What to sell on eBay: how to choose items worth reselling.

1. Does it sell? Look for similar items that ended with a sale, not just items that are listed.
2. At what price? Use the prices buyers paid, and compare like with like: same condition, same included parts.
3. What is left? Take the sale price and subtract eBay fees, postage, packing supplies and what you paid.
4. Is it worth the effort? A small profit on something that takes an hour to photograph, list and pack may not be worth it.

An item passes when the answers hold up together. A high sale price with no recent sales fails the first question. A steady seller with a thin margin fails the third.

Active listings are asking prices, and some are priced high and never sell. Sold listings are completed sales. When you search while signed in, you can choose the sold option from the filters; eBay says its completed listings results include only listings that ended sold in the previous 90 days.¹ Our guide to sold listings covers where the option is and what the results leave out.

The sell through rate compares sales with what is still for sale. The sell through rate calculator takes the sold count and the active count for a window you choose and gives you one number to compare across items. Treat it as one signal next to the sold prices, not a verdict.

The sold price is the number that matters, and two gaps are worth knowing. Regular sold search does not display the price a Best Offer was accepted at, so a listed price can overstate what the buyer paid.² And one results page can mix lots, parts and different conditions. For a longer view, eBay's Product Research searches the last 3 years of eBay sales data and shows the price an item sold for even when a Best Offer was accepted.¹ The guide to reading sold prices shows how to filter a messy results page down to true comparables.

If you are standing in a store, the barcode scanning guide is the faster way to run this check on the shelf. If you are still working out the basics, start with our guide to how to start reselling.

These are eBay's published fees for sellers without a Store, and Store fees differ.³ The final value fee is a percentage of the total amount of the sale, plus a per order fee of $0.30 for orders of $10.00 or less and $0.40 for orders over $10.00.³ For most categories the percentage is 13.6% up to $7,500.³ Some categories are different, so check the fee page for yours.

Here is a sample with made up numbers, to show the arithmetic. It is not a prediction for any item:

• Sample sold price, with free shipping to the buyer: $30.00
• Fee at 13.6% of $30.00: $4.08, plus the $0.40 order fee, for $4.48 in total
• Postage you pay: $5.00
• Box and packing supplies: $1.00
• What you paid for the item: $6.00
• Left over: $30.00 minus $4.48, $5.00, $1.00 and $6.00, which is $13.52

Change any one of those numbers and the result moves a lot. A heavier item with $12.00 of postage in the same sample would leave $6.52. Put your own numbers into the eBay fee and profit calculator. Planning the packing cost is covered in the shipping supplies guide, and the carrier side in eBay shipping for resellers.

Instead of asking whether an item is a good buy at the price on the tag, decide your ceiling first. Take the sold price you trust, subtract fees, postage and supplies, then subtract the profit you want. What remains is the most you can pay. The max buy price calculator does this in one step. For a box or bin where you pay for a pile, the lots guide shows how to split the cost across the items.

These are rules of thumb from how the numbers above work, not guarantees about any category:

• Small and light. Postage and packing take a smaller share of the sale, so more of the price stays with you.
• Easy to identify. A model number, barcode or brand makes it easy to find true comparables and write an accurate title.
• Durable. Items that survive handling cost less in returns and damage claims.
• Steady sales history. Several sold results spread over the window tell you more than one outlier.
• Gap between cost and sold price. After the fee and postage arithmetic, there should still be a margin that justifies your time.

Where you source also shapes the margin. A low buy price widens the gap, which is why resellers compare thrift stores, outlets and bins. Our outlets and bins guide lists them by city, and the reseller glossary explains the terms you will see.

The numbers below are made up to show how the same test gives different answers. They are not prices for any real product. All three use the sample fee from above: 13.6% of the sale plus $0.40, with free shipping to the buyer.

The heavy item sells for more than twice the collectible, but postage takes most of the difference, so it leaves about the same amount. The third item shows a sale that looks fine on the price alone and leaves almost nothing. This is why the test uses the amount left over, not the sale price.

Rather than guessing at a category, narrow it with three filters:

• Capital. If you can afford to be wrong on only a few dollars an item, start with things you can buy cheaply and test in small batches.
• Knowledge. You already know some categories better than others, such as the brands in your own wardrobe or the tools in your garage. Knowing what a good one looks like is a real advantage when you buy.
• Handling. Fragile, bulky or heavy items cost more to pack and ship. Begin with items that fit a standard box or mailer. The fragile items guide and the heavy items guide cover what changes when you move up.

Pick one category that passes all three, list ten items, and see what the sold results and your own sales tell you before you widen.

1. Search the exact item and open the sold results. Note how many sold and the range of prices.
2. Remove results that do not match: a different condition, a lot, or an item missing parts.
3. Check how many matching items are still for sale, then use the sell through rate calculator.
4. Enter the sold price, postage, supplies and your cost into the profit calculator.
5. Buy only if the amount left over justifies the time. Write down what you paid so you can compare it with the sale later.

Keeping that record is what turns a guess into data about your own category. A good habit is to log cost, sale price and fees for every item, which the profit tracker and the sales spreadsheet template are built for.

• Using an asking price as if it were a sold price.
• Comparing against sales of a different condition or a complete set when yours is missing parts.
• Forgetting postage and supplies, which can turn a profit into a loss on heavy items.
• Counting one unusually high sale as the normal price.
• Buying in volume before testing the first few items.

Start with a small batch, track what each item cost and what it sold for, and let your own results tell you which categories to repeat.

Strooply takes a photo, identifies the item and pulls live eBay listings for the same thing, so you have comps to compare without typing the search. Its sold-price figure is labeled: live eBay data when recent sales are available, saved data shown with its age, or an AI estimate when there is no sold history. An AI estimate is a guess from the item details, not a record of sales. See how Strooply works.