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Beginner's handbook

How to Sell on eBay: A Guide for Beginners

How to Sell on eBay: A Guide for Beginners
Karlina Rozkalne

By Karlina Rozkalne

10 min read

eBay is a household name and a giant in the ecommerce realm. Over the last 7 years, the marketplace has consistently made around $10B each year. eBay's revenue from 2017 to 2024

Source: Companies Market Cap

With more than 132M monthly visitors, eBay remains one of the web’s top destinations for buying and selling products in 2024. If you’re thinking of selling on eBay, keep reading. In this post, we’ll discuss how to set up your store, how to sell on eBay, and best practices for making sales and finding success on the platform.

7-step guide for beginners

To create your eBay store, sign up for eBay as a Business account and fill out the details. eBay's signup window

Source: eBay

 Then, select your business type. eBay's signup form's business type selection

Source: eBay

Fill out your Personal details and add payment information to let eBay know how you want to receive your payouts.

To finish setting up your eBay business, review all information and finish the registration process.

Do you need a subscription plan?

Not necessarily. The subscription is optional for new eBay sellers. If you sell on eBay without a subscription plan, you get 20 monthly listings for free. Once you start making more sales and want more free listings, you must choose a subscription plan starting at $4.95/month.

 eBay's subscription plans

Source: eBay

2. Decide how you’ll fulfill orders

There are multiple ways you can go about selling on eBay. For example, you can sell your products and fulfill orders with print-on-demand or dropshipping. It’s important to know that eBay has certain policies for eBay dropshipping and print-on-demand. 

In short, you must work directly with product suppliers (not marketplaces or retailers) and arrange a way for your vendors to ship items to your customers once they’ve placed an order.

A simple solution is partnering with a company like Printful so you can integrate directly with eBay. Simply connect Printful and eBay accounts, sync your products, and enter your shipping and tax details. When the integration is set up, you can start marketing your products and let Printful handle printing and fulfillment.

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Dropshipping

With eBay dropshipping, you can sell trending products without holding any inventory. A supplier ships the item directly to your customer once you make a sale.

eBay allows dropshipping only from wholesale suppliers—businesses that sell products to other companies for resale. This differs from retailers like Amazon or Walmart, which sell directly to regular customers. eBay doesn’t allow dropshipping from retailers because you’re essentially buying products as a customer, not as a business buying in bulk for resale.

Valuable read: ​​A Beginner’s Guide to eBay Dropshipping: How to Get Started in 2024

Pros

Cons

No upfront inventory cost

Lower profit margins

Easy to launch and manage from anywhere

Relying on third-party suppliers for shipping

Valuable read: Print-On-Demand vs. Dropshipping: the Similarities and Differences

Print-on-demand (POD)

The main difference between dropshipping and print-on-demand is customization. Typically, dropshipping doesn’t allow much personalization, while print-on-demand allows you to sell custom designs on products like custom t-shirts, mugs, and many others. Once sold, the item is printed and shipped directly by the supplier.

Valuable read: A Complete Guide to Selling Print-on-Demand Products on eBay with Printful

Pros

Cons

No upfront inventory cost

Lower profit margins

Ability to design unique, custom products

Limited to specific product types

Easy to launch and manage from anywhere

 

If you go the POD route, you’ll have to choose your print-on-demand supplier. You should look for:

  • Competitive pricing

  • A wide selection of products

  • High print quality 

Before you commit to one supplier, evaluate the entire process: create your designs, order product samples, test out customer support, and see what the real shipping times are.

Valuable read: The 14 Best Print-on-Demand Companies

Yourself

Fulfilling orders yourself means handling inventory, packaging, and shipping directly. Do-it-yourself (DIY) printing typically means buying products in bulk and customizing them using a personal printer at home or in a small workspace.

Valuable read: 10 Differences Between Print-on-Demand vs. Do-It-Yourself

Pros

Cons

Full control over products and packaging

Requires upfront investment in inventory

Higher profit margins

Time-consuming to manage

In this article, we’ll focus on print-on-demand dropshipping for selling online.

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Customer with received custom jacket
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Create and sell custom products online
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Your product selection will depend on your POD supplier. With Printful, for example, you get 374 premium products to customize. Printful's Product Catalog

Source: Printful

You can focus on evergreen best-selling eBay products, like custom clothing, accessories, and home goods. But one aspect will dictate which products from each category to start with, and that’s your niche.

Know your niche

Clearly defining your target audience and knowing your niche is a crucial step to building a successful ecommerce store. It helps you target people with specific interests or needs. As the saying goes, when you target everyone, you won’t reach anyone.

