's going to be the challenge. Alright, so if you are new here, I want to say welcome and thank you so much for choosing to hang out with me for the time that we have together.

[00:02:12] And another thing that's going to help you if you are just getting started is my list of the 20 best-selling vintage jewelry brands that I think all resellers should know about. Now when you sign up for the newsletter and if this is something that you

[00:02:31] seriously are thinking about doing either as a business or even as a hobby, you want to get your hands on a copy of this list, okay? So all you got to do is head on over to the website that is jewelry resellerspodcast.com. That's jewelry resellerspodcast.com.

[00:02:50] I will also have a link in the show notes or if you are listening to this on YouTube, I will have a link to that in the description of the video. Alright, so let's get back to today's topic and that is how to start selling

[00:03:07] jewelry on eBay with only $100. Now I know that's not really enough for you to say, hey I can quit my job and become a jewelry reseller with only $100. Now eventually you can get to that point and we've talked about that on the podcast.

[00:03:26] I actually did a whole episode on when is it time for you to become a full-time jewelry reseller but that's not where we're at today. Today we are talking about someone fresh on the scene trying to figure out how to do this

[00:03:45] or maybe you just want to test this out. Maybe you sell on eBay in another category but you want to test out jewelry and see if you can really make this work and you don't want to spend a whole lot of money

[00:03:59] investing in jewelry up front because you don't know. You don't know if it's going to work out. You don't know if it's going to be something you actually enjoy doing and then you want to make sure that it's something you can stick to doing once you get started.

[00:04:14] Alright, so let's go ahead and tackle this step-by-step guide that I've created here. And you know knowing what I know now I would make a lot of different choices than what I did when I initially started because when I started I really didn't know what I was doing.

[00:04:35] Now I sold my own personal jewelry. I've sold or I've shared that story that when I first started selling jewelry I sold my own stuff and so I kind of already had inventory in that sense but

[00:04:50] I still didn't really know how to be a successful profitable jewelry reseller and I want to give you the information today that hopefully will start you off on a much better track than the one that I started on.

[00:05:08] Alright, so the first step we want to really examine and take our time with is number one market research and planning. Now this is going to be huge. You really want to research the type of jewelry you want to sell

[00:05:30] or you can just actually research jewelry in general on eBay. It is a massive category but it will give you an idea of what types of jewelry is selling. Maybe there's a particular niche that you want to focus on

[00:05:47] and that's going to be something you want to identify up front and I recommend you do choose a niche. Now for the most part people usually start with selling pre-owned jewelry whether it's vintage, whether it's antique, whether it's costume.

[00:06:09] Most of most people that I know start selling some form of pre-owned or even in some cases estate jewelry. Okay, so you want to identify what exactly is the type of jewelry you want to sell

[00:06:24] and then you want to research that on eBay because you want to see what types of pieces are selling for the most money and maybe some things that you should consider looking out for if you are trying to you know gather up some inventory

[00:06:41] or maybe seeing what you have on hand in your own personal collection because that's what I did. All right, so identify your niche, determine what type of jewelry you want to sell. Now like I said you can do vintage, costume, handmade or even trendy jewelry pieces.

[00:07:01] Now that's becoming really popular. You know people are buying those what I like to call fast jewelry pieces in the sense that they're not super high quality but they look like a lot of the more higher end brands and designs of jewelry.

[00:07:18] Although they are a much cheaper price some people like to do that. So figure out exactly what type of jewelry you want to sell and what do you think you can find or what do you think you can have you know you have easy access to.

[00:07:36] Now the other thing you want to focus on is making sure that you are choosing a niche that is interesting to you as well as a niche that is in demand on eBay.

[00:07:49] Now you can research solds of anything on eBay and you can sort or filter the search results to start with highest you know or most you know most I think it's recently sold or something like that. So you want to look at all of that.

[00:08:11] You want to see what is selling now and what is selling for the highest price because one thing that you will know about eBay even if you don't sell on there or if you don't already know this things that sell for the most

[00:08:29] or the highest price may not always be the things that sell the quickest. And this is unique to jewelry although it could be any category really but sometimes you have to find things that sell quickly and that sell for a good price.

