Ebay arbitrage: profit from other peoples fat fingers

Due to the global credit crunch many people are looking to earn some extra money and many turn to eBay. Whilst many people use eBay simply to sell their junk, others buy items from other suppliers and then sell these on eBay.

Although this can be an excellent way to make money, the drawback to this technique is that you need to have some money to invest in stock as well as the room to store the items that you're selling. That's not good if you're already short of money !

So is it possible to make money on eBay that doesn't require lots of stock ?

Absolutely ! There are in fact numerous ways to earn money on eBay that don't need you to buy and hold stock but the most profitable (and presently least exploited) one is known as eBay arbitrage.

Auction arbitrage is the technique of buying an item for a low price and then selling it on at a higher price for a profit. eBay offers some excellent arbitrage opportunities, as long as you know where to search. The good news for you though is that most people don't know where to look !

So how do you go about eBay arbitrage ?

This is going to sound crazy but a remarkable number of people just cannot spell correctly and eBay users are no exception. Misspelled items don't appear in the regular search results, which means that less people find them so they get less bids and so sell for less.

So, if you could track down these misspelled items and then relist them correctly you'd make a profit.

But how to track down such items ?

Easy ! Use a dedicated site that takes a search word e.g. playstation or abercrombie and automatically misspells it for you and then submits that search to eBay. Missing-Auctions.com is probably the best, both in terms of features and the number that of items that it manages to find.

Watch the video below to see just how easy it is to find misspelled items on Ebay.

Once you've found a misspelled item you need to work out how much you might have to pay for it as well as how much it could sell for if correctly listed. Both of these questions can be answered by searching the completed auction listings on eBay for other identical items to the one that you have found, something is easily done using Missing-Auctions.com.

If the difference in price is big enough then it's worth bidding on the item. Should you win the item then you simply need to relist it, correctly spelt, and ensure that you sell it for more than you paid for it.

That, in a nutshell, is eBay arbitrage. For a more detailed description of the process check out my free 23 page eBay arbitrage ebook which gives you step-by-step instructions and tips on how to make sure that your relisted item reaches the highest price possible.

So there you have it ! Ebay arbitrage is a fun and exciting way to earn money on eBay without having to buy and store large amounts of stock. What are you waiting for ?