Whether you’re looking to resell your tickets for profit or you couldn’t make the event, you’ll learn how to sell your tickets on Ebay for profit with this step-by-step guide!

This guide will teach you exactly how to sell tickets on Ebay for profit, so lets get started!

Part 1 – Researching Tickets To Buy

Knowing what events will be profitable for resale is the key to being successful in the ticket resale business. Your main task will be to research and find those events. But don’t worry, that’s the fun part.

How To Find Profitable Tickets

The better you know your buyer and their tastes, the better you will do. That’s why it’s important to immerse yourself in the music and/or sports industry (whichever one you are selling tickets for).

There are many different ways to discover new music and know what the hottest artists are. Listen to Sirius XM radio (my personal favorite), scour YouTube, check the Billboard charts, sign up for as many mailing lists as you can, go to the concerts, listen to the radio etc.

If you’re a sports fan and want to sell sports tickets, check out the team stats, attendance records, read up on the latest team news, watch the games on TV, go to the games and watch the sports highlights at night.

It should be fun to learn about the different industries, but stick with what you know and invest in that before you start selling tickets for other teams or artists you don’t know anything about.

With my guide you’ll learn what tickets make money and which ones to avoid for every NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL team. You’ll also learn the top 50 markets across North America and what ones tickets consistently sell better in.

Checking Completed Sales

As well as being familiar with the music industry and sports teams, you also need to know the market value for tickets. There is no better place than right here at Ebay to check out how much tickets have been selling for. Type in the event name of the tickets you want to check and view its completed sales. You’ll be able to see exactly how much the tickets sold for, how many of them sold, and if the seller made money. It’s a good idea to note the face value of the tickets, and then check out the completed sale price to see if they made money. (Don’t forget to account for selling fees!) Completed sales are where professional ticket brokers do a lot of their research because they’re extremely helpful. You also might want to check out Terapeak (Ebay’s marketplace research partner), which will provide you with completed listings over the last 90 days.


Being familiar with the music industry/sports teams and checking prices for tickets are your main tasks for researching profitable tasks.

Part 2 – Buying Your Tickets

Here are some tricks and tips to help you buy the best tickets online when they go on sale. Please note: all of these ticket buying tricks and tips are 100% legal and anyone can use them. I DO NOT endorse illegal methods for buying tickets!!!

Be On Time

It seems obvious, but you have to be on time to get the best chance at tickets! Ideally, if tickets go on sale at 10am, you should be ready, at your computer with the event page bookmarked, your presale password (if necessary) copied to your clipboard and be refreshing the page about one minute before tickets go on sale.

Presales

Find out if your event has a presale (a chance to get tickets before the general public). Sometimes an event can have multiple presales (i.e. one for the venue, local radio station, American Express) that will give you a chance to buy tickets before the general public. Usually these presales require a password, but they are usually available for free on the Internet if you know where to look. Make Google your friend. To find a presale password in Google I usually just type in the event name, then “presale password” in quotations. (i.e. Keith Urban “presale password”). There are lots of presale password blogs that will have the password you’re looking for a day or two before the event goes on sale.

Captcha Tricks

Captchas are the little things Ticketmaster makes you type in after you’ve searched for tickets to verify that you are actually a human being, and not using an illegal automated program like a “spinner”. Captchas annoy us all, and especially people who can’t type fast, so I’ve put together a few little tips to help you get through the captcha screen a little quicker…

The system doesn’t know the identity of both words, so technically you can get away with typing one word correctly and still pass the test. It assumes if you get one word correct then the other one will be correct as well.

Anytime you see a number mixed in with the word - or a whole string of numbers - you can ignore it and just type the other word. Usually you can skip the smudged words as well.

If you can’t read either word just hit enter and try another one instead of wasting time trying to figure it out.

Here are some rules of thumb for typing in Ticketmaster’s captchas - they’re not foolproof, but they work the majority of the time:

• Always type the longer of the 2 words.
• Ignore any word of 3 or fewer letters.
• Ignore numbers (either strings of numbers, or mixed words and numbers).
• Ignore any words that contain symbols (hyphens, commas, weird random squiggly lines etc.).
• Ignore illegible words (the ones that look smudged).

Part 3 – Selling Your Tickets On Ebay

Demand For Tickets

The most important thing is to make sure to list your tickets IMMEDIATELY. There’s no time to wait, because after tickets go on sale to the general public, demand will be at its highest!!! This is your best chance to capitalize on selling your tickets. Generally, demand is strongest right after the general on sale and steadily slows down up until the event.

Your Ebay Auction Title

Your Ebay auction title is crucial so buyers can find your tickets. The most important details you’ll need in your title are:

• Event name
• City
• Venue
• # Tickets (replace the # with the number of tickets you’re selling)

A good Ebay title for tickets would look something like this:

2 Tickets Keith Urban Vancouver GM Place 9/15 - FLOOR!

This title is good because it includes the number of tickets, event name, city, venue, event date and the section the tickets are in. Don’t put things like “L@@K” or W@W!. People don’t search for these words so they are a waste of space. Only if you’ve included all your important details should you think about including extra flashy words, but that shouldn’t happen very often.

