How I Make Money On Ebay Part One

I served in the US Army right out of high school, during peacetime, I studied hard and made soldier of the quarter during basic training. (I did it for the befits which lasted a life time ohh and the weekend pass) When I got out of the service, I found myself floundering from job to job... Then came hurricane Hugo, my step father and I with the help of 10 guys took a tractor trailer of building materials and chainsaws down to South Carolina... where I stayed after and got a great roofing job, which I hated and didnt do well at since I dont like heights... I did it but didnt like it...

Well I found a job selling cars, I loved it, studied hard and made very good money at it for many years, the only problem was my drinking... Now after a few days strung together I have not had a drink in a few years.

Homeless at one point from my drinking I found AA, learned that the car industry was very dangerous to me, that king of the hill lifestyle caused me to fall into old habits quickly... but I needed to make a living, and sales seemed to be the only thing I was good at...

i had a bunch of dead end jobs that kept me in this or that rooming house. then I found an ad on the internet, selling vacations!!! wow, are you kidding me I can sit in my room and make money on the internet... back then you could list time share certificates (which I didnt understand) at the time I really thought people got a vacation from what I sold... Well I started with 3 day packages, and the checks started flowing in... sometimes people sent me cash right through the mail... as it turned out this was a scam, I honestly didnt know it when I was selling them...

Next Came Adult Movies

So before I turned my life over to God, I got out of the vacation business, just as eBay was restricting the sale of these packages to travel agents. I found a place to buy adult dvds for 75 cents each, I listed them on ebay and sold them for 4 bucks each...

This was fine, but God tugged at my heart strings, and I gave it up... then I tried building and selling websites, and hosting, I rode every wave there was but never clicked with any of them... I even had "legal weed" which is not so legal anymore...

For years I didnt sell on ebay, drifted around, but the always looked around for that one scam or con job that would pay off big for me... I call them scams and con jobs because we all have seen their ads... get rich fire your boss tomorrow...

I tried multi level marketing... I tried anything including going back to selling cars for a few days before I started hanging out with the guys after work at the bars... no I didnt pick up a drink...

I was living on my bike, floating from here to there, a very carefree life style, when I got a call from my mother asking me to come home and help with dad, he had Alzheimer's and was getting bad.. So being the good son LOL by far I was the most trouble of all my brothers and sisters... I headed home to help mom out it was the least I could do for all the trouble I gave her over the years...

Dad was a full time job until he passed away, I miss him and the crazy things he did to keep me on my toes... but he slept alot and I was bored, I decided to try and build a hobby on ebay to keep me busy... I searched for days, it may have even been weeks, when I found the flags on ebay... seen that people were selling them, and that maybe I could make a buck or two doing ti as well...

So after finding a product I had to find a source to buy them... LOL justy like me putting the cart before the horse... I knew what I wanted to sell but couldnt find where to buy it. Looking back I wish I would have done more research, because without God I would have failed in this eventure quickly...

After searching for days I found a wholesaler, but they needed a 2500.00 first order... so I kept looking... I never gave a thought to just how many flags I needed to start.. I just dove in like I normally do... this time it has paid off, but there has been many tears along the way with many failed products...

So I found a place, $800.00 bucks is all I needed to start... hmmmm can anyone say credit card??? if I failed again I just wouldnt pay the credit card... poor thinking but it was my mindset at the time... called and ordered the flags.... then I had to wait... 7 days before they arrived... it wasnt but a few days later and the bill came for the credit card...

Two years ago that was, now I regular place orders for well over 2000.00 a week in flags, I have a warehouse, and I am currently looking for the right employee to help me run the business...

Now with all that said, I have decided that I want to pass on my knowledge, I want to write about some of the things that worked for me, some of the things that didnt, how I grew from selling almost nothing to being one of the main sellers on ebay for flags.

Now as I close for today, I hope that you follow me, on what will be an exciting journey into the world of eBay from someone actually making a living on eBay...

by the way if you want to check out what I am currently selling on ebay here is a link to my ebay store. SJFlags is my user ID

How I Make Money On eBay Part Two the next part in this series.