Many of us are using coupons at the grocery store to take the sting out of the moment when the cashier hits the total button, but did you know that you can make extra money selling grocery coupons on Ebay?
As of this moment there are 33,060 auctions on Ebay for coupons and some of them are selling for big bucks! One auction for an envelope of baby formula coupons just closed for $96.01!
Now, that took some serious work to gather enough formula coupons, but I have come up with some easy ways to make money selling coupons with just a few hours of work. I’m going to show you how to find the coupons that sell for big bucks and how to list them on Ebay.
How to Sell Coupons
I’m going to start backwards and tell you a little about how to sell coupons, because its important to understand how this work and what coupons sell before you start hunting for them.
First, Ebay offers every user five free auctions per month so we will get some mileage out of that, but also remember that auctions with a starting price under $1.00 only cost fifteen cents so we can keep our seller fees pretty low.
A quick disclaimer before I move on: most coupons will contain language that prohibits them from being resold. You’ll notice that Ebay buyers always include language in their listing that explains that the winning bidder is paying for their time to collect, clip, and ship the coupon and not paying for the actual coupon. Ebay requires that you include that language otherwise they may delete your listings.
Now, where to find all these wonderful coupons to resell???
Finding Coupons to Resell
Despite their decline in popularity, newspapers are still the number one place to find coupon inserts. Definitely save any coupons that you aren’t using from your Sunday inserts. You should also check with friends and family and ask if they will pass along any coupons they aren’t using.
I’ve even heard of people engaging in some Sunday night dumpster diving to find discarded coupons. Not for me – but, by all means have at it. 
At the end of all this coupon collecting it is time to list them on Ebay. It’s common for Ebay sellers to sell their coupons in multiples of the same coupon (20 or so). One interesting thing I have noticed is that lots of only 12 to 15 coupons generally sell for the same amount as the lots of 20. Make sure you also list all of the specifications of the coupon in your Ebay listing (i.e. expiration date, exclusions, whether the coupon can be doubled, etc).
However, if you weren’t able to obtain 12-15 copies of the same coupon you could list your coupons as a hodgepodge. In this case I would recommend you putting them in lots of 100 and advertising them like this Ebayer:
One final suggestion is that if you are serious about selling coupons I suggest buying coupon inserts online. One such site is Coupons & Things by De-De. She sells the entire insert for a fee, usually somewhere between 30 and 90 cents. I have had a lot of success buying coupon inserts from De-De and reselling the individual coupons on Ebay.
Good luck Penny Hoarders!
Would you be a dear and Stumble this article?
Kyle,
Thank you so much for your blog. I am a single mother of three and times are tough. I regularly clip coupons everytime I shop and it is for items that I must have. During my coupon "hoarding" I inevitably have several that I don't use. I started selling all of the old coupons I had saved up (of course that weren't expired) after I read you blog, and I'm pleased to say I sold them all. I also came up with the idea to sell in lots by including some really good ones, and then throwing in some of the ones that might not sell on their own.
Also, I have been collecting items that I find at yard sales and reselling them on ebay. I must THANK YOU for the idea about the free section of craigslist! I can't wait to see my profit margins increasing overall and I can't wait to get started on that!
Thank you!
Kathy S.
This way of making money never crossed my mind…thanks for the information…I shall give it a try
Just be sure to check out the wording of your ad. You can't sell coupons; you can sell the time you spent collecting and handling the coupons. You want to make sure you make the distinction in your ad so it doesn't get pulled.
Also, you can't sell more than 2 (I believe it's 2) "free" item coupons in a single lot.
never heard…your ideas rock Kyle!
What I don't understand..Why the people don't get the coupons for free also (like you)? They also get the newspapers every week. They could get the coupons for free. Why are there people bidding for them?
wow! I am so much interested too in selling coupons now it is because of the information that you had given Kyle.
You want to make sure the buyer has enough time to use the coupon after receiving it in the mail. Buyers won't be happy if the coupons are already expired by the time they arrive.
nice share it..
DeDe no longer sell inserts just the single coupons
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Ebay does not “require that language”. It’s just something users do hoping to skirt the rules. It’s just a trend that caught on. In fact, Ebay SPECIFICALLY PROHIBITS selling abstract things like your time and effort. You can look that up.
True. On Ebay, it’s actually the coupons themselves that are being sold. The problem I see with this is that buying coupons on Ebay encourages unscrupulous people to steal entire tear pads and steal newspaper inserts, etc. to sell on Ebay. It’s opening a can of worms.