Ways to Make Money with Ebay & Craigslist!

eBay & Craigslist continue to be two of the big online buying and selling sites. Craigslist is a great place to advertise not only items for sale, but also services (such as your blog). There's quite a few ways you can combine the eBay & Craigslist websites in order to generate income. Sometimes if I'm selling items I like to cross-promote them on eBay just by picking out random spots to advertise. Usually I like big cities like NYC and LA, but I've tried elsewhere. It's hard to say if it helps, but its a free form of advertising. Some eBay expert sellers like to go into the "Free" sections of Craigslist and grab anything they might be able to sell on eBay. Or, they look for items being sold on Craigslist locally that they can sell at a profit on eBay. Both are great ways to start a part-time eBay biz with little or no real start-up cost.

Craigslist also provides "Wanted" sections, where people can list off things they're looking to buy. For example, if you're currently selling items on eBay, you can do Google searches for the items you're selling as "wanted" items on Craigslist.

An example Google search: "craigslist wanted toddler Halloween costume"

Now it's not guaranteed, but you're likely to turn up at least a few results from around the United States of people looking for toddler Halloween costumes (or whatever items you're selling on item) on Craigslist. You can consider foreign Craigslist want ads such as UK/Canada, but only if you're offering sales and shipping to these on eBay. Once you find some want ads, check out the Craigslist want ad to get a feel for what they want, and reply to the email given. Make it simple, saying you noticed their ad, wanted to help and are selling an item they may be interested in. Provide them a link to the item auction and the eBay item number, but don't be overly agressive or pushy about it. Make it calm and simple because you don't want to get blacklisted as a spammer from the email.

Taking this concept a step further, you can become an eBay or Shopping Ads affiliate and start doing this for items you're not selling. You can go to the various Craigslist cities around the US and check the "Wanted" sections for items such as mp3 players or video game systems, or anything else that is hot on the market. Again, make the email calm and simple but not a pushy sales pitch. Write it simply as if you're just helping someone out by providing the item # of something they want to buy. eBay and Shopping Ads offer nice commissions for signups and sales on eBay, so check into their program details for more info.

My experience is generally that Craigslist buyers want even better deals than eBay has to offer so this may be tricky to pull off. Also many Craigslist buyers seem to prefer buying items in person, rather than paying the shipping charge. It's worth a shot though, and if you have your own domain/website you may also consider setting up a page full of listings for items such as the iPod or video game systems. With Shopping Ads you can set up ads to be PPC (pay per click). Provide a Craigslist buyer with a full web page of listings you've created, and profit from the clicks and buys!

If you've had experience making money with Craigslist and eBay combined, feel free to share your info and tips below!