How to Start an eBay Store – A Complete Guide
eBay is great and you can do a lot of things on it that you can’t do anywhere else. It’s a grand marketplace, but sometimes we want to be the ones doing the selling instead of the buyer. Start an eBay store is the best way to build a brand presence on eBay. As one of the most established and hassle-free selling platforms, eBay features plenty of opportunities.
The first “eBay” was the first marketplace that allowed people to sell things over the Internet. It is an ideal place to sell your unwanted items, and also a great place to scale a full-time eCommerce business.
Good Overview of When to Open an eBay Store
You successfully kick-started your online business by taking advantage of the existing audience of eBay and its reputation. After you learn how to set up an online business, you can still benefit greatly from setting up an online store. I’ve successfully expanded my eBay business by adding other online channels, including other eBay sites, Amazon sites, and my website.
Some people argue that hosting your website on a third-party marketplace is a mistake. They say that by having your store hosted on someone else’s platform, whether it be eBay or Etsy or any other marketplace, you are essentially a guest, and thus that eBay can suspend you and take away your livelihood.
Before you start selling on eBay, it’s important to be aware of a few things:
Pick out Your Brand Name
The value of eBay’s brand will only increase with time. eBay’s brand is one of its biggest assets and helps it to attract hundreds of millions of shoppers each year. Coca-Cola spends millions on advertising in a bid to maintain its brand presence and eBay seeks out the best sellers so it can acquire more customers.
1.Price Efficacy: As your eBay sales increase, e.g. due to more list items or a higher selling price, you will reach a point where it makes sense to pay for an eBay store subscription versus having your items listed as standard auctions.
2.Promotion: Lots of people browse eBay looking for things to buy, but there are also lots of sellers on eBay. Concentrate your marketing efforts on social media and you can significantly improve the odds that someone will buy one of your products. If you are starting a business, you need to find your target audience and promote yourself in a cost-effective way and in line with your values.
Click here to read: The Best Customer Success Software
Starting a business is tough, but these steps might help you get your store set up today. Let’s read here.
Step 1: Creating Your Seller Account
Creating an account on eBay is easy enough for the average user; however, because there are so many different options, it can be hard for beginners to decide which parts are most important. When you’re just starting, you’re looking to be successful, so you’ll want to sign up for a free account. This means you don’t pay monthly fees, and you only pay eBay after your item sells. For example, if your item sells for $10, eBay takes $1.
Since the number of items you can list in a free account is limited, we recommend paying for an upgraded account instead. You can start with a limited number of free listings like 50 items but as soon as you start making sales you will have more free listings. Although there is a limit to the number of items you can list on eBay per month, there are some ways around this limitation. You can list free events and daily deals, and keep your inventory stocked while earning points.
At this point, you might want to think about subscribing to an eBay professional or online store management software. There are two kinds of subscription plans, both plans come with their benefits. One plan decreases your listing fees but has a lower cap on the number of listings you can make. The other plan increases your listing cap but has an increased fee per month.
For example, if you sell on eBay, you can drop your selling costs from 10% of the sale price to only 4% of the sale price by upgrading to a Premium store subscription. You can learn about all of eBay’s seller subscriptions on the official store site. Consider how much it costs to list each item on eBay without a subscription compared with the cost of an eBay Store subscription.
Step 2: Certified to Open a Store
You’ll have about 3-6 months before investing a lot of time and money in your business. The quickest and most effective way to do this is to:
- Become an expert in real estate and the buying-and-selling process.
- Positive reviews and feedback will help you sell more of this product.
As a new seller on eBay, there are things you can sell that others can’t.
- I recommend that you have a steady flow of $500-$1,000 worth of products going through your eBay store.
- If you want to sell more than 25 items per month, it’s important to have enough listings to account for that many sales and enough inventory management to keep up with those sales.
- It’s a good idea to have an automatic payment option on your eBay account so that fees are taken out of your account on time.
- Buyers are more comfortable with PayPal than any other form of payment. In addition to this, you should provide all other relevant information such as your bank account and credit card information.
Step 3: Subscription of Right eBay Store
To decide whether a subscription is for you, you need to know what’s out there. It’s important to keep in mind that you have the flexibility to upgrade your system at any point in time, although it is not always necessary. There are five different eBay store packages, each with a unique discount structure.
- Starter: For just $4.95 per month, you’ll receive up to 100 free fixed-price listings.
- Basic: For $21.95 per month, you get 250 free fixed-price listings and no monthly fees.
- Premium: For $59.95 per month (billed annually), a business can get 1,000 fixed-price listings.
- Anchor: The price per hundred listings per month is $299.95 per month (billed annually).
- Enterprise: For a fixed fee of $2,999.95 per month, you can get 100,000 monthly listings.
If you don’t have an eCommerce website or if you want to give people a place to view your products, then opening a store may be a good idea. You might also want to open a store if there are many comparable items.
Africa Direct sells a lot of products on eBay. Many people already have their card details saved and linked with PayPal, so it is easier for them than finding their credit card and visiting another store.
Click here to read: The Complete Guide to App Store Optimization (ASO)
Select a Name For Your Store
Choose the URL of your store properly. If you know that your site will be about men’s shoes and belts, it’s better to choose “mens-shoes-belts.com” as a URL instead of “mikes-shoes
Step 4: Profile Your eBay Store
There are many aspects to consider in an order to be a successful eBay business owner:
- Add new items to your store regularly, and update items that aren’t selling as well. This gives customers more options and helps them find what they want easier.
- To maximize your income, it’s important to pay attention to which products are selling, and the long-term viability of those that aren’t.
- Auctions are more popular among eBay sellers, but “Buy It Now” is an increasingly popular option that brings in a lot of revenue.
- You have to stay positive if you’re going to sell. If you think your product is good, then smile and imply it in your writing. If you’re already familiar with the benefits of the product, then it’s a safe bet that you might be interested in purchasing.
If you want to sell your product at a certain price, you can make it seem more appealing by placing promotions on it.
Two Features of eBay Store
There are two important features of a eBay store:
1.Generating Categories of Store
If you are an eBay store owner and you sell women’s shoes, placing those shoes in the right category (say, “Shoes”) will make it easier for customers to find your products.
- Laptops
- mobiles
- Cloths
- Books
- Stationary
2.Generating an Item List or Email List
If you want to get more repeat customers, create an email list of the people who have bought from you in the past. The email contains the following points:
- Subject: Delight your customers with new recommendations, introduce them to new brands, or keep them informed with the latest trends. Up to 50% off men’s clothing!
- Header: Get 50% off all electronics. For this type of offer, people need to know what exactly they’re getting and what the deal is.
- Private message: If you’re trying to build trust with the people around you, it will be important to consider how other people’s perceptions are formed. And for that, you need to share a little bit of information about your store and the benefits they will enjoy when they buy from your store.
- Article to display: Displaying strong images in the first part of your message is a proven technique because people tend to trust what they see.
- Article list: Because e bay is a site filled with people who like to browse, your best bet is to list just enough items on it to give people an idea of what you have available.
- Seller Assessment: The more satisfied your customers are with your products and their interactions with you, the more likely they are to leave good feedback.
Conclusion
It’s not necessary to have a store on eBay it’s just one of the many ways to sell your products. If you are starting with an online store we recommend that you do some research about the different options available so that you. Use your financial situation and other factors to decide whether starting an eBay store is right for you.
First, you need to decide if eBay is a good fit for your business as a whole. Then, you need to decide if having an online store is a good fit for your particular business’s needs.
