We invited Neil Waterhouse to share his expertise with our audience about how to set up a business on eBay. The following is a guest post by Neil Waterhouse:
Setting up a business on eBay is no different to setting up many other businesses including bricks and mortar businesses. All businesses on the planet whether they are e-commerce businesses or bricks and mortar businesses sell either a product or a service and eBay is no different.
With eBay, like most businesses, you make your money when you buy a product and not when you sell it however, knowing how to list items properly allows you to sell higher quantities (velocity).
The great thing when learning how to set up a business on eBay is you are never alone and have to work out how to do things yourself. eBay has a turnover of over $17 billion and has been around for over 20 years so many eBay sellers have worked out the path to success for you. Bottom line is never having to reinvent the wheel.
The first step of setting up a business on eBay is to work out what sort of products you are going to sell and then learn how to buy them at wholesale prices so you can make good profits. Again you do not have to reinvent the wheel to learn this process.
Today with the Internet you can do all your product sourcing without leaving the comfort of your own home. Your product sourcing can be local or you can use wholesale distributors or sites, such as Alibaba to source products from all over the world.
There are also loads of great tools we can use to find which items are selling the fastest including Terapeak.
There are many different methodologies you can choose to make money on eBay including the following:
- Buying and selling used items
- Buying new items locally and then reselling them on eBay
- Importing new items
- Drop shipping (requires no capital)
- Buying poorly listed items on eBay and reselling them on eBay
There are many different methodologies in which to set up a business on eBay and you need to choose the methodology which you are most comfortable with. However, there is no reason you cannot choose more than one methodology.
My wife Nicole and I have been doing eBay since 1999 and professionally, full-time since 2005. We have five different eBay businesses using several different methodologies. For us, we enjoy utilizing different methodologies, however some people prefer to just run one method.
The next step after you have sourced products to sell is to get a whizbang professional looking eBay listing template created. This does not cost an arm and a leg as you can use outsourced overseas $3 per hour staff to create a professional looking eBay template for you.
The big advantage of having a professional looking eBay template is it quickly creates a high level of trust for your buyers when they look at your items for sale.
This is no difference to opening a bricks and mortar store like a restaurant. Fitting out a bricks and mortar store simply creates trust and the more trust, the more buyers it will attract. You want to convey a good feeling to your buyers.
The great thing with setting up an eBay store, is that getting a great looking eBay template can cost as little as $50. Whereas outfitting a small restaurant can cost from $150,000 and upwards.
The next step after you have a product and a professional looking eBay listing template is to learn how to tweak your listings in order to get to the top of the best match search results. Again, this is not rocket science and you do not need to figure it all out for yourself.
eBay like most businesses has barriers to entry. By that I mean, there are certain hurdles which need to be navigated to be a successful eBay seller. The great news is every time you learn how to navigate around the next hurdle, you leave so much of the competition behind you, who simply gave up.
As a general rule, the harder it is to do something, the less competition there is and the more profits are available for the taking.
My advice to anybody looking at how to set up an eBay business is to just get started and get to the first hurdle as fast as possible. When you get there, always feel reassured the answer is readily available as many successful eBay sellers have paved the way for you.
Great places to get all your questions answered are eBay Meetup groups, eBay forums, eBay books, eBay webinars, eBay blogs, eBay coaches, etc.
To your success.
Neil Waterhouse
Neil Waterhouse is an eBay Multi-million dollar seller and the author of best seller “Million Dollar eBay Business From – A Step By Step Guide”. As well Neil is the founder and host of the Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane eBay and Amazon Sellers Meetup Groups. For more information, see: http://www.neilwaterhouse.com.
Disclaimer: The information and views presented in this blog post are the opinions of the guest author, and not necessarily those of 888 Lots.
