eBay selling tips: can I cover Christmas costs by selling clothes, smartphones and tablets?

Find out how much I made selling on eBay to raise some extra Christmas cash for gifts, travel and food.

It's November and that means it's ok to start talking about Christmas, namely how much it's all going to cost.

My Christmas budget isn’t set in stone as I’m sure I will get carried away when I start to get into the spirit of things. But here’s a rough idea of what I think my boyfriend I will spend:

In total I reckon we will need £705 to cope with the cost of festive-related outgoings this year.

With just two pay packets until Christmas, that might be a bit of a stretch for us.

So I decided to see if selling some of my unwated belongings on eBay could raise some extra cash to help cover the cost of the festive season.

Boost your Christmas spending money! Win £100 every day in November by seeing how much you could save with the NatWest Reward Current Account calculator

Decluttering

I unearthed a whole load of junk that we just didn’t need or use anymore.

But in order to control the admin and how much I could physically carry with me to the Post Office, I decided to pick just 21 to put on eBay and list the others another time.

My chosen items consisted of three video games, three pairs of jeans, a skirt, a pair of shorts, three tablets, a tablet cover, a jumper, a jacket, a blazer, a handbag, two working smartphones and one broken handset.

Listing on eBay

I set aside a few hours on Sunday last week to list all the items, using the tips from the loveMONEY guide How to sell successfully on eBay.

I used detailed titles to attract buyers and decided to start the majority of my auctions at 99p, though I did start three at £4.99 as I wouldn’t have been that happy if they went for so little!

When selecting delivery, I went for second class, signed for recorded delivery and estimated costs between £2.99 and £5.99, but most commonly charged £3.99.

I chose to list all of the items for seven days, opened up the listing to a global audience and made sure all the auctions ended on a Sunday at 10pm.

Once I had completed the listings for each item I left them ticking along and answered any questions that came up over the course of the week.

Cashing in

I managed to sell 20 of the 21 items I listed for sale on eBay in seven days.

The table below sets out the starting price and final selling price of each of the items.

As you can see the Sony Xperia Z3 Compact was the most successful auction ending at £205 from a starting price of 99p.

Other gadgets like the Samsung Galaxy Tab A with S Pen and case (£191), iPad Mini 2 with case and keyboard (£175), Tesco Hudl 2 with case (£80) did very well. Even the broken HTC One M7 (£40) got a good price.

The Uniqlo blazer was the only item that didn’t manage to sell. But I’m not too worried as it is all set to be listed again when I do the next round of eBaying.

In total the 20 items that did sell managed to bring in an impressive £846.83.

Boost your Christmas spending money! Win £100 every day in November by seeing how much you could save with the NatWest Reward Current Account calculator

How much did I actually make selling on eBay?

To work out how much profit I made from my decluttering session I need to factor in the eBay and  PayPal fees as well as the postage and packaging costs .

PayPal instantly charges 3.4% + 20p on the total value including postage paid into your account, while eBay charges 10% on the total transaction cost including postage which is invoiced at the end of the month. 

Packaging materials consisted of five padded envelopes, some bubble wrap, parcel tape and a roll of parcel paper from Poundland amounting to £4 and a selection of lightweight Polythene mailing bags which I already had. I had also saved some old packaging to reuse.

The table below shows how the costs worked out per item and whether I was able to make a profit on each one.

*Cash on collection so no PayPal fee

After factoring in the cost of the postage materials I reckon I’ve made £719.46 profit.

So as long as I stick to my Christmas budget I should be able to cover the costs with what I have managed to make on eBay, with a few pounds to spare. Hurrah!

It’s worth noting that while eBay was an easy way to sell my old things, the fees reduced my profits by £123.37. Read Sell for less: the alternatives to eBay for some cheaper options if you’re thinking about trying to declutter and make some money.

Other ways to cope with Christmas costs

If you haven’t got a load of stuff to sell on eBay to raise some extra cash from there are plenty of other ways to manage the cost of Christmas.

One way to boost your Christmas cash is to take part in the prize draw to win £100 every day in November just by seeing how much you could save with the NatWest Reward Current Account calculator.

You could also go for a 0% purchase credit card which will allow you to spread the cost of presents and other Christmas-related spends. The longest-lasting deal is a whopping 27 months on the Post Office Matched Card.  For more read The best credit cards to pay for Christmas.

Also don’t forget you can earn cashback when shopping online through cashback websites like Quidco and TopCashback. By following the special links on these websites you will earn a percentage back on what you spend.

If you’re planning to shop on Amazon and eBay take a look at 26 eBay buying tips, tricks and tools and Amazon tips and tricks that can save you big money to make sure you are being savvy.

Compare cracking 0% credit cards with loveMONEY

Read these next:

Where to get Christmas dinner cheapest

 Best Black Friday sales, deals, discounts, freebies

Cheapest places to get the best Christmas toys