Find Products to Sell on eBay
You are one of two people when it comes to eBay: either someone who owns their own products and wants to start selling on eBay or someone who is just entering the world of eBay.
Steps
- Prepare your products around your budget. Determine the best method that will allow you to succeed:
- Create wholesale prices to buy them, then list it on eBay for selling.
- Explore drop shipping. This is what most eBay PowerSellers use. PowerSellers rank among the most successful sellers on eBay in terms of sales and customer satisfaction.
Buy Wholesale and Sell as a Retailer
- Research which items are in demand. eBay Pulse http://pulse.ebay.com is a free tool offered by eBay that will show you the top ten searches on eBay within a particular product category. If, for example, you want to sell digital cameras on eBay then use eBay Pulse to see which cameras people are searching for.
- Pinpoint the real wholesalers. There is a big difference between a wholesaler and middleman. With a true wholesaler, you get the best deals and prices. Having a re-seller's certificate is the most important thing to buy a lot of wholesale products at very low affordable prices. True wholesalers like to deal with other legitimate businesses.
- Find an adequate, safe and protected place for storing your products. This is very important because sometimes you sell on eBay a product and when you come back to pack it and ship it, you find it damaged if it was not well stored. This will be very disappointing to you as well as to your buyer.
- Have a nice place with adequate light to picture your products. This will help you to give accurate description to your listing. accurate descriptions and pictures builds confidence with buyers and make them repeat customers.
- Stock on shipping boxes and shipping supplies (tape, bubble wrap, and other necessities). Ensure that you have them readily and available.
- If you do decide to purchase them from eBay itself, they are may be cheaper and of good quality and you will get a feedback from the seller which will also help building your reputation.
- File packaging tracking numbers. It is not necessary to keep, however, in such cases where the buyer requests it or if something goes astray during the shipping, you will need it.
Use drop-shipping
Drop-shipping is a system formed by a drop-shipping company which carries the products, a retailer who sells the product (you, in this case) and a customer who buys the product.
- Advantages of drop-shipping:
- Lower starting price for your business: The costs of storing wholesale products as well as packing and shipping individual items may be huge especially if you are starting your business and on budget. With drop-shipping, you don't have to store anything nor you have to pack and ship a single product.
- You don't pay upfront for inventory: You don't pay the drop-shipping company for an order until your customer pays you. You can easily select some products from the drop-shipping company website and test them by listing on eBay without any need to buy them in advance. If your product sells, you will then pay the drop-ship company to ship to your customer. If it does not sell, you have no product in your hand. You just lost eBay insertion fees.
- Saves time: If you buy wholesale, you will spend a lot of time to arrange your products and store them. When something is sold, more time will be invested in printing packing slips and shipping labels, packing your items in shipping boxes as well as shipping your items.With drop-shipping, you will save all that time and you can concentrate on marketing and promoting your items on eBay.
- No Order Minimums: Excellent drop-shipping companies will not charge a drop-ship fees for small orders.
- Large variety of products: You can sell on eBay many products from different drop-shipping companies in different categories. You can sell electronics, baby items, clothing, games, etc..It doesn't matter because you will not be storing any of these products. This will not be available when buying wholesale.. You will also able to sell large and fragile items, such as furniture, without the hassle of trying to store, pack and ship each piece.
- Easier listing over eBay: Drop-shipping companies websites are always loaded with professional pictures and descriptions of their products. This will help you to list items easier and faster on eBay.
- Build your name and reputation: Some drop-shipping companies will ship your packages with labels from your company name [ebay user Id In this case]. Your eBay store name can be put on all the packages drop-shipped to your customers.
- Learn about the disadvantages:
- Drop-shipped products prices are usually a bit higher than wholesale prices: This is a fact, the more you buy, the better price you get.
- Some companies will charge you a drop-shipping fee: You will pay this fee for each product shipped to your customer. This fee is to cover the process of packing and shipping individual items.
- Occasional problems with shipping: some drop-shipping companies are slow in fulfilling your orders or the packaging of products is not that good. This might lead to unsatisfied customer, if he receives his package late or damaged. So whenever you are joining a new drop-shipping company, always do a simple test for them. Make an order for a product for yourself. let the product be shipped to your address. Now you can evaluate by yourself the timing and packaging. You can avoid all this hassle if you know some trustworthy and tested drop-shipping companies to start with.
- Drop-shipping companies serve lot of sellers: Sometimes when you sell an item and you come back to order it, you will find it out of stock. This might carry the risk of unsatisfied customer. If this happens to you, try to handle it with your customer very fast. For example, you can write ”In rare occasions, we are out of stock of some items but the items are not yet removed from our eBay store. If this happens and you have already paid for the item, your money will be refunded in full immediately.”
Tips
- If you are going to sell many products over eBay, try to have a daily UPS pickup. This will facilitate the whole process of shipping and will minimize your shipping costs.