The best approach is to choose a niche that aligns with your passions or interests. A genuine passion for your niche also leads to creativity and authenticity, which customers appreciate. Plus, it will be much easier to overcome challenges, stay motivated, and connect with your potential customers if you have first-hand knowledge of what your audience is going through.

Valuable read: How to Find an Ecommerce Niche for Your Online Store

A wonderful resource for doing your research on niche-specific products is Product Research and Sourcing Insights

 eBay's reaserch tools

Source: eBay

More specifically, eBay’s Product Research allows you to:

  • See how products are performing 

  • View clear, easy-to-understand statistics, graphs, and charts

  • Get an overview of popular  products successful strategies for attracting buyers, and potential areas to improve

  • Search by keyword or product and use the filters to get the information you want

The best part? It’s completely free for all eBay sellers!

 eBay's product research insights

Source: eBay

If you have an eBay subscription, you can also access Sourcing Insights, which helps you identify categories with high demand and low supply. eBay's sourcing insights

Source: eBay

Once you have an idea of your niche’s potential, you can analyze competition, evaluate profitability, and choose products.

Valuable read: The Best Print-on-Demand Products to Sell on eBay

Customize your products

Once you know which products to start with, it’s time to create your designs. Depending on the POD partner you’ve chosen, you may get access to free design tools or resources. For example, with Printful, you can use the Design Maker with built-in tools for free.

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Alternatively, you can opt for other free design tools like Canva.

 Canvas homepage

Source: Canva

Valuable read: How to Create Designs for Print-on-Demand Even If You’re Not a Designer

Your designs have to appeal to most eBay buyers in your niche and reflect who you are as a brand. From a purely practical perspective, your designs also have to meet print or embroidery file guidelines. To make this process easier, we’ve compiled all of the essential guidelines in one place—the ultimate graphics and embroidery guide.
 graphics and embroidery guide on Printful

Source: Printful

Let’s say you want to start a clothing brand. 2 garment categories that work for almost any niche are custom t-shirts and custom hoodies. You can test different designs on them and see how your audience responds. Or, start small by testing a few products, then scale up based on what sells. This way, you can limit the risk of wasted time and effort while figuring out what works best for your eBay store.

4. Create eBay listings

When you have your product selection ready to go, you can move on to listing them. For detailed guidance, you can visit eBay’s step-by-step guide for creating listings. guide on how to create a listing on eBay's website

Source: eBay export

Here are the best practices based on current guidelines to create a top-tier eBay listing:

  • Titles: Write concise titles (80 characters max) with relevant keywords. Avoid acronyms and use clear, searchable terms like “Brand name, product, size, color” (e.g., “Nike Men’s Running Shoes Size 10: New”).

  • Photos: Use bright, high-resolution images with a plain background. Show multiple angles and detail close-ups. eBay recommends at least 800 pixels on the longest side for clarity. Avoid overlaying text or using flash photography.

  • Descriptions: Make the descriptions truthful, detailed, and easy to read. Include key benefits (e.g., thermos maintaining the drink’s temperature for 8+ hours), materials, and measurements in bullet points. 

  • Item specifics: Fill out all relevant fields like size, color, brand, material, fit, and model to improve your listing’s searchability. This helps buyers find exactly what they need.

  • Pricing: Conduct market research by checking similar product listings. Always take into consideration your costs and desired profit margin

  • Shipping and returns: Clearly state shipping options, costs, and delivery estimates. Provide a transparent return policy (e.g., 30 days, buyer pays return shipping) to build trust.

Here’s an example of a well-written, easily scannable product description.


a good product description's example on eBay

Source: eBay

The “set it and forget it” approach doesn’t work on eBay. You have to monitor the performance of your products, pay attention to your competition’s activities, and adjust your strategy accordingly. 

All new sellers go through a trial and error process until they find the winning formula for their business.

Here are 3 strategies you can use to improve your listings:

  • Use eBay’s Seller Hub: Track your listing performance through the free analytics provided by eBay. This shows you how many views, watchers, and sales each listing gets, helping you tweak what isn’t working.

  • Test different pricing strategies: Experiment with tweaking your product pricing, like lowering the price slightly or using “Best Offer” to see if it leads to more sales.

  • Bundle products: Offer bundles or multi-buy discounts. For example, create a package deal for related items, encouraging buyers to purchase more.

Valuable read: 10 Effective Tips for Selling on eBay: Sell Smarter, Not Harder

Once your listing is live, shoppers on eBay will be able to view it, and—if all goes well—purchase your products. When this happens, eBay will send you an alert notifying you that your item has been sold.

