How to Start an eBay Store

Selling on eBay can be a great way to bring in a side income, or even a full-time income from home! Learn how to start an eBay store and what to expect!

I started my first eBay business, with my dad’s help, when I was 15 years old. I mostly sold a certain brand of collectible model horses that I already knew a lot about. As a teenager I typically made several hundred a month working a few hours a week.

When I was first married, I took a some time off since I was short on space and time. A few years later, I started the business up again from scratch, spending an initial $55 on inventory. The first few months, I put everything I made back into buying more inventory. Soon I was back to making $300-$500 a month, all from that initial $55 investment!

What Do You Need to Start an eBay Store?

To start an eBay store, you’ll typically need some room to store inventory (unless you are having items drop-shipped to the customer from the manufacturer). This doesn’t have to be a lot of space; I managed in a 600 square foot house, with a family of three, by setting up a tall cabinet in my living room!

You will need internet access and a computer, tablet or smart phone to list items on eBay.

You’ll also need a good digital camera or phone camera to take pictures of what you are selling.

A printer is not necessary, but does allow you to print shipping labels at home and get the eBay discount.

To start an eBay store, you’ll have to sign up for eBay if you haven’t already, and for Paypal (this is how you will get payed).

If you are a new seller, there will be limits set at first on how many items and the total dollar amount of all of your items listed for sale. eBay wants to make sure that you are a real seller and keep scammers away!

What Fees to Expect

At the time of this writing, eBay charges a 10% commission for each item that actually sells, and Paypal charges a transaction fee of $.30 plus 2.9%.

eBay lets you list a certain number of items each month for free. Additional listings, or certain listing formats will have a listing fee of $.30-$2.00.

The listing fee, if there is one, is charged when you list the item for sale, while the other fees only apply once the item sells.

You can expect to pay around 14-15% of the selling price in total fees, so you’ll need to take that into account when deciding how much to sell an item for.

What to Sell

If you have items cluttering your home that you aren’t using, this is a great place to start that doesn’t require any investment! Most of us have hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars worth of clutter lying around our homes!

Once you’ve listed all of your extra “stuff”, you can start experimenting selling other items to find a niche that works for you. Whatever you decide to sell, you’ll need a good source of inventory at a price that will allow you to make a profit. This might be clearance items from a retail