Beginner's Guide to Starting an eBay Business 2019 / 2020 | Step by Step Guide

what's going on everybody I'm Ryan roots I wanted to make a video today to talk to the beginners just getting started on eBay we have a bunch of new people that are starting to watch our channel and we wanted to just I wanted to kind of make a video going through step by step how to start an eBay business so this isn't gonna be too much about like sourcing and where to find wholesale that kind of stuff it's going to be more about step by step how to create your accounts and how to list items and how to ship them in our opinion for beginners and again the main reason for me making this video is because when we first started selling on eBay there were a lot of daunting things that we didn't know how to do and we kind of like stumbled our way through it but it definitely was difficult and if we had a video like this it would have made it a lot easier and then again why should you even listen to me at all we are we've been selling on eBay for full time we've been selling on eBay for about five years and total throughout our e-commerce career we've sold over a million dollars online so I know what I'm talking about and if if there's somebody that you should be listening to it should be somebody who does it every single day we still consistently sell on eBay we do six figures a year only on eBay so here we go so what I've done is I've typed out eight steps so eight steps on how to start the eBay business and I'm just going to go through it step by step I'll probably cut to a few different things and show you guys on my computer exactly what I'm talking about but I'm just going to go through these steps and I made it like I said I try to make it as simple and as easy as possible so step number one is what accounts to open you're gonna want to open an eBay account and you're gonna want to open a PayPal account now when you're just getting started on eBay you do not need to open an eBay store so you do not need to open an eBay store and then on PayPal you do not need to open a business account the trick here is just to get your accounts open everything can be changed as you grow if you end up starting an LLC you can change everything over to your business if you want to open an eBay store you can open a store in the future and all of your feedback transfers so you don't need to open an eBay store and you don't need a PayPal business account to begin with so again the first step is to open those accounts point number 2 here is to know that you are gonna have limitations on that account when you first open an eBay account more than likely you're going to be limited to only being able to post 10 items or $1,000 worth of value on that account you can ask for increases on your accounts I made a video about that which I'll link up here somewhere on how to ask eBay for account limits to be increased but again it's important to note here that there are going to be limitations on your eBay account and getting an eBay store signing up for an eBay store will not take those limitations away we've had people ask us sometimes that they you know they open a regular eBay account and they're like oh I have limitations let me just pay for an eBay store doing that will not take those limitations away PayPal will also place separate limits on your account as well so PayPal has its own limits eBay has its own limits on PayPal typically they're gonna hold the money that you're paid in your PayPal account for two to three weeks depending it's kind of like a probationary period to make sure that you're actually shipping the items out to your eBay customers but yes PayPal is gonna place limits on your on your account where you're not gonna be able to use the money in your PayPal account for two to three weeks so be aware of that as well after those initial few weeks when PayPal fully activates your accounts then you'll have instant access to your money so don't be scared it's not always gonna be like that it's just for the first couple weeks so step number three is what items should you start listing on eBay well remember you're more than likely going to be limited to 10 items in total so the first items you list you want to list items that are in high demand and items that will sell very fast so typically what we tell people to do when they first started eBay account is to take a look around their house and look out for stuff like video games video game consoles electronics camera equipment sells very fast on eBay you want to look out for stuff that's that's desirable to people stuff that sells on a daily basis and the reason why is because with those types of items buyers are more likely to look past your feedback if the deal is good enough so if I'm listing for example if I'm listing this camera lens right here I know that this lens is a highly desirable item and even though if I start a brand new eBay account with zero feedback if I give a good enough deal on this item because it's such a desirable item buyers will look past my feedback and still be willing to purchase it and those are really the type of items that you want to look out for and start listing especially with those first ten you want to get items sold as fast as possible so you can start building your feedback and start building your your reputation on even so again step number three what items to look out for make sure you're only listing highly desirable items and again electronics camera stuff video games stuff like that really really good Apple stuff sells very very fast on eBay so step number four when you're first starting in eBay business is how should you list your items there's two ways to list on eBay you can list items as buy it now or you can list items as an auction now where we are currently in our business 99% of the items that we list on eBay are listed as by now the only time we run auctions currently is if we want to clear out old inventory and kind of just like sell it for what we can get that being said auctions can be a great way to start because you're kind of guaranteeing a sale instead of listing Buy It Now and then waiting around for the buyer to come to you so if I list something as buy it now it could take 30 days for me to sell that item whereas if I listed as a seven-day auction and I get a bid that item is sold in a week so auctions can be good when you're first starting