It’s very easy to sell on eBay, whether you want to start a new online selling business or just want to get rid of items you’ve accumulated in your basement or garage. Learn how to manage the sales of your items, how to choose shipping options and how payment will be made, then how to create your profile and sell your products.
The eBay online platform is one of the most famous and used for buying and selling almost any type of product. First, you will have to sign up and create your seller profile for free. With your profile you will be able to create listings, manage your orders, read messages sent by users interested in your products and leave reviews. It will only take a few minutes to register and you can do it from your PC by accessing the site, or after downloading the app on your smartphone (app available for both Android and iOS devices).
How to register on eBay
After entering the main page of eBay, you must click on the top left on “Register” and enter the required data: name, surname, email address and password, then to complete the registration click on “Sign Up”. In a few seconds you will receive an email to the address with which you registered, for verification.
In addition to selling on eBay as a private individual, you can also do so by creating a business account, then as a professional seller. This type of account allows you to have access to promotions, professional tools and have higher limits to your sales. If you are a professional seller, after clicking on “register”, you’ll have to tick the business account option and then enter the data of the legal business name, email and phone number of your company and a password. To continue, enter the control code and click on “Sign up”.
If you sign up through a mobile device, after downloading the app from the relevant store, open it and click on “My eBay”. From the menu, which you will find at the bottom, select “Sign in” and then “Register a new account”.
How to sell an item on eBay
To sell an item on eBay you have to follow a very simple procedure. Log into your account and click on “Sell” at the top. The first thing to do is to insert the type of product in the section “Create a descriptive title for the ad”, then click on “Sell”. It will open a page that will show you items similar to the one you want to sell. Cerca quello più simile al tuo e clicca su “Vendi un oggetto simile”, se invece non hai trovato niente di simile, clicca su “crea una nuova inserzione”.
Adesso dovrai scegliere una delle opzioni dove mettere la spunta tra: “Nuovo”, “Nuovo: altro”, “Usato” e “Per parti di ricambio o non funzionante”. Questa scelta serve per indicare le condizioni del tuo oggetto. Ora potrai inserire il titolo del tuo annuncio di vendita nel campo “Titolo” e poi tramite “Aggiungi delle foto” potrai inserire un massimo di 12 immagini del tuo prodotto. Per descrivere in tutti i suoi particolari il prodotto, potrai compilare il campo “Dettagli”. Per indicare che tipologia di inserzione vuoi creare, dovrai scegliere nella sezione “Seleziona il formato e il prezzo” una delle seguenti opzioni:
- Asta online: crei una inserzione in asta che può durare massimo 10 giorni, dovrai indicare il prezzo e la durata dell’inserzione e se c’è la possibilità di acquisto immediato del bene, spuntando la voce “Aggiungi compralo subito” inserendo un prezzo più alto rispetto quello di partenza. Potrai anche scegliere se il prodotto potrà essere venduto solo se si raggiunge una cifra minima impostata da te, quindi impostare il “Prezzo di riserva”;
- Compralo subito: l’oggetto può essere venduto subito. Bisogna specificare il prezzo, la quantità e quanto durerà l’inserzione. Se vuoi, esiste anche la possibilità di spuntare la voce “Aggiungi proposta d’acquisto”. In questo modo l’acquirente può fare delle proposte di prezzo che potrai valutare. To schedule the duration of the advertisement you will have to pay 0.20 cents and fill in the field “Schedule a time for the advertisement to start”.
To end the sale advertisement you will be able to indicate the shipping method, choosing the options in the menu between: ordinary parcel, local pickup, book delivery, courier, etc.. Finally, you will have to indicate the sale price and check the “Offer shipping”, if you want the shipping to be free.
Also for the payment methods you can choose between different options: PayPal, bank transfer, money order and cash on delivery. The last details to be established concern the “Place where the item is located”, the “Packaging time” and the “Return”. To see the preview of your ad, click on “See a preview” and to confirm click on “Save for later” to complete it later. If you want to publish it right away, instead, check the cost in the “Listing fees” and then click on “Put on sale at the rates shown”.
Costs to sell on eBay
Before you start selling something on eBay, you need to know what the costs are, in fact you have to know that there are commissions, which are usually applied to use some services, and fees that are applied to the final selling cost of the product. A private user can write 50 listings for free for each month, in the sections “Buy it now” and “Online Auction”. Beyond 50 listings, the cost is 0.35 cents.
If you create your own basic store, you will have 100 free listings per month, the next ones will cost 0.15 cents in “Buy Now” mode and 0.35 cents in “Online Auction” mode. Other services are all paid for each ad, for example “Online auction with the option buy it now” at a cost of 0.35 cents, “Design your own ad” at a cost of 0.20 cents, “Planned ad” at a cost of 0.20 cents and “Subtitle” at a cost of 0.50 cents.
If you succeed in making a sale, there are commissions on the final price of 10% of the total cost of the transaction, at this cost is not added the cost of shipping the product. The commission can be a maximum of 200 euros. If the payment is made through PayPal, other commission charges may be applied. As for the category “Cars and motorcycles”, the commissions and the costs of listing are different, for this in fact you can see the page dedicated to eBay “Sellers Space”.
Professional sellers who have a business account, have fees that vary depending on the type of store they have opened. If the store is basic, the monthly fee is €19.50 with 300 free listings, plus commissions on sales, which vary depending on the type of product. To learn more about it, go to the dedicated page “Professional sellers’ space”.
What happens after posting an ad?
Advertisements can be controlled and managed through the “Sell” item, which you will find in your account. Log in to your account and click on the “My eBay” item at the top right. A new page will open, click on “Sell”, which you will find in the sidebar. In the menu you’ll find, look for the “Sales” item to be able to check your “Seller Level”, that is, all your selling activities on eBay: all your listings that you have previously scheduled, the listings you have published and that are in progress, all the products you have managed to sell and also the listings that have expired.
As far as ongoing listings are concerned, you’ll be able to see some data such as: all the users looking at the listing, all the offers you’ve received for that particular listing and the time left before it expires, if it’s a listing with a specific duration. eBay reserves for its sellers some special offers, which you can find in the “promotional offers” section, for example the possibility to create new listings for free.
To view all your income and be able to monitor how much you earn from your listings, just go to the “Sales” page and then in the “Total” box, which you will find in the sidebar on the left. If instead you click on “Payments”, you can check all the amounts of payments you have received and those you have not received. If you have been able to see a product, you will find its listing under the heading “Sold”. From this section you will be able to understand if the buyer has already made the payment and left a review.
After you have received the payment, you will be able to ship the product. Also leave a review for the buyer, is not a bad thing, it helps to let the seller know, if that is a good buyer or not and your selling experience, on “Leave a feedback comment”.