final eBay sale price
- eBay fees
- shipping // unless you have the buyer pay actual shipping
costs
- the cost I paid for the item
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my net profit (hopefully more than $20 for my time and effort)
two refrigerator filters new in package ($3.99 each) - selling on eBay for about $40 each - retail for about $50 each. My total sale price was $69.95 for both (I undercut the lowest listing by a dollar or so and offered 'free' shipping)
My shipping cost was about $5. My eBay fees were about $10 - they take quite a chunk. $70 - 25 = $45 profit
I probably could have held onto them longer, charging a higher price and not offering 'free' shipping, but sales have been slow because I haven't been buying much so I made them too good to pass up.
$45 for about 20 minutes of hustle isn't terrible. It took me all of 3 minutes to list them on eBay. I plopped them on my kitchen table, snapped a picture of them, searched for the same item in the 'sold' section of eBay. Clicked 'sell one like this' link, filled in a price, selected a shipping option and clicked 'post'.