[00:08:43] Okay so you need to do this research because if you don't do this research it'll be really hard for you to stay within that hundred dollar budget that we are challenging ourselves with as it relates to doing this.

[00:08:57] All right the other thing you want to research is I don't know if I should call them competitors per se but you want to look at other successful jewelry sellers or resellers who do sell on eBay.

[00:09:09] Now as you all know I am not 100% selling on eBay because I like to do live selling but I do have some things still listed on eBay. I wouldn't consider myself one of the most successful jewelry resellers on eBay

[00:09:26] but you can find them there's lots of jewelry sellers out there especially if you go on YouTube and just type in you know jewelry reseller or selling jewelry on eBay those types

[00:09:38] of things and you want to look at exactly what it is they're selling and then if you can find maybe their eBay store you want to look at their pricing their product descriptions or their item descriptions item specifics and their photos.

[00:09:57] Okay so you want to look at how some of these people are listing their jewelry on eBay and you want to make sure that you know you're doing the best you can as it relates to

[00:10:09] creating good quality listings on eBay because that's going to be key and that's going to be super important for you to do this okay and it will take some time for you to learn.

[00:10:22] All right so this challenge is going to be a learning process in the sense where you may or may not have everything figured out right away and it may take you some time to find some inventory within this challenge budget. All right so understand that this is probably

[00:10:43] not something that's going to be getting rich quickly not that anything about eBay is that but you know what I'm saying it's like I just want you to have realistic expectations when you're starting this and understand that this is all part of the learning process.

[00:11:02] All right so step number two is to figure out our budget all right so we are talking about inventory now because we are doing this hundred dollar challenge this is going to be tough but

[00:11:16] it can be done I'm telling you it can be done because sometimes I have found my best pieces of jewelry in some of the I don't want to say cheap per se but I guess cheap is the best

[00:11:31] way to say it in in really cheap jewelry lots and that might be the best way to start this just so you can learn. Now the thing about buying lots is that it's really hit or miss

[00:11:44] you may get a bunch of junk and you may not even get one piece that you know one piece in the lot that's worth selling so it is taking a huge risk but the thing about buying

[00:11:56] jewelry in a bulk lot is that you get a lot more stuff for a much more cost effective price but again it's really taking a chance because you don't have any idea what you're going to get and I've had you know bulk boxes of jewelry some have been

[00:12:18] amazing and others have been nothing but literal junk all right so again take that into consideration if that's going to be the the decision you make because you can buy a box of bulk jewelry for anywhere from 30 to maybe 75 100 dollars okay so if you are just willing

[00:12:43] to take a chance because you said hey I'm learning I just want to get started and see see what I get then that's the great attitude and you have a really realistic expectation as

[00:12:54] it relates to what you can you know get or what you may get in your bulk lot purchase but for the sake of this challenge I'm going to say you want to allocate about anywhere from

[00:13:07] 60 to 70 dollars for purchasing your initial inventory whatever that is now you can also wholesale some jewelry where you can find pieces for um you know maybe two dollars each and you can buy I don't know maybe 20 30 40 50 pieces whatever the thing is is you have to make

[00:13:29] sure that that type of jewelry is in demand and that it is something that people are actually looking for and make sure that it's something you actually can sell okay because here's the

[00:13:42] other thing you also want to put aside a little bit of money for your packaging supplies all right now you can find this stuff on ebay you can also buy it I've even seen

[00:13:55] bubble mailers and packing tape at Dollar Tree Walmart so you don't have to spend a lot but you will need some stuff so you want to put aside maybe I'll say about 20 ish dollars maybe 25 depending you know just so you can get maybe you know 10 bubble mailers

[00:14:20] or something like that just to get you started because remember we're starting from scratch here so we don't have anything all right so you're going to have to allocate money for purchasing your initial inventory and that's why I said anywhere from 60 to maybe 70 dollars for that

[00:14:37] and then you want to put some money aside for your packaging materials bubble wrap padded mailers like I said maybe some small boxes and I think you're going to need to spend anywhere from 20

[00:14:49] to 25 dollars on that of course you may not need to maybe you can recycle some things that you already have maybe you already have this stuff and you don't need to spend it

[00:14:58] but if you're if you don't have it then you do need to take that into consideration as well the other thing that you are going to have to not necessarily put aside money for but remember

