The Bottom Line
Income:
1 lot patterns & transfers- $20.50
Expenses:
Ebay fees- $2.05
Paypal fees- $0.92
Total: $2.97
Net Profit: $17.53
This last profit was just enough to push me over the hundred dollar mark ($102.64, to be exact!) for my little treasure box.
Hourly Wage
I spent about a half hour finding extra patterns, photographing and listing these patterns. It will take another half hour to package and ship them out at the local post office. The one downside to selling lots is that you often have to ship them from the post office, which means coordinating with a trip to town or making a separate one (in which case, knock off a couple dollars for gas). Even so, it is still worth it to sell in lots.
$17.53 divided by 1 hour = $17.53 per hour
Ebay as a Side Hustle
In my opinion, selling things on Ebay is a fun, easy way to make money working a couple hours per week. In the past six weeks, it's earned me $5-$17 per hour, as we've seen. But this is only with vintage sewing patterns. There are many other things you can sell on Ebay.
This week I also sold a vintage card game I found at a thrift store for $0.50. It took 15-20 minutes to count the cards, take some pictures and list. I started the game at $11.00, and to my delight it kept getting bids all week until eventually it sold at $43. The net profit on this is $36.71. It was well worth the effort. The return on my $0.50 investment was over 7000%, and I earned over $36 per hour for my time.
Have you sold on Ebay for fun or profit? Would you do it again?