18 Aug‘22
What to Take Into Account When Starting It.
Scaling up your business to make it international can be tough. But not when you do it with big marketplaces working worldwide. And eBay is, no doubt, the biggest and the most popular of them being on everyone’s lips for more than a decade.
Today, even the smallest local store can get customers around the world just by starting their business on eBay. But if it sounds like eating pears, then why not everyone has already appreciated its advantages? The secret is simple. You need to consider several important things to do to make your start on eBay successful.
The Very Start: How to Create an Account on eBay and What to Indicate There
eBay was created as the platform to sell used items. But today it is a full-fledged marketplace where both individuals and businesses can operate. So, the first step to your success is creating an account on eBay. Here you can choose whether to sign in as an individual or as a company. In case you have an intention to make that platform one of your constant selling channels, the second option is preferable. Besides all the opportunities that individual sellers get on eBay, you get additional features that will come in handy for a big amount of goods to sell. These can be accounting features, CRM integrations, delivery services integrations, etc. Besides, there are several subscription plans for businesses from Starter to Enterprise.
To confirm your registration as a seller, you may need several documents to present for your verification. These can be your ID card, international passport, or your driving license. Besides, eBay managers may require your address confirmation so, please, do not forget to provide them with it by presenting any bank account, rental agreement, or something else of that kind.
After the completion of registration, you will get access to your private cabinet that already has features of an e-store so you are welcome to start filling it with your offers.
The detailed process of registering a new Ebay account we will show next Monday on our youtube channel – https://www.youtube.com/c/Salestio
If you are using our Salestio Ebay Integration for Shopify, you also may need to add your eBay account to our application. This gives you more ways to correctly synchronize your e-commerce website with Ebay. And have benefits of using features like exporting new products automatically to ebay, downloading orders, and synchronizing stock & prices.
Choosing Language Options for Your Goods
So, the first step is done and now it’s time to publish your first ad. There is nothing difficult in this as Ebay’s Sell Your Item form is easy to comprehend. But there are also some peculiarities to mention.
- If you want to sell your items in several markets, it is necessary to make descriptions for your products in the languages that are used in these markets. For example, to involve customers from Spanish-talking countries, you can do dual-language descriptions for your products using both English and Spanish descriptions. Do not forget to make titles for a product in both languages, by the way.
- An engaging description is a must for successful sales. Try to be honest when describing your item but also focus on its bright sides.
- Beautiful photos are a must. Try to make the most accurate and aesthetic photos for each product to attract customers’ attention and represent it in the best way.
- Constant tracking of listings. To make your sales on eBay successful, you need to keep abreast and make the process of selling as quick as possible. That is, try to check listings as frequently as possible not to miss orders from customers.
In case you are exporting your products from third-party integration, like Salestio Ebay Shopify integration, it’s important to find what features this integration is support.
Photos in most cases for ebay marketplaces come from your Shopify store. But Description, at the same time, could be adjusted for ebay especially. As well as ebay item title.
To create a more visually nice description, in Salestio we provide a way to create Description Templates. With such functionality, you can set a custom template that will be used for ebay item descriptions. And it’s also could include multiple images, extended product details, and other information to help ebay buyers make a decision for purchase.
As for localization of listing details. It’s very important when you list items on a specific marketplace to provide title and description in marketplace language.
Shopify store gives you the possibility to set multiple languages for your product using third-party tools. And Salestio from their side allows you to choose what language you would like to use for listings in a specific Selling List.
What happens if you choose a language that does not exist in your store? Then text data will fall back to your store default language.
What Currencies to Accept
The next thing to consider is receiving payments. eBay works on a prepaid basis so the customer has to transfer money in advance. Here are also some special features that you may need to consider.
The default option for eBay sellers is using PayPal and this payment method uses USD (for the US). So, for the ease of transactions and reducing costs both for you and your buyer, it is better to set up pricing in USD too.
This year eBay’s CEO announced the intention to start accepting cryptocurrencies on the platform, but this intention is still in the development stage so it is better not to hurry up with adding crypto wallets to your store on eBay.
What to do in case your buyers want to pay for the purchase in other currencies? Mostly, it’s Ok with this. As eBay accepts credit and debit cards, ApplePay, and other options of that kind, when your customer pays for a purchase, their funds will be converted into USD and transferred to your PayPal wallet. But you should warn the customer that in this case, extra fees can exist.
Recently ebay start to roll out an ebay management payment system. So usually ebay marketplace buyers have a full list of options to pay for their products. And not what the seller can offer. The downside of such a switch is that ebay will freeze for some time actually money from the buyer before you will have the possibility to receive it on your account.
But nowadays this way works mostly on all marketplaces – Amazon, Etsy.
Regardless of the fact what payment system is used, it’s important to send products in a currency supported by the marketplace. Inside Salestio we support all currencies of all supported ebay marketplaces. And also Salestio will do automatic currency conversion from your store’s local currency to one accepted by ebay. The currency rate is updated automatically multiple times in a day, so your product on ebay will always be up to date with a price on your local store.
Delivery Options: How to Use Them for Your Prospect on eBay
When selling on eBay, you will have to interact with various delivery services in one way or another. And we will give two main tips about that:
- Try to provide your customers with as many delivery options as possible, this will increase their loyalty. If a customer can choose whether to use faster delivery but at a higher price, or choose a shipping option with lower rates but a longer delivery time, this will encourage them to buy.
- If possible, use free shipping options or contract with a certain eBay partner postal service to offer customers free shipping. Many fundamentally choose goods on the marketplace only with free shipping.
Be sure to check with the selected postal services for delivery times to certain regions in order to provide customers with only verified information. It will also help you increase loyalty and increase sales.
Please also consider using Ebay Shipping Business Policy. For more than two years this is recommended, and sometimes the only way to provide shipping details for ebay listings.
Unlike Amazon with the Amazon fulfillment option, ebay shipping is the responsibility of the seller. And it’s very important to have shipping costs and duration up to date. With Ebay Shipping Business Policy, updating cost or method for shipping directly on the ebay marketplace will almost immediately be applied to all active ebay listings with such policy.
More information about Business Policy, you can read our help article — eBay Business Policies
Salestio gives you flexible options to choose the correct policy based on your needs.
Summaries
Today, eBay offers businesses expanded opportunities from creating a small store on the marketplace itself to integrating existing online stores with the platform. In addition, the algorithms for working with eBay have already been worked out quite well, so a successful start on this marketplace is quite real. But at the same time, it is worth paying attention to several important factors, first of all, the choice of languages and currencies, choosing the best shipping options, and creating attractive product descriptions. It is with these steps that you can begin the successful promotion of your business on the eBay platform.
And if you are looking for a good way to automatize your business integration with multiple marketplaces and avoid manual operations of adjusting qty, price, or processing orders — Salestio could be a good choice here.
