Ebay pointers please help best way to go about profit making

I am trying to make some extra side money on ebay and tbh I think id have been better off burning my money so far. I have been looking at wholesale lots and so far the things Ive came across are job lots of makeup popular stuff like rimmel etc stuff thats selling on ebay. Ive spent ages researching the market, the items to see if I can get it cheap enough to sell, check the competition, if i can beat the competition if competition is low etc etc etc. So my plan has been to sell loads of small cheap things problem is I have listed my stuff cheaper than the only one other competition by a decent amount and today someone bought 4 things from him just because he has a fucking top rated seller badge I presume. my feedback is 100% btw. On top of that ebay fees are an absolute disgrace then theres postage to pay eventually cutting my profit down to only about 50% return if that on some items.

How can you profit on ebay?? The stuff already goes much cheaper than offline, selling more expensive items results in even higher fees and postage costs, I cant get the same rep as top rated sellers until i sell tonnes and become power seller etc. So how can it be profitable? Please offer advice. I cant afford to spend thousands in inventory for discounts. I cant find dropshippers and the only wholesale prices I have found is ebay. Buying stuff for 40p selling for 1.50 is giving me about 40p-50p profit after fees etc its just going really slowly.