Another major financial goal that I wanted to achieve this year 2022 is to produce enough various streams of side hustle income. For those of you who are unaware of the term, a Side Hustle is a way for someone to make extra money on the side.

Although it is not something new, side hustling is gaining a lot of traction these days, in fact, many people I know and even personal finance bloggers and Youtubers I follow are actually doing some sort of hustling on their side whether to pay off debt, supplement vacation expenses save for new furniture, electronics and more. Others found so much success that they decided to quit their 9-5 job and make this a full-time gig.

One of the side hustle that I am currently doing is selling on eBay. Yes, I am pretty sure you are familiar with the name. For many, eBay has been a solid way of side hustling while there might be other various ways to make money online

How I Got Started on Bay

I first heard of eBay way back in early 2000 when my brother in law talk about how his best friend fetched a first generation PlayStation console for half the retail price.

After many years of hearing people having success making money selling their items on eBay, I figured I’d try it as well. I used to collect basketball trading cards as a hobby so I put them up for auction. When they got sold I got so excited that I added more cards and shipped them to the buyers. I may have lost some money because I bought new packing materials but I did not care. Having someone win my auction and receiving my first positive feedback was well worth it.

Since 2010 I have completed over 850 transactions. While I may have been successful most of the time I also had my share of failures such as non-paying bidder, items that somehow nobody wants and other hassle that I will never forget. Still, that does not deter me from continuing to sell.

Why eBay?

I've been trying hard to make $2,000 sales a month on eBay and in my side hustling income, I know this is a bit of a challenge because I already have two jobs and having a third one seems a bit of overkill.

Although side hustling requires you to do a bit of work just like any other job, the one advantage that I like is that it offers flexibility – I can do this in my free time and stops when other things need to be prioritized or whenever I want. An example of this is a friend of mine who sells her stuff after putting her baby to sleep.

The 2 Reasons -- Why I choose eBay as a side hustle

  • Exposure: There is no better way for me to unload my junk than selling them online. I have tried using local buy-sell apps (something like Craigslist) in the past but I only had a few sales, I also had to deal with lots of interested buyers only to flake out on the day we were supposed to do the sale. At least on eBay, there are literally millions and ten million buyers in the world, imagine if your listing includes shipping worldwide.
  • Ease of Us: Since I have been using eBay for a while listing items up for auction is simple. I do however take the time to do a bit of research, take photos, and write a description but once I got everything in order I am all set. On average it takes me less than 10 minutes to do a post online.

My plan, for now, is to first sell whatever is lying around my storage unit.

There are a lot of things that I have no use for anymore and some are just excess stock way back when I used to have an online business many years ago. Right now I got tons of retro DVDs and CDs that I am dying to get rid of and a few collectibles and clothing.

Once all my stuff is gone, I will then move on to looking at things from garage sales, discount stores (Marshall or Ross), and thrift stores that I could resell.

Here is a little ground rule that I set for myself

  • The only place that I am going to sell my stuff is through eBay, I may try to do Craigslist or Amazon in the future but for now, I am sticking to a marketplace that I feel comfortable using.
  • I only sell items that are just sitting in a storage unit that I rent. I go to garage sales or discount stores on occasion but will only do so if I have enough time to since I don’t have a car to visit more than two.
  • Since I live on the West Coast, I start my auction at 4:30 PM PST to target potential buyers from the East and end at 8:30 PM every Sunday. I pack on Monday and Tuesday and send them Wednesday, and Thursday.
  • Pricing is based on completed/sold listing research. I don’t limit my option to 7-day auctions only, If I know that the item will sell for a certain amount of money I will use a Buy-It-Now feature or entertain the best offer.

My Progress So Far - $2,000 A Month Profit Goal

I started stocking more items at the start of September 2022. Out of the 126 items I listed, I sold 79 of them. Unfortunately, I do not have the original price on most of the stuff that I sold so basically whatever I earn after fees will be the profit that will be recorded. For the month of January, here is my selling summary

Payments received $2,748.21

eBay Fees $212.18

Paypal Fees: $132.00

Shipping Fees $820.57

New Inventory: $350.00

Profit/Loss $1,514.54 (including the cost for add-on inventory)

$ Goal Remaining $485.46

So all in all my expense total for the month of September is $350.00. My profit is in green although it falls short of about half a thousand dollars to my monthly goal. Hope to get more in October.

How about you? Have you done any side hustling lately?