The next step is to check on the payment status of the item. According to eBay, the timing depends on your buyer’s payment method. If your customer uses PayPal, the money will be sent directly to your PayPal account. If the buyer used a credit card, the transaction will first be processed through PayPal’s payment gateway before the funds are added to your PayPal account.

In any case, you’ll be able to manage your sales and orders in Seller Hub. Simply go to Orders and select “Awaiting payment.” When the payment is received, the order will be marked as “Awaiting shipment,” which is the next step of the eBay selling process. a screenshot of a search box

Source: eBay

At this stage, your product has been sold and paid for—great! If you’re selling print-on-demand products, your supplier will handle this step. Depending on your vendor, you may be able to connect your eBay with their system so that orders are fulfilled automatically once the sale is completed. 

Printful allows you to sync your Printful and eBay accounts, so all your orders will be synced and fulfilled automatically. 

To connect your eBay store to Printful, log in to your Printful account. In the Dashboard, click Stores > Choose platform > find eBay and press Connect. ecommerce integrations on Printful's Dashboard

Source: Printful

From there, just follow the 5 steps to set it up, and you’ll be good to go.

 guide to connect eBay to Printful on Printful's Dashboard

Source: Printful

Valuable read: A Complete Guide to Selling Print-on-Demand Products on eBay with Printful

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Customer with received custom jacket
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Create and sell custom products online
Lets go

Ready to sell on eBay?

As you can see, online selling on eBay doesn’t have to be complicated. With the right know-how, you can get up and running fairly quickly. The eBay website is a solid platform for selling various products.

Interested in selling on eBay but don’t want to carry inventory? Printful’s print-on-demand platform seamlessly integrates with eBay so you can sell products without dealing with fulfillment. Get started today!

Read more:

Frequently asked questions

To sell on eBay as a beginner, start by creating a free eBay seller account. Then, choose items you want to sell, take clear photos, and write detailed descriptions. Research similar listings to set competitive prices and choose whether to use an auction or fixed-price format. Once your listing is live, be sure to ship items promptly after the sale. As you gain experience, you can optimize your listings and build up positive feedback.

First, there’s a monthly subscription fee starting at $4.95. Every month, you get 250 listings that you don’t have to pay the insertion fee for; after that, you’ll pay a listing fee of $0.30 per item. Additionally, if you decide to list the same item in multiple categories or post duplicate listings, you’ll incur a listing fee for each additional category or duplicate post. 

When your item sells, eBay charges a final value fee, (a % of the total sale price including shipping). Fees vary by category but usually range from 12.9% to 15%. Keep these fees in mind when pricing your items.

Yes, selling on eBay is worth it, especially for beginners. With millions of active buyers, you get access to a huge marketplace. It’s easy to start without upfront costs since you can list up to 20 items for free each month. eBay also offers tools to help you grow your business, and with time, you can increase sales and build a solid reputation. It’s a low-risk way to make money online.

The short answer: you can’t sell on eBay completely for free. You must have a subscription plan, starting at $4.95. You can list up to 250 items on eBay for free each month, which means you won’t pay a listing fee for those items. However, once an item sells, you’ll still need to pay an order fee and a final value fee, which is a % of the total sale price, including shipping.

Who pays for shipping on eBay depends on the seller’s choice. As a seller, you can either charge the buyer for shipping or offer free shipping and cover the cost yourself. Offering free shipping can make your listing more attractive to buyers, but it’s important to include that cost in your item’s price.

eBay allows dropshipping only from wholesale suppliers, meaning companies that sell products to businesses for resale. This is different from retailers, like Amazon or Walmart, which sell directly to consumers. eBay bans dropshipping from retailers because you’re buying items just like any regular customer.

Print-on-demand (POD) dropshipping is allowed on eBay because it follows eBay’s rule of fulfilling orders from a wholesale supplier. In POD, suppliers like Printful create and ship custom products directly to your buyers after a sale. 

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By Karlina Rozkalne on Sep 30, 2024

Karlina Rozkalne

SEO Content Writer

Karlina is an SEO Content Writer specialist at Printful. As a firm believer in attitude over aptitude, Karlina gives her 100% whenever she works on something new. Karlina spends her free time reading, traveling, and doing yoga.

Karlina is an SEO Content Writer specialist at Printful. As a firm believer in attitude over aptitude, Karlina gives her 100% whenever she works on something new. Karlina spends her free time reading, traveling, and doing yoga.