How to sell on eBay? [A Step by Step Guide]

By Abhinav Girdhar | Last Updated on March 20th, 2023 10:42 am | 5-min read

The world of ecommerce is lucrative indeed and has helped many aspirants turn into flourishing business owners. In this post, we are going to talk about importing stuff from China, how to sell them on eBay, how to open an eBay store, and how does selling on eBay really work. We will also be talking a little about the ecommerce giant Alibaba (AliExpress), eBay dropshipping, eBay shipping options, dropshipping from Alibaba to eBay, and more.

eBay is one of the biggest and most popular e-commerce sites on the internet that lets you easily create an account and sell online. The site is popular among the sellers as it lets them sell the unwanted items lying around in the house and make some extra money. If you are one of those who has asked the question – how to sell stuff on eBay, you have landed at the right place.

On eBay, you can set up an online business and sell multiple products and multiple tools out there to a wider customer base. In fact, many people have done well, and established themselves as entrepreneurs, making a lot of money by selling on eBay.

How to sell on eBay? [A step-by-step process with tips]

Here is the process broken down into easy steps to help you sell on eBay and increase your chances of success as an online seller.

Explore eBay

Before you jump up and start listing products for sale, you must explore the site and study the seller information pages on eBay to understand the site’s selling policies. Try searching on the site and browse different listings and analyze the listings that appear on the top of the search results.

Choose your account name (wisely)

Though you can change your user ID every 30 days, but changing it too often will lead to loss of loyal customers. Read the guidelines eBay has in place for choosing an account name and start trying out the names that work for you. Stay away from offensive names or names that sound unprofessional or misleading.

Create your eBay account

Go to eBay’s homepage and click on the ‘Register’ link. Enter your email address, choose a password and enter the username you chose. You will then get an email with instructions to confirm your account.

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Set up your PayPal account

If you do not have a PayPal account, create one. It’s free and is pretty easy to set up. PayPal links to your bank account or to your credit card. Once the buyer makes a purchase, the money will reflect in your PayPal account that you can transfer to your bank.

Buy some small items to build your reputation

On eBay, trust and authority is built through feedback and eBay encourages both, buyers and sellers to leave feedback about each other. Buy small things on eBay and make immediate payments to get positive feedback as a buyer. Your prospective buyers would not trust a new seller with no feedback on their profile.

Complete your eBay profile

You are going to start small, so you don’t really have to add copious amount of information on your profile. However, you must at least add a profile picture and minimum information to establish trust. As you start selling more expensive stuff, you would have to add more information about yourself. It’s a good idea to read some profiles and then make yours stronger.

Start by selling things you know about

Bank on your strengths. If you are good at finding bargain items or rare ones in a certain category, focus first on selling them. eBay is a great place for hobbyists or collectors, and you can specialize in what you are familiar with.

Decide how you will source items

You can only sell what you can find. This is why it is important that you pick a sourcing technique that you enjoy. If you enjoy going to thrift stores or garage sales, start there. Remember, you can’t return goods you bought from this source.

Plan your product listings

You will have to write a separate listing for each product you put up for sale on eBay. This involves product pictures, description, and shipping methods for each, which will require your time. Initially, it is a good idea to sell similar items so that you can create listing templates.

Make shipping and storage arrangements

Since the pricing of your product includes shipping, huge and heavy things may not bring in any profit for you. Buyers are going to see the total cost and are not going to buy if they think the item is not appropriately priced. Storage is an issue that many fail to factor in. If you are selling from home, you will save up on the overheads, but are you willing to alter the quality of your life because all that stuff is overcrowding your home?



Draft your listings well

The title of your listing should be descriptive and should be something that people will search for. For example, “antique gramophone” or “Women’s Gap Leggings Size 5” indicates what the product is, in few words. The product description should state the condition it is in. Like ‘new’, ‘new with tags’, ‘new without tags’, ‘gently used’, ‘mint condition’, ‘heavily used’, ‘worn’ or ‘simply used’. Mention clearly if the product is not in working condition or is refurbished. The more details you include in your description, the better it is for your reputation. If you sell an item and a buyer complains with “not as described”, you will have to refund.

Take good quality pictures of your product

A good picture of the product can make the listing very attractive. Take the picture of the real product, not one from the internet. You can add up to 12 pictures for free. You don’t have to use all 12, but try and take pictures from different angles to represent it best. If you are selling a product with flaws, include those in the pictures to ensure that the buyers know what they are buying.

Choose the selling format

You can choose between two options – online auction and buy it now. Choose the option that works the best for your product. You can choose to hold online auctions from 1-10 days that may fetch you a higher price because of the competitive nature. This works best when you have some rare items or memorabilia. The buy it now option only lets you put a fixed price for your products, but lets the buyers get the product shipped to them immediately.

Set the price

The price for the product must be set keeping in mind the actual cost, the shipping and packaging costs, eBay fees, and your time and efforts. Pricing your product too low will never get you any profit and pricing them too high won’t really get you much of a buyer interest.

Be ready to ship

Once your items are sold, make sure that your items are packaged properly (particularly if they are fragile) and are ready to be shipped quickly. Improper packaging can damage the product and get you unhappy customers.

Leave feedback

Provide feedback for each transaction, whether you are a buyer or a seller. Leave a positive feedback for fast paying customers and use the opportunity to invite them back for more sales.

Join relevant eBay groups

If you are selling something unique or rare, it may be a good idea to join relevant groups. Collectors scour these groups and you get a space to show off your own art or handcrafted products.

Promote your listings

If your prospective buyers can’t see your listings, they can’t buy either. Promote your listings on different social media channels so that your network and the extended network can see what you have to offer and may express their interest, or even make a purchase.

Build up your feedback

On eBay, the feedback score becomes a massive deciding factor when buyers come across similar products and listings. Sell a few inexpensive things with the intent to garner some good feedback ratings, and boost up your overall trust factor among the buyers.

Consider opening eBay store

This may be too early to plan at this stage, but once you have established yourself as a reputable seller on eBay, you can set up an eBay store of your own as well. This way, prospects and existing customers would be able to search for you through your own unique URL on a browser.

Conclusion

Ecommerce has given convenience a new face. Not only do the buyers enjoy the ease of finding almost everything under the sun, but the sellers too enjoy the enormous possibilities of finding success with little investment.

This post gives you a basic understanding of how to become an eBay seller and also tells you how to sell on eBay in simple, understandable steps. If you have a knack for finding rare collectibles or just want to get rid of some items that you have no use for, eBay is a great place to make money. However, one important thing to remember is that it is not a place to make money fast. If anything, this is where you need to commit for the long haul. Have patience and stick to the process, you’ll definitely get there.

Did you know that you can create your own ecommerce app on Appy Pie and start selling products directly to your customers without having to pay any commission? Time to start your own business now!