[00:15:12] eBay does charge fees so depending on exactly well because I'm thinking if you're just going to list on eBay and you don't have a store you don't have to worry about you know store

[00:15:29] fees and stuff like that and if you're just going to do buy it now then you don't have to worry about the fee until the item actually sells but if you're going to do an auction I

[00:15:40] do believe you have to pay a fee upfront for that it's not that much but you know still it's something to take into consideration all right but just remember eBay is going to take

[00:15:50] fees and then if you want to promote your jewelry items that's going to cost you upfront as well all right I don't recommend doing that as a beginner you just want to make sure that you're selling items that people actually want and that your listings and your photos

[00:16:07] attract the right buyer who is looking for those particular items that you are selling okay so don't worry about promoting right now especially if you're just getting started let's just learn the basics of what we need to know in order to get this up and running

[00:16:24] okay so step three is going to be inventory this is always the thing that seems to be a challenge for a lot of people because you know it's not easy to find good jewelry just

[00:16:38] everywhere but there's a lot of places you can go thrift stores which you know I love to go to yard sales bulk lots we already mentioned that earlier and you can buy those online at a variety of places even on eBay online marketplaces you know things like craigslist

[00:16:58] Facebook marketplace and maybe even places local to you I've talked about this before maybe pond shops maybe auctions maybe estate sales all of these things right so there's lots and here's

[00:17:14] the thing I just went to an estate sale last week and the lady had a lot of jewelry there now it wasn't really anything special it just looked like costume jewelry but everything she

[00:17:25] had there was a dollar so if I buy it for a dollar maybe I can sell it for five dollars you know for a pair of earrings whatever you know and you can get started that way

[00:17:40] right and you can also learn about the jewelry as you're growing your business or as you are learning about how eBay works or how certain types of jewelry are more in demand maybe you're learning about the different types of vintage costume jewelry whatever the case may be

[00:17:58] all right step number four is to really evaluate and price your items you want to inspect each piece for any damage or any flaws or anything like that I don't think you really need

[00:18:12] to clean the jewelry unless it's like literally got like gunk on it but if it's like tarnish or something like that or maybe a little bit of dust or something maybe wipe that away

[00:18:26] but I wouldn't spend a whole lot of time cleaning and polishing it unless it was something really high end or something like that but for the most part most jewelry buyers prefer to clean the jewelry themselves or you just like I said you do a quick wiping

[00:18:42] of dust or something like that it doesn't have to be a huge thing okay so but if there are any flaws or damage or missing stones or anything like that make sure that you include that

[00:18:55] in the item listing okay make sure you note that I'm gonna say I don't like to sell jewelry pieces that have flaws or damage but I have sold them and some people repair jewelry on their own

[00:19:12] and so they don't mind that and they like getting a little bit of a discount you know to to find or to buy a jewelry piece that may have some type of flaw to it so you know just

[00:19:26] um just be as I guess as thorough as possible as it relates to the quality of the piece of jewelry that you are selling all right and then you want to make sure your prices are competitive

[00:19:42] again this is where the research comes in make sure that you are looking up similar pieces on ebay what are they selling for what have they sold for what are people asking how many of

[00:19:56] them you know whatever it is how many of those particular things are also listed because if if it's something and there's already 200 of them listed you may want to make sure that your

[00:20:10] pricing isn't too high because no one's going to see your let's say ring if there's already like 200 or 2000 of them already on they're exactly like it okay so that again this is

[00:20:23] where the research comes in all right so you want to look at similar listings on ebay to price your items competitively and consider consider maybe offering free shipping I don't really like to do

[00:20:39] free shipping but I've talked to some people who said that they seem to do really well with it because you know their listings show up higher in the search results because they are offering

[00:20:50] free shipping so think about if you want to do that I don't like doing free shipping I don't think I ever have done free shipping on any jewelry on ebay just because I feel like you

[00:21:04] know because with jewelry it's already kind of small and lightweight anyway you know I just I'd rather not have to worry about free shipping in the event something gets returned or something like that okay but again that's an individual thing think about if it will work

[00:21:23] for your business or not all right number five you want to set up your ebay account if you don't already have one a lot of people I talk to already have an ebay account because

