How To Start An eBay Reselling Business For Beginners In 2021
eBay can be really a really powerful way to make some extra cash!
I started my business over years ago, and I have tried so many things since then. The first business that really took off for me was eBay reselling, and there are many reasons for that.
eBay has some great promotion tools that work in the background, so making sales is quite easy. When I first started I thought that selling on eBay just wouldn't work but I was proven wrong, I made my first sale after just 5 days and after that sales just kept coming in.
In this article, I am going to explain and teach you how to get started with an eBay reselling business so that you can increase the amount of money you make every month!
Understanding The Business Model
Before you start an eBay reselling business, you have to fully understand what you are getting into.
The basic idea of eBay reselling is you go out and buy products from stores that are filled with discounted products. You then sell these products on eBay and ship them out for a profit.
You don’t need a massive budget to get started either. When I started I only spent around $5 and I got around $30 profit in 2 weeks. This might not sound a lot, but it grows over time.
Choosing What To Buy
The first thing that you want to do when starting an eBay reselling is knowing what you should be selling.
eBay is great because you can sell almost anything on it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that everything that you list will sell. It is important to know what items sell the best and what ones will make you the most profit.
There are quite a few things that sell well on eBay but here are my top 5:
- Educational Books
- Video Games
- Clothing
- Un-opened Toys
- Collectables
From my experience, these things have sold fastest, and I have had the largest profits. I know some people have done really well with shoes, but they are expensive to ship and you need more experience to sell them successfully.
If you are just getting started, then these are the best for you to get started with because they are really cheap most of the time and you can make decent profits from them.
Buy Stock
The next step is to go out to different stores like thrift stores and start checking out what products they have.
I suggest that you have the eBay app installed for this because you can scan items and find out how much they are selling for. You can then compare this to how much you can buy it for in the store.
Try to stick to the products that you know will sell because this can allow you to build up money to buy and sell more expensive products.
You will probably spend a couple of hours in each store scanning products because there are so many things to choose from. You want to try to find the items that are brand new because they will sell for a lot more.
The only time that you will want to buy a second-hand item is if it is a collectible because they will be cheaper for you to buy and sell for more.
Setting Up Your eBay Store
There are a few things that you need to do before you can start selling on eBay. There are 2 different accounts that you need to get started, an eBay selling account and a Paypal Business account.
Setting up an eBay store is very simple, go to eBay.com and sign up for an account, add all your details and you will nearly be ready to start selling.
You then need to create a PayPal Business account, this is also quite easy. Got to paypal.com and click “Sign Up for a business account”, enter all the relevant detail and connect your credit or debit card to it.
Now you just need to connect them together by going to your eBay account and adding a payment method. Once you have done that, you can start selling on eBay.
Make sure to keep in mind that eBay takes a 10% fee from everything that you sell and you have to pay PayPal fees. I will explain how to pay these fees later in the articles.
Listing Items
Listing items is also really easy, but there are a few things that you need to do. I advise that you take multiple pictures of the product first and then upload them to your computer.
You can also do all the following steps from your phone if you don’t have access to your computer. If you have access to a computer, then I highly recommend using that over a phone because it is much easier.
The first thing that you need to when listing your items is to choose a descriptive title, try to make this as long as eBay allows you to, as this can help you rank in the search.
You want to do the same thing with the description, make it as long and detailed as possible. You can look at other sellers that are already selling that item so that you can get some ideas for what the description should be but don't copy it exactly.
You also want to set your price based on what other people are selling it for and what it has sold for in the past. When you are just getting started, you won’t have any reviews so you won’t be a trusted seller. The way to solve this is to lower your price so that it is lower than the competition.
You will be able to fill everything else out because it is really simple to understand and it shouldn't take you very long to do.
Shipping Items
Once your items have sold, you have to ship them out. This involves packaging the item and then taking it to a mailing centre to be shipped.
Packaging
You should buy bubble wrap and shipping bags to ensure that your items will arrive at your customer without them being damaged.
Try to take your time over this to ensure that there are no weak points in the packaging because it is essential that you get a high rating for the item that you have sold.
Shipping
There are a couple of different ways to ship your item, but I recommend paying for shipping online and then taking it to the mailing office.
This is because you can minimise the time that you are in the post office and it is usually cheaper by about 20%.
Paying Fees
The last thing that you need to worry about is paying fees. There are 2 different types of fees that you need to pay, eBay fees and PayPal Fees.
PayPal
These are really easy to deal with because the money to pay the fees are taken out of the money that hits your PayPal when you make a sale.
The amount that you end up having to pay depends on multiple factors, but you can find them all on the PayPal website.
eBay Fees
These fees are slightly harder to deal with because they don't come out of the money that you earn straight away. They build up over the month and you have to pay them like a bill at the end of the month.
You can choose to have them automatically pay about halfway through the month and that will come out of your PayPal account.
You can also have it be a one-time payment that you send to eBay when you get the bill by email.
Conclusion
Generating sales on eBay can be really simple, and it can become a great additional income source. Almost anyone should get started because it is really easy to get started with because the only requirement is that you are above the age of 18.