Make sure you include all the important ticket information in the main title. If you choose to include a subtitle, remember that those words will not register when users search for them. Only your keywords in your main title will be searchable. Use your 55 characters wisely!

Ticket Pictures

The majority of ticket sellers on Ebay don’t include an actual picture of their tickets. So don’t worry, you don’t have to go grab the digital camera every time you list a set of tickets. Most sellers just include a picture of the artist/team of the tickets they’re selling, or a seating chart. Posting pictures of the actual tickets can be dangerous if the bar-code is visible. Ebay will remind you of that when you’re creating your listing too. People can “steal” the bar-code and make duplicates of that ticket.

Details To Include

• Event name – A no brainer. List the name of the event so people know what tickets they’re buying.
• City – Another no brainer. List the city so people know where the event is taking place
• Venue – And tell them what venue the event is taking place at.
• Date/time of event – Another obvious one. Include the event date so people know when it is.
• Seating chart – Always, always, always include a seating chart! Don’t assume the buyer knows where they’re sitting. If they have to leave your page and go find a seating chart themselves, you run the risk of the buyer leaving your page and not coming back. You will lose out on potential sales if you don’t include it.
• Section # - Always include the section number your tickets are in so the buyer knows where they’re sitting.
• Row # - Also include the row #. There’s a big difference between row 1 and 15. Let your buyer know exactly how close their seats are.
• Seat # (optional) – Seat numbers are optional. Here’s a tip: if you have good seat numbers (i.e. aisle seats) definitely say that in your auction. However, if your seat numbers are in the middle of a row, and aren’t as good don’t put them in your auction . Of course if the buyer requests the seat numbers you must tell them though! This tactic is just simple marketing.

Listing Ticketfast

If you have E-Tickets (or Ticketfast) make sure to state that in your auction. The unwritten law is – unless you otherwise specify, buyers are expecting to receive hard tickets. Ticketfast is becoming more and more popular, but it’s still important to let the buyer know either way, which kind of tickets you have.

Part 4 – Shipping Your Tickets

ALWAYS Insure!

So you’ve made the sale and are ready to ship your tickets off? Cool! But you need to make sure to do it right. I can’t stress this enough, but you ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS need to insure your tickets with a tracking number when you ship them! Always!

Why is this so important? First of all, your tickets probably cost a few hundred bucks, which means they’re pricey enough that you’ll want to insure them. And more importantly, it protects you and the buyer. If your tickets get lost in the mail, or the buyer claims they didn’t receive them, all they’d need to do is open a dispute with Paypal. The only way you will win the dispute is if you insured your tickets and have proof (with the tracking number) that you did in fact send them.

Insuring your tickets is a little thing that makes a huge difference and ALWAYS needs to be done!

 

Part 5 - Tips For Success

Capitalize On The Demand

You can sell your tickets even if they aren’t “in hand”. For example, if you’ve ordered tickets from Ticketmaster but you haven’t received them yet, you can still put them up for sale - just make sure you mention it in your auction. You can say: “Tickets will be shipped as soon as they arrive from the ticketing agency”. This will allow you to list your tickets as soon as you buy them and capitalize on the demand.

Buy It Now or Auction?

For tickets, fixed prices or high starting bids tend to yield better profits than low starting bids. If you start your auction with a low starting bid, you run the risk of not getting your investment back. Lower starting prices also tend to bring down the marketplace value for your tickets. Remember – as the seller you control the marketplace! If you have good tickets, people will pay for them!

Details, Details, Details

If you include as many details as possible about your tickets, potential buyers will feel confident, and will be less likely to leave your auction page. Give them a reason to stay on your page and buy YOUR tickets! If they have to go searching for a seating chart, event date, etc. they will leave your page and most likely forget about your listing.

Create A Template

Creating a template for your ticket listing is easy and will save you a lot of time. It will also save you from forgetting important details. Take some time to learn some basic HTML and your auction will stand out from the others. It will make your auction more attractive, organized and force you to include all the details you need – every time.

Pictures

If you are going to be selling a lot of tickets, I suggest signing up for a hosting account (your own domain name) so you can host your own pictures. They usually go for about $10 per year which is really cheap. This will save you money when you upload your pictures. HostGator and Siteground are both good options for hosting accounts.

During The Auction

During your auction, you should be checking to make sure your prices are inline with the rest of the marketplace. I recommend checking once a day to see if other sellers have dropped their prices, or are holding them strong. Check to see what price range tickets have been selling at, and go back to your auction and price your tickets accordingly.

Communication

You should be checking your inbox everyday and answering customer emails as soon as you get them. Strong buyer communication will help you complete the sale and make the buyer more confident with your tickets.

Want More?

I hope you enjoyed this guide and learned a lot about selling tickets on Ebay. The ticket resale business is definitely a fun one to get involved in, and perfect for University students because it requires little money to start out and you can start making 50-300% profits instantly.

If you enjoyed this guide and want to become a ticket broker and sell tickets online, view my items for sale and check out the Ticket Broker Guide – The #1 ticket resale guide on the web to learn more!

Thanks for viewing and happy buying and selling!