out if you want to make sure that you're gonna get those sales but going back to what I said listing highly desirable items for a good price I still feel that even when you're first starting out on eBay if you're listing as Buy It Now and you're listing for the correct price with the right items your items will still sell so I still suggest that you do your research look for the right price look for the right items and then I still suggest that you list as Buy It Now because more than likely if you continue to go with this if you continue to build this into an actual eBay business more than likely that's gonna be the way that you're going to be listing in the future anyway and I don't want you to get too used to only running auctions okay which brings us to step number five which is how to research how much to list your items for this is actually fairly simple on eBay because you can go to sold comparable items on eBay we call them sold comps it's very easy you can just look for the actual item if your listing something like again this lens you can just type in exactly what the item is look at these sold comps on eBay and see how much those items have sold for when you do that you want to sort the items by recently sold first and just look at the most recent sales on the exact item make sure that you're noting the condition as well if the item is used make sure you're looking at the used comparable sales if the item is brand new again make sure you're looking at new comparable sales but the first thing you want to do is go to those sold listings sort by recently sold and start looking through those once that's done once you have kind of an average price range there then you want to look at what's currently active what's currently being sold on eBay and look at what your competition is selling something for because if something sold for $1,500 but it's listed currently for $1200 and there's a bunch of people selling it for twelve hundred bucks more than likely you're gonna want to list it around that amount and again because you're gonna be a brand new eBay seller at this point you kind of have to give a better deal than other sellers because you're not gonna have the reputation you're not gonna have the feedback there to warrant a higher price so again if something's listed for $1,500 by a very reputable seller with a lot of feedback you may want to come in and list that item for a hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars less to again give that buyer a better deal so that they look past your feedback and purchase from you so the next point I want to talk about number six is feedback I know I touched on it a little bit but let's get into it a bit more again when you first open an account on eBay you're gonna have a total of zero feedback um and feedback is your reputation on eBay it's what buyers look at to make sure that you are a trusted seller I'm and again if you have zero feedback it's not a bad thing it just means it's your new seller but just be aware that because you have zero feedback you may not again get those higher prices so a few ways to get start getting good feedback you need to make sure that your listing your items well so describe them as they are again don't sell something that's used as new that's a that's a big no-no so describe your items well take very very good clear pictures if there's any flaws on the items make sure you're taking good pictures of those so the buyers aren't expecting something and then getting something that isn't as described other things you can do make sure your shipping very fast sometimes will list items as longer shipping and will ship it to them much faster than they expect if you look at our feedback on our accounts a lot of the feedback we get is wow faster shipping than I expected so sometimes doing that just go in a bit over and above for the buyer shipping it to them fast that's a good way to do it as well we also include a thank-you note in all of our packages just saying thank you for your purchase if you have any issues reach out to us and if everything is as expected please go and leave us positive feedback so include a little thank-you note in your packages we actually print them out now so we have like little colour postcards they'll be put in everything but when we first started selling on eBay we would just type it out and print it out on a white sheet of paper cut them out and put it in the package you just want to make sure you have something going in the package saying thank you so the buyer knows that you are an actual person and they're not buying from a large corporation so that's how it gets positive seller feedback while you're doing that one thing that we suggest if you have again if you have zero feedback if you just started your eBay account one thing we suggest is to go on eBay and buy some shipping supplies or whatever supplies you need tape poly bags like this because you're gonna be shipping stuff in bags like that buy your supplies on ebay from sellers that have large accounts large amount of feedback and the reason why is because most of the time when you purchase stuff from a large seller like that they're gonna leave you automatic positive feedback as soon as you pay for the items so even our account right now our seller accounts if someone buys something from us on our accounts as soon as they pay for it our account is set up to automatically leave them positive feedback and even though that feedback coming in isn't seller feedback it still does count towards your little ebay feedback score so your score does go up and it shows as you know one positive feedback not a seller feedback but still shows as one positive feedback which adds to your overall reputation on eBay as a good seller and a good buyer so that's one way to to increase that feedback is to buy your supplies the supply that you need first starting out buy them on ebay from sellers with a good reputation lots of good feedback so now let's talk about point number seven which is pictures and listing the pictures sell the product on ebay that is 100% truth so again you want to make sure you're taking clear good quality pictures don't take it in a dark dim area don't don't hang a shirts on on your door and take a picture that way don'ts don't lay items on your dirty bed sheets and take pictures like that you want to make sure you're taking clear pictures and