I’d like to think that I’m extremely well qualified to give advice on how to trade football shirts on eBay; I used to be a trader.
Much like approximately 999,999 other people I decided to turn my hand at hustling eBay during the vast amounts of unexpected free time the first Covid lockdown gave me. I sold retro, vintage and nostalgic shirts from previous seasons that fans wanted to own.
If you want to turn your passion into profit, here is my proven advice and experience on how to trade football shirts on eBay.
Confessions of a former football shirt trader
Shirt trading lives in a weird moral purgatory on Twitter. Its frowned upon by many who see buying something for £20 and relisting for £30 as opportunistic price hiking. It’s also a necessity to bring more shirts onto the market as those who are finding the £20 are also scouring the places regular buyers won’t look.
The best person is someone who ‘collects’ (definitely doesn’t ‘trade’) shirts “for the love of it” and is forced to sell their shirts to fund their next purchase. They’re definitely not a trader. Definitely not.
I openly traded for financial gain but I didn’t look to exploit anyone, nor hike prices. My model was to sell often and not expensively. This kept shirts circulating and more likely to end up in the hands of people looking for their elusive prized shirt.
Trade in volume
Each shirt sold gives a very small margin. You might spot an undervalued shirt at £20 that you can sell for £30. After eBay fees and postage you might keep £5.
To ramp this up you need to be turning over a lot of stock. You won’t (and shouldn’t) be overcharging. Everyone on eBay is after a bargain so an overpriced listing will remain on eBay accruing fees.
Join the online community
Twitter is brilliant for like minded people enthusing over new releases and details. You are among friends. It’s the support you receive from interacting with fellow enthusiasts that will spur you on.
You won’t make money on Twitter but joining the community is enriching in many other ways. They’ll help with encouragement and further tips on how to sell football shirts online.
How to trade football shirts: Do your sums
If you have a good shirt and you think it is genuinely worth a high price then you’ll need to leave it on eBay until the right buyer finds it. This might take weeks, it might take months, and your listing will be incurring fees for the entirety of time that it’s up.
This means you might make the same amount of profit as a quick turnover of a cheap shirt but it’s taken you three or four times as long to achieve it.
Start big
If you want to grow your stock solely from profits of previous sales it’s going to take a long time. You’ll need to sell four shirts at £5 profit until you can afford to buy a second shirt for £20 to list online.
If you start by listing 100 shirts the £5 profits will quickly roll in but at an average purchase price of £20 you’ve spent £2,000 on stock. You’ll also have a hell of a lot of risk by incurring 100 shirts worth of fees without learning the game first. Finally, you need somewhere to keep 100 shirts!
You’ll also need to have a lot of stock so people think to visit you. You can then establish your own site with regular traffic and ween yourself off of eBay and it’s listing fees. But you need to learn the game first.
You’re not a football shirt seller, you’re a football shirt buyer
Everyone can sell a shirt, it’s not hard. Take some photos, decide a price and list it. The real problem is getting your hands on shirts to sell. Everyone is looking for the under-priced £20 shirt on eBay to relist for £30.
If the sellers come to you then you’ll get more stock and more quickly make money, instead of charging more. So position yourself as a football shirt buyer as much as a seller and beat the competition to cheap stock.
This is a full-time job…
Don’t underestimate the effort – it’s not something to briefly look at every couple of days. You will be scouring for stock, photographing, cataloguing, listing, dispatching. It takes a long time.
You may be finishing your day job at 5pm and starting your second job after dinner at 6pm through to midnight.
…but don’t let it become more than a hobby
We all get into this because we love shirts. It’s the appreciation for design and love of nostalgia that drives us. If you solely look at the initial poor financial returns then you’ll jack it in.
The returns will take a while. It’s not a get rich quick scheme. So ensure this is remains a hobby and the interest will keep you going.
Know what is desirable
Larger male shirts (L to XXL) sell more quickly. Who would have thought your average football fan was a huge bloke?
Fans prize shirts from a season that had an iconic design or their team had a degree of success. The bigger teams with more fans will have more potential buyers.
How to trade football shirts online
So there are my top tips. This site contains some good advice as well.
Go forth and make a medium amount of money.