Making Money Online - Profit Margin

So you say you want to make money online? It's possible, I make a living selling online. But if you do it incorrectly you can loose more than you make. Let's look at a little something called profit margin. In this blog we will focus on the 3 major online markets for resale to a national market.
Ebay.com
Half.com
Amazon.com

Let's say you have a CD that you don't listen to anymore and you would like to sell it and get a few bucks. If you sell the CD for $9.99 how much do you make? Let's break it down.

Ebay
Sale Price: $9.99
Listing Fee: $.50 (30 day buy it now sale )
Finale Value Fee: $1.30
Paypal Fee: $.59
Profit: $7.60

Half
Sale Price: $9.99
Listing Fee: None
Finale Value Fee: $1.50
Profit: $8.49

Amazon
Sale Price: $9.99
Listing Fee: None
Finale Value Fee: $ 3.29
Profit: $6.70

As you can see there is a large discrepancy between how much you make when you sell your CD on Amazon vs Half vs Ebay. But there's more. Amazon credits you $2.98 for shipping a CD while Half only credits you $2.39. On eBay you get to set your own shipping cost. But even after taking that into account Half is still by far the best value for selling your $9.99 CD.

But what if you don't want to sell a $9.99 CD? What if you want to sell a $999 flat screen television that you got for Christmas but never took out of the box. Half doesn't sell flat screen tv's so they aren't an option. That leaves you picking between ebay and amazon. Let's break it down.

Ebay
Sale Price: $999
Listing Fee: $.50 (30 day buy it now sale )
Finale Value Fee: $54.45
Paypal Fee: $.29.27
Profit: $915.28

Amazon
Sale Price: $9.99
Listing Fee: None
Finale Value Fee: $81.36
Profit: $917.64

In this instance it looks like Amazon is the best choice. But is it? What about shipping? Amazon sets a flat cost for shipping while ebay allows you to calculate it by the buyers distance. In this instance Ebay is still most likely the better value. So, is your head now hurting from all of these numbers? You're probably asking yourself "How am I supposed to figure this all out?" It's easy. There are calculators that do it for you and here they are. Now go make some money.

eBay Fees Calculator
Half Fees Calculator
Amazon Fees Calculator