[00:21:34] you know they buy stuff on ebay so if you already have an ebay account as a buyer you can use that same one as a seller as well and then you want to complete your profile

[00:21:45] and if you want to have a photo on there that's fine you don't have to you also want to create a bio on there just so people can get to know you if it is a brand new ebay account

[00:21:59] you know just having a trustworthy profile can increase buyer confidence especially if you don't have any feedback okay so if you don't have any feedback I will tell you you probably want to shop and buy a few things on ebay just so you can get some feedback as

[00:22:14] a buyer so you don't have a feedback of zero you know at least you'll have something showing that you've been on ebay for a while and that you know you understand how the platform works

[00:22:27] all right step number six is all about listing your items I've talked about this too you really want to have good quality photos now you can use your smartphone or a good camera

[00:22:39] or a basic digital camera whatever whatever you have access to a lot of us use our phone because the phones nowadays are really fantastic with taking clear photos that are sharp you want to make sure that you have good lighting and taking photos from the jewelry with multiple

[00:22:59] angles the front the back if there is any damage or flaw you want to include a picture of that too okay and make sure your background is neutral you don't want anything crazy or busy

[00:23:10] or anything that kind of takes away from the item that you're photographing now you also want to write detailed descriptions again you want to fill out as many of the item specifics as you

[00:23:23] can and and depending on what it is that you're selling you'll see that there are a lot of item specifics and you want to make sure you fill that out because that is how people are

[00:23:34] going to find your items okay and you want to make sure you use keyword rich listings or titles rather and in your description as well whatever you think potential buyers might

[00:23:47] search for that's what you want to have in your title okay all right now I did write this on the list although if you are brand new I don't really recommend you use ebay promotions because

[00:24:03] it does cost and if you're just getting started you may not want to spend the money for that just yet okay but if you if you are already an established ebay seller and you're just

[00:24:14] trying to test out the jewelry category you may want to promote your listings or have a markdown event or whatever so again that's going to be do at your own risk but if you are brand new starting from scratch I don't recommend it at least not yet

[00:24:32] the other thing too is you want to make sure you promote once you get your listings live on ebay you want to promote them in some way now you can do that on social media that's what a lot of us do and ebay also has integrations with

[00:24:49] I think Facebook Instagram and Pinterest so eBay does have a way for you to share your listings directly you just have to link your social media accounts or you can do it manually you can copy and paste the link and share it

[00:25:09] on Twitter or wherever and yeah you want to make sure people can find your items okay and do whatever you can to help them get seen all right my next step is all about

[00:25:23] customer service and shipping all right so you want to make sure you ship your items quickly I have always had a one day one business day shipping time for as long as I've sold on ebay

[00:25:35] because I don't know I just feel like that's the best for me and the buyer usually I can I can get a package out within 24 hours you know one business day and you want to make sure you respond to questions quickly if somebody asks you something

[00:25:53] about you know whatever it is whatever you're selling and make sure that you don't leave those buyer messages unanswered because because eBay likes to see that you are responding promptly to any type of questions or anything you know that the buyers may have all right

[00:26:15] step number nine is to make sure you monitor and adjust you want to track your performance all right so you want to use eBay's analytic tools and track your views your sales your performance

[00:26:32] maybe adjust your pricing if you see that certain things are not quite going the way you want them to your listing titles your descriptions you know you want to adjust all

[00:26:41] of that based on what works best so you can look at what's sold if you go back in your I think it's called my eBay and I don't know if it's still called the seller dashboard I can't

[00:26:57] remember but anyway you know your back end of eBay and you will find all of those analytics and you can figure out you know what is working and you can even see how many people

[00:27:07] are seeing you know your items too so you can say hey this one got a lot of views but it didn't sell you know let me go take a look at this listing and what can I change or what can

[00:27:19] I improve all right and then my last step is to when you make that money you want to reinvest into your business so whatever money you're making off of this initial hundred dollars you're going to take that money and you're going to buy more inventory and you're

[00:27:39] going to do this all over again so you don't want to you know pay your bills or you know go to lunch with your eBay profits because if you're trying to do this as a business you

[00:27:55] want to reinvest that money back into buying more inventory maybe you need to buy more shipping so you know shipping supplies okay so you don't want to make the money and then use