you don't have to go and buy a ton of expensive equipment to do that in fact you can go to the dollar store and you can get a white poster board and use that as your background white white backgrounds that's what eBay wants so that's the best way to do it go spend a couple bucks and get you know get just a white poster board and use that as your background I suggest taking your pictures using an iPhone to start you can use an Android as well but iPhone takes really good pictures and I suggest taking them in the square mode so you want a one by one aspect ratio and when you're taking the pictures click on the item scroll up with it so that you can you can adjust that brightness while you're taking the picture just to make the items kind of pop you can get great pictures as long as you have good lighting good background and a decent camera you're gonna get good pictures and I'll also link all of the supplies that we currently use for our business on eBay I'll link them in the description of this video so you can go and check out what we're currently using as well to get the best pictures and then just a couple more tips for when you're taking pictures make sure that you're taking at least four ebay once at least four pictures do not use stock images so don't go and Google something don't Google the item and then use that picture off somebody else's website make sure you're taking pictures of the actual item that you're selling and then again if there are any flaws make sure you're taking pictures of that and notating it in your item description so again clean clear pictures sell the product make sure that you're taking good pictures on either so that's item number seven hopefully you guys are following along and hopefully this isn't too overwhelming I'm trying to keep it very very simple while you know you got to remember that I'm only touching on maybe one to two percent of eBay as a whole but this video again is for those of you who are just starting out so hopefully this video is helping if it is helping so far please guys make sure to hit the thumbs up button on the video I would really appreciate it so the next thing and probably the most daunting thing for most new eBay sellers is shipping it was the hardest thing for us to learn and I could do I could do an hour-long video on just shipping but luckily Callie actually just did a it just did a video for us on shipping so I don't have to do that so I'm gonna talk briefly on shipping one thing that I'll suggest when you first start selling on ebay is to to keep things simple so that it's not overwhelming because there's 50 different shipping options on eBay what we suggest for a brand new ebay buyer or brand new ebay sellers to keep things simple is try to try to fit everything into three categories either first class mail so items that way under a pound that you can put in your own poly bags or in your own box and ship out try to keep things in there or go for flat rate envelopes so you can get flat rate envelopes or flat rate padded envelopes and then the next step up from that would be medium flat rate boxes which are a little bit more expensive there's cheaper ways to ship than that but for those of you who are just starting out if you can just keep those three in mind it'll make things easier for you and then you can learn as you go from there there's definitely other ways like regional a boxes which are really good gonna be a little bit cheaper but a little bit smaller than like a medium flat rates you can use FedEx you can use UPS there's other cheaper ways to ship I understand that but for the sake of this video for beginners I want you to focus on those three ways to ship poly bag or box under 16 ounces has to be under a pound to go first-class mail flat right envelopes again or pedofile rate envelopes and padded or not padded but medium flat rate box the flat rate envelopes and the medium flat rate boxes you can get for free on USPS comm that in this in the description of the video as well but you can get those supplies for free on USPS so when you're listing on eBay you're only going to be choosing one of those three options and again I suggest when you start out that you use free shipping make sure your items fit in your packaging if it's under a pound again make sure you're sticking the item in the packaging weighing it get a little scale weigh it before you list the items so you know that it is gonna be under a pound if it's not under a pound see if it fits in one of those flat rate envelopes if it doesn't fit in there move on to again you can do the regional a which is cheaper or move on to that medium flat rate box but again keep in mind that when you're doing free shipping whatever price you list at there are fees involved so eBay is gonna take ten percent out of that PayPal is going to take their three percent out of that and then you still have to pay for shipping on top of that so if you sell something for $100 and you put it in a padded flat rate envelope you're gonna be paying ten dollars to ebay three dollars to PayPal and another about eight bucks to ship that item out so just keep that in mind when you are when you are listing but again to make it easy we like to tell people to do free shipping but make sure it fits in one of those methods and then again you can go and watch Callie's shipping video Kelly is one of our employees she does all of our eBay shipping for us and she made a video on how we ship stuff on eBay it's a much more comprehensive video but but I just wanted to give you those three options to make it super simple so now we've talked pretty much step-by-step on how to start your account through how to list the only other things that I want to talk about because the questions come up as well is when you're listing an item so when you're looking at those sold comps when you go to list the best way to do it in my opinion is to click on sell similar and I'll do screenshots of this as well as so you guys can see what I'm talking about but you're going to want to click on the button that says so similar which will bring up the listing on eBay from there you can change the title to make sure that it's the correct title when you're when you're putting your title in on eBay that's the first thing that Google reads that eBay reads so you want to make sure that your title is perfect don't use all caps in your title make sure you're using