nordstrom said:
see, this is what i'm talking about. how does someone do that? do you buy in bulk or what? how do you buy in bulk? any marketing strategies you need to use? etc.
the main things you need to tap into are:
1) sell a lot of stuff. volume - plus people respect you more if you have more successful sales. they will buy your crap over someone else selling the same crap if they trust you more.
2) make them think that they need the thing - people will pay more for things on ebay, even if they could just go to the store and buy it off the shelf for less. they get caught up in beating the other guy to win the auction. play that up - make them feel they need to win that auction.
3) sell things that they can't just go to the store and get. or if you are selling things that they can get just at the store, make it sound like these are somehow better.
4) make them feel as if they are saving money by getting it off of ebay. but with that, make sure that most of the people buying are buying it for more than you paid for. that way everyone feels like they are winning. I say make them feel that way - they don't truly have to be saving - like they too could buy it from where you buy it, but you need to add value or at least fake it.
and then there are always scams - but scams have high returns b/c there is high risk - don't want to get caught.

fake autographs, fake originals, etc
collectible items are good - but usually you need to have access to them prior to them being "worth" anything - such as baseball cards from the 50's and such.
if you can fron the cash - buy a lot of Harry Potter books, or some CD of a band that is popular, etc etc - then as soon as they come out, sell them on ebay and for some reason, people get into getting shit that way.
A lot of money is to be made when stores (dot coms, clothing stores, resteraunts, etc) go out of business and they need to get rid of all of their shit. go in and buy ALL OF IT (you usually get a discount if you get it all at once - it saves them the hassle of having to get rid of it).
then you go through the trouble of auctioning off parts from there.
this is what many of the clothes on sale are (well, and stolen stuff too) - they go in and clear out a store when they know they are bringing in a new season.
to do really well with that, you need to build up connections - someone that will call you and let you know before they let anyone else know.