What a Teenager Can Sell on eBay

Some of you may be aware that my oldest child graduated from high school in 2012. She has had some extra time to help me with my eBay and Amazon business, and is doing an internship to learn this business. One way to teach her eBay (as with all my students), was to have her sell her own unwanted and unneeded items for practice. Just for fun, I had her keep a journal of all the items she sold that were already here in our home and therefore did not have an inventory cost.

I was really surprised to see the total profit (from April - December) was just shy of $1,000. ($912.51 to be exact.) Keep in mind that I have been selling on eBay since 2003 and Amazon since 2008. I thought I was staying on top of selling everything "sellable" in my home. I was pleasantly surprised to see some of the things she successfully sold that I had overlooked. Sometimes it takes someone with a different perspective to uncover new and interesting information. After a few successful sales, this industrious young lady was looking through every drawer, cabinet, and closet in the house with iPhone in hand looking up values on the eBay app. Here is what she found and profit from each sale:

These totals may not seem impressive, but this is good money for a teenager. She pays her own car insurance, cell phone bill, buys her own gas, her own clothing, and pays for her own entertainment (eating out, movies, etc.). Those dollars and pennies add up over time! While some of her friends are complaining about not getting enough hours at their fast food and retail jobs, she is working as much as she can to save money and be independent.
 
I have also been teaching her how to purchase thrift store items for resale, and am proud to say she is making several hundred dollars a month, on her own, without my assistance. She is already selling on consignment for her friends and has built her eBay account to 100 feedbacks in just a few months. She has also learned to ship internationally, which is really pretty easy, and has shipped to over 2 dozen countries already. Shipping internationally is the #1 way to increase your eBay sales without any extra work or expense. Check out my eBay International Shipping Tutorial here.)

Selling on eBay is a skill, and I think a very valuable skill for our young people. We live in a world of abundance and our culture is all about "accumulating." What if we could teach more kids the skill of reselling? The could learn to be more self-reliant early in life and use the resources around them along with technology to be self-sufficient. Yeah, I'm pretty proud!

Related articles:

Thrift store items to sell on eBay

Sell It, Trade It, Get It Free - A Young Person's Guide to Making Money Online

Join my Facebook Group