I want to try "retail arbitrage" on ebay, how can I minimise shipping costs?

[wipa_37]

I'm 18 and I want to try and earn a bit of extra money by performaing retail arbitrage, AKA finding deals then reselling the items bought.

So lets say I find a great deal for something online, lets say like a blender 50% off on another site or something. Is there any way to work it so it never gets shipped to my address and instead rather straight to the buyer (or maybe like to an ebay warehouse where it can sit until a buyer is found for the item) rather then have to ship it to me, then I have to ship it elsewhere? Having the item shipped to me then to whomever is buying seems like a waste of money, especially since I live in a rural area and shipping costs here are high.

If there is a way to do this, how would this work if I have an international buyer?

Just so everybody knows, this is my very first time selling anything online, definitely the first time selling on ebay, haven't even setup a sellers account yet.

[davewil1964]

Just to add, as I couldn't find it in the novels already posted, that as a new seller you will have a 21 day hold on your funds. You will still be expected to ship the items within your nominated handling time, however.

If you can't afford to pay for items/shipping for 3 weeks, I suggest, as others have, that you start off with small, cheap to post, items from around the house.

[eburtonlab]

Searching for misspelled item titles was a good suggestion for finding deals a while back, but the technique stopped being quite as effective once eBay changed to using search expansion to automatically search for many common misspellings and keyword variations.

--

"I know a genuine Panaphonics when I see it. And look: there's Magnetbox and Sorny."