7 Reasons Why You Should Sell on eBay

eBay has roughly 25 million sellers on their platform, selling products that range from hand made jewellery to high-end electronics. Nowadays, eBay is known as an auction site selling new and used products. With 167 million active users, eBay has a major chunk of the eCommerce pie, and if you’re thinking about diversifying your online revenue, you should definitely be selling on it. Check out our guide on how to sell on eBay.

1. It’s easy to set up

The best thing about eBay is the low setup costs. With some of the other eCommerce giants, you’ll need to pay large subscription fees to set up your custom store. You can follow our eBay setup guide to set up your store on only $24.95 a month.

2. Cause a bidding war, to rack up your prices

eBay is an auction style eCommerce platform. You can use this auction style to your advantage by starting a bidding war on your product to raise your selling price. If you’re looking to maximise your profit, here are a few tips:

1. List your item on the weekend when people are at home
2. Start on the lower end of the spectrum, this will get more people interested and more interest means more competition. A lower starting price is a lower barrier to entry
3. Look up similar sold items by clicking on Advanced Search and filtering by Sold listings. This will tell you the best prices that your item sold for
4. Make sure your product descriptions are error free and as detailed and interesting as possible
5. Appearance is everything online. Since a customer can’t touch or feel the product, your product photos need to be perfect for successful auctions. Quality over quantity here
6. Put some time into building up your reputation score. Always be responsive to customer complaints and proactively ask for feedback. A good reputation score means people are more likely to bid on your product

3. They have search juice

When you’re creating a custom website for your store, you have to put in a lot of effort to optimise your site for search engines. This involves using the right keywords, optimising your product descriptions and tags (amongst other things) just to rank on Google. Using an eCommerce platform like eBay allows you to leverage off their search power. In much the same way as YouTube being a search engine in and of itself, people often go straight to eBay to search for products. This means you can easily rank in their search engine if you decide to sell with eBay.

4. Easy to ship with eBay

Being one of the eComm giants, eBay has plenty of integrations with different shipping platforms. Interparcel has developed a eBay plugin that allows you to connect your eBay store with our Shipping Manager in just a few clicks. You can import your orders directly into the Shipping Manager and start fulfilling orders immediately. No fuss. You’ll be greeted by a range of courier services to choose from, from UPS to Startrack.

5. Immediate access to revenue

When you’re selling on eBay, payments are released to you immediately through Paypal. As a seller, you are able to use those funds anywhere that accepts Paypal. You don’t have to wait for funds to be transferred into your bank account.

6. Go global with eBay

eBay currently has a global reach across Australia, Asia, Europe and the United States. You’re not limited to one particular region as you might be with owning your own custom store or limited by the amount you can spend on advertising. There are 167 million active users on eBay from all over the world.

7. Create your own Community

Unlike Shopify or Amazon, eBay has their feedback systems, discussion boards and groups. These features allow you to connect with your customer in a way that other eCommerce platforms don’t allow you to do. You’re essentially creating a community of loyal customers that will buy from you again and again.