How to Sell On EBay

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Starting Out on EBay

There are two ways to sell on EBay – if you are having a clear out and want to get rid of one or two items then you can simply place them on the sell section of EBay, either as an auction or a fixed price item.

If you wish to sell professionally on EBay i.e. you already have a shop / online web site and possibly sell through any other marketplace or sales channel such as Shopify or Amazon, then to become a successful EBay seller you will need to open an Ebay online store or shop!

As a new seller knowing what to sell and adding products to your store does take some thought and time if you wish to generate a good income. Like Google, EBay has its own search engine and it is sensible to optimise titles and descriptions as well as having high resolution and good images of your products.

Why sell through a shop

Simply put it becomes much cheaper as dependent on what shop  package you purchase, listings are free and there are lower final seller fees.  It would be sensible to consider how many items you wish to sell, clearly if it’s one or two every week then it would not be worth subscribing to an EBay store.

How to open an account on EBay

In order to buy or sell anything you need to register an account on ebay, and become an ebay seller. There are 80 million plus ebay sellers worldwide, and $80 billion dollars a year are spent on ebay – so it’s an enormous marketplace to use. See our stats page for more information about which are the most popular categories on EBay.

As a beginner, you should first decide where in the world you wish to buy and potentially sell, so if it’s in the UK you would go to ebay.co.uk , US it’s ebay.com, if you are unsure just search in google for ebay and your country so for Australia type in ebay Australia and it will give  you the URL so ebay.com.au.

We will continue as if we are registering a new account on ebay uk https://reg.ebay.co.uk/reg/PartialReg

All you now need to do is fill in your name, email and password and you have now opened an account. If you wish to add address  details  then in the top right hand corner where it says Hello (your name) click on this and select Account Settings – you will then be able to add other information such as address details.

 
EBay Account Settings Link

Listing your First Item on EBay

Firstly, use a tool such as Fast Intell to determine which merchandise to sell. Using our Fast Intell tool is a great way to quickly find items which other EBay merchants are selling, with which your can compete. It will show you product information, the number of sales, whether the items are offering free shipping.

If you now wish to create one or two EBay listings and start as an EBay seller, go to the My eBay heading in the top left hand corner of the screen and select Selling.

EBay Selling Link
 

Once you are in the Selling screen, select List and item – EBay will then walk you through all the fields required to create your product listing. You will need :

  • A title. This should contain keywords which buyers are most likely to use to find the item in EBay’s search results
  • A good description
  • Quality photo (2 or more is better)
  • Price of item
  • Cost of postage, taking into account your own shipping cost. You should also consider offering free shipping and/or free returns, depending on what your competitors are offering.
  • How you wish to collect the money

You can then save the changes and create your EBay listing.

Optimizing your listings, following best practices, and being clear on EBay policies will help you to get good positive feedback. EBay feedback will build your credibility, reduce refunds, give you a competitive advantage and really contribute to your EBay success.

Why would I want to open an EBay shop?

If you wish to sell items daily or on a regular basis it is more cost effective to ‘open an ebay shop’, via an EBay business account – for a subscription fee you will be able to list a number of items for free and you will have much lower final value fees when an item is sold. This will optimize your chances of becoming a successful EBay seller.

Both Ebay and Paypal charge you for using their platforms. It is important to take in the cost price of a product, postage, packaging and your time as well as the percentage ‘cut’ that ebay and Paypal will take in order to determine the best way to make a profit.

Common Mistakes When Selling on EBay

We have seen too many people selling at a loss as they do not take  into account, postage and packing fees and the percentage that EBay and Paypal will take for their services. Dependent on what category you wish to sell items in fees too vary .

For private sellers (those that do not open a shop) the eBay final value fee is 10% for any item category and PayPal charges 2.9% + £0.30

For private sellers there is also a listing fee – these vary dependent on category, whether its an auction or Buy It Now or if you place a reserve price on the item amongst other criteria. Ebay will inform you of the fees before you submit a listing for sale.  Remember to record the listing fee so you can determine profit.

If you open a shop then dependent on the subscription level of shop you take out fees vary. For the UK,  here is our calculator to determine business seller fees EBay Fee Calculator

How to open a shop or store on EBay

Login to your ebay account, in the top right  hand corner where it says Hello (your name) click on this and select Account Settings. You will notice a bold heading SELLING – underneath which is a Subscriptions link – it then displays the different levels of shop that you can purchase. You will need to decide which shop is the best fit for your business – we suggest starting with the Basic Shop which currently costs £19.99 a month. This allows you 1000 free listings a month. You can cancel the subscription at any time.

In order for EBay to take the subscription you will need to add a credit card or bank details to the Billing Information section under Your account.

 
EBay Subscription Link

PAYPAL – In order for EBay to send you the money for any items purchased you will need a PayPal account.

If you do not have an account then it is simple to set up and register for one. You will need an E-Mail address and a bank account – when you set up a Paypal account – they will deposit a small sum i.e. 1p into your bank account to verify it, you will also receive a ‘code’ within that Paypal deposit on your statement which you will need to input into Paypal before they will Verify you! https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/account-selection

In our next blog we will discuss how to sell successfully on EBay