[00:28:08] it for something else no you want to use it to reinvest back into your business until you can get it up to where you need it to be all right so remember we're starting this with just a hundred

[00:28:19] dollars that's the challenge and hopefully we make more than that or we at least get our money back but then we have more knowledge to buy better inventory more inventory so we can do this all again now typically jewelry doesn't have a really fast sell-through rate but the

[00:28:44] more that you do this you will continuous you know continuously turn over your inventory if you are buying items that people want okay and that are priced fairly things that are in good condition all of that okay but jewelry isn't something that typically sells very quickly

[00:29:04] unless you have something very very rare or very very unique that a lot of people are searching for all right so some additional tips for you are to stay organized make sure you keep detailed

[00:29:16] records of your purchases your sales and all of your expenses so every time you go shopping for inventory make sure you are either saving your receipts if you bought it from a thrift

[00:29:26] store or if you went to a estate sale or maybe a yard sale where not all the time they give you a receipt just write down you know the date how much you how much you purchase you know

[00:29:41] the dollar amount and then you can kind of put the neighborhood of where you were you know where the estate sale was or where the yard sale was just so you can track all of this

[00:29:51] for when you do your taxes because a lot of this travel and stuff is going to be deductible for you all right you also want to learn to build a brand as you grow consider branding

[00:30:02] your ebay store all right a lot of ebay resellers do this you know especially on youtube there's a lot of jewelry resellers who brand their youtube channels to match their ebay store

[00:30:17] so you can do that too you don't have to do that but again it's just another way to promote your items and hopefully get your items sold quicker get your items out there on as many eyes

[00:30:31] or get as many eyes on your items as possible all right and finally you want to stay up to date you know you want to keep an eye on the jewelry trends and the market demand so you can make sure

[00:30:42] that the type of jewelry pieces you are listing are things that people actually want and that you are you know really just knowledgeable about what's working at the time now you know like I

[00:30:54] said jewelry is a massive category and it's not always easy to um you know really figure it out because it's so overwhelming you know especially if like let's say you want to do vintage jewelry

[00:31:08] well that's huge and and there's so much as it relates to vintage jewelry all right so you may just need to start out selling whatever you can find and maybe your niche will find

[00:31:21] you instead of you trying to figure out what niche you want to sell on or sell in rather okay so by following these steps and maintaining a focus on quality good customer service and strategic marketing you can successfully start and grow a jewelry reselling business on ebay with

[00:31:39] just 100 remember we are just talking about getting started all right eventually you are going to turn this hundred dollars into what I would like to see as a thriving successful growing jewelry reselling business okay it can be done and for some of you you may be able

[00:32:02] to do this with even less than 100 like I did because I sold jewelry from my own personal collection so if that's the case then you can sell the jewelry that you have in your own

[00:32:16] personal collection but still use the hundred dollars to buy more and now you're starting your business with even more inventory you know had you not had your own stuff to you

[00:32:27] know kick things off with all right so that is the challenge and this is the plan if you are interested in doing something like this but I am telling you it can be done it can be done

[00:32:42] it's not something that will happen quickly like I said but you can get started doing this without a whole lot of money and I in a lot of ways I believe that it's best to do

[00:32:53] that because sometimes when you have thousands of dollars or even a few hundred dollars to buy inventory and you don't know anything about jewelry or you don't know anything about what's selling what's in demand on eBay you could end up making a lot of mistakes

[00:33:10] you know very expensive mistakes and so sometimes not having money to start a business is a blessing because it forces you to really up your knowledge game and do the research so you understand exactly what it is you're getting into what people are looking for

[00:33:31] and how you you specifically can be successful at this all right so that is going to be it for this episode I hope it was helpful and I hope that it inspired some of you who have been

[00:33:46] thinking about this to go ahead and give it a go like I said I broke it down so you know exactly what you need to think about what you need to focus on and again you don't need a lot

[00:33:58] of money so I would love to get your feedback and some of your ideas on doing this have you started a eBay reselling business or or even a jewelry business with say a hundred dollars

[00:34:12] or less I would love to know your experience and maybe you can share you know maybe some tips that could help all of us and if you do have any questions comments concerns or

[00:34:23] observations please leave them in the comment section and I want to thank you so much for spending this time with me I will check in with you again really soon