A number that doesn't get spoken about enough in the eBay reselling world is profit margin. It's the number that actually matters. It's what you're working towards every single day. Yet most of us are totally clueless about how much profit we're actually making on the items we sell.
That's exactly why we built Flippedit, so you can track how much profit you're making not only on every single product, but on your business as a whole.
In this video, Matt breaks down what a healthy profit margin looks like, what expenses you need to account for, and shares the real numbers from his own eBay store.
Here's a breakdown of what Matt covers and how it applies to your eBay business.
The Expenses You Need to Account For
Before you can work out your profit margin, you need to understand what's eating into your revenue. There are two layers of expenses.
Item-level costs are the ones directly tied to each sale:
- eBay fees — usually 13 to 15% of your sale price
- Postage costs — what it costs to ship the item to the buyer
- Cost of goods — what you originally paid for the item
These are the basics. But you're also running a business, and that comes with its own set of costs.
Business-level costs include things like:
- Petrol to get to flea markets, garage sales, and thrift stores
- Stationery and packaging supplies
- Office setup and storage
- Any other overheads that keep the operation running
Once you lay all of that out on paper, you'll have a much clearer picture of what you're actually keeping from every dollar of revenue.
The Target: 30 to 40% Profit Margin
A very common question Matt gets asked is: "What is a nice profit margin percentage to work towards?"
The answer is going to vary depending on your circumstances, the products you sell, and what your shipping costs look like. Someone selling large, heavy items will have different margins to someone selling small, lightweight products. There's no single correct number.
But for resellers sourcing from places like Facebook Marketplace, flea markets, and garage sales, a healthy profit margin sits between 30 and 40%.
If you're in that range, you're pretty much right where you need to be. And a lot of the eBay YouTubers showing big revenue numbers but not talking about profit margin? They're usually sitting in that same 30 to 40% range.
Matt's Real Numbers
Matt doesn't just talk theory. He pulls up his actual Flippedit dashboard to show the numbers.
Three weeks into March, his store was sitting on $6,665 in revenue, tracking toward a monthly goal of $8,333. He was running ahead of schedule at $333 per day against a target of $269 per day.
The profit margin? 35%. Right in the sweet spot.
That worked out to $2,320 in profit so far that month, roughly $100 per day. Over the course of a year, that puts the store on track for approximately $36,000 in annual profit.
These aren't projections or estimates. They're real numbers pulled directly from his eBay store via Flippedit.
Matt's Top 10 Weekend Sales
Matt also runs through his top sales from the weekend, showing exactly what each item sold for, what it cost, and what he actually kept. Here's how they broke down:
- Wreckfest (PS4) — Sold for $24.95. Came from a bulk video game buy, so $0 cost of goods. Profit: $14.38. Profit margin: 58%.
- Spider-Man (PS4) — Same bulk buy. Sold for $24.95. Profit: $14.38. Profit margin: 58%.
- Meowth promo (Pokemon) — Sold for $35. Cost of goods was $48 (Matt paid $2,700 for a vintage binder and divided the cost evenly across every card). Flippedit shows a -$25 loss on this card individually, but the binder as a whole is projected to make $1,000+ in profit once every card sells.
- Dark Hypno (Pokemon) — Sold for $43. Profit: $18.36. Profit margin: 43%.
- Pidgeot (Pokemon) — Sold for $59.95. Same $48 attributed cost of goods from the binder. Shipped for $7.30.
- He-Man 40th Anniversary figure — Sold for $50. Cost of goods was $18 (from a $545 bulk action figure buy attributed across each item). Profit: $12.96. Profit margin: 26%.
- Broken Xbox One console — Sold for $55 for parts only. Bought for $10 at a flea market with about $15.80 in shipping costs. Profit: $23. Profit margin: 42%. A working unit with controllers and games would fetch $200 to $250.
- Doc Martens — Listed at $135, accepted an offer at $85. Cost of goods: $7. Profit: $50.58. Profit margin: 60%.
- Bunnings Warehouse hoodie — Sold for $100 from a private pick. Shipped for about $15 in a large satchel.
The takeaway from these sales is that profit margin varies wildly from item to item. Some items like the Doc Martens at 60% are home runs. Others like the He-Man figure at 26% are tighter. But when you average it all out across the store, Matt lands at that 35% mark. That's why tracking every single sale matters — you need the full picture, not just the highlights.
Why Higher Average Sale Price Protects Your Margins
One of the biggest takeaways from this video is Matt's point about average sale price (ASP) and how it directly impacts your profit margin.
Here's the maths:
- Selling a $30 item with $15 shipping = 50% of your revenue is postage
- Selling a $100 item with $15 shipping = 15% of your revenue is postage
- Selling a $200 item with $10 shipping = 5% of your revenue is postage
Shipping costs don't scale with sale price. A $15 satchel costs the same whether the item inside sold for $30 or $100. So the higher your average sale price, the less shipping eats into your margin.
Matt's advice is blunt: get away from low average sale price items and focus on higher ASP products. This is especially true if you're a part-timer with limited hours. Selling $100 items means you make more money every single time you make a sale, without needing more sales volume.
Know Your Margin
If you don't know your profit margin right now, you're flying blind. Revenue looks impressive on paper, but it means nothing if you can't tell what you're actually keeping after fees, shipping, and cost of goods.
Flippedit connects directly to your eBay account, pulls in your sales and fees automatically, and shows you the true profitability of every item and your business as a whole. No spreadsheets, no guesswork.
Start your free 7-day trial and find out what your real profit margin is.