all of the characters you have 80 characters I believe make sure you're using all of the characters up in the title that you can list the brand first so again like with this camera lens I would list saw the Sony it's a badess or Z's I would list Z status first before before adding more to the title so you want the brand to be the first thing listed on eBay so make sure your title is good make sure your items specifics are in there make sure that your listing a good description doesn't have to be like a super long you don't have to tell like the life story of the item just make sure that there's a good description and describing any flaws again with the item so title description very very important put your shipping options in there make sure that you've linked your PayPal account so you can get paid and that's the easiest way to to get your item listed onto eBay so to wrap things up just a few things I want you to keep in mind the first thing is when you're ordering shipping supplies it may take one or two weeks for those supplies to get to you so don't list on eBay if you don't already have a way to ship those items out because the last thing you want to do is have a buyer waiting for their item while you're waiting to get your supplies so go in order your supplies get them in and then start listing your items remember that the more you list on eBay the more you'll sell again you're going to be a bit limited when you first open an account but moving forward as your limitations get get higher and higher or as you get more and more availability to list items on eBay the more items you list the more items you'll sell super simple but we forget that as eBay sellers sometimes we look at our accounts and we're like why isn't anything selling well it's very easy it's because you're not listing enough stuff so the more you list the more you sell there definitely are scammers on eBay a lot of them targets brand new eBay sellers so just keep that in mind as well look out for stuff like you know offers if someone offers you more money than your item is listed for just decline the offer and move on if some ask you for your phone number or email address never send that to make sure all communication stays on eBay never ship an item to an address that isn't on file with eBay so if you get like an email or something from a buyer saying hey don't ship this item here ship it here that would be a no you wouldn't want to ship into an address that they didn't provide on eBay never ever ship an item out until you have actually received payment so until eBay says once the eBay says it's okay to ship that item then you can ship it you don't want to you don't want to ship anything out until you have the money and then one of the biggest things to keep in mind is patience is key you're not gonna list something and sell it within 30 minutes and that's it's something that's crazy crazy sought-after it just doesn't work that way you have to wait for the right buyer like I said earlier there's a ton to learn when it comes to eBay I've only touched maybe 1 to 2 percent of it in this video so keep learning is another good tip make sure that you're doing your research watching YouTube videos like this we also offer mentoring so we have a mentoring class coming up in September 15th that's a month-long mentoring class where we go through everything from starting out on eBay to how to how to build it into the actual business like ours that does six figures a year and we charge three hundred and ninety seven dollars for that class and it lasts a whole month so if you're interested in that as well I'll put a link in the description of this video where you can go get on the waiting list for that September 15th class but all-in-all guys eBay as a business model can be really really good it can be really really profitable if you're taking the right steps to make it work we started our business with only 200 bucks and we've turned it into what it is today so you know keep a positive mindset bad things are gonna happen to bound to happen it's not all going to be smooth sailing there's definitely going to be some some bumps and some rocks that you're gonna have to climb over but if you keep a positive mindset and you move past it the biggest thing that we see with brand new eBay sellers is that they stop too soon and obstacle will come up and they'll just shut down they won't know what to do and they'll just stop selling on eBay so I'm gonna say you know make sure that you are your your we're that bad things can happen but you're not like dwelling on them and you're not gonna you're not using those as an excuse to get out of selling on eBay work through the obstacles and once you once you figure it out once you get going on eBay in a good way you'll be able to tell that it can be a really really good business and then again make sure that you have some sort of a support system there's a great reselling network on Instagram YouTube's another great way our mentoring group is great just make sure you have some sort of like a support system to lean on when those troubles do arise and there you go guys hopefully this video helps out I try it again I try to break it down as easily as I can if you enjoyed this video please guys hit the thumbs up button if you know anybody who is a beginner on eBay or they need advice or help please share this video with them and if you have any comments or questions make sure that you leave them in the comments section of this video subscribe to our YouTube channel if you're not subscribed because we put out a lot of videos just like this so thank you guys so much for watching I really appreciate it again I'm Ryan roots and I will see you guys on the next video peace up bye [Music]

Channel: RALLI ROOTS

Views: 586,782

Rating: 4.9462352 out of 5

Keywords: ebay beginners guide, selling on ebay, beginners guide to selling on ebay, how to sell on ebay, how to start selling on ebay, ebay how to, ebay help, ebay guide, ebay for beginners, how to start on ebay, how to start an ebay business, ralli roots, beginners guide to starting an ebay business, ebay 2019, ebay 2020, ebay for dummies 2019, how to make money on ebay, how to sell stuff on ebay, guide to ebay, guide to ebay selling, ebay tutorial, step by step ebay, ebay sales

Id: n7SfqrFviFg

Length: 23min 37sec (1417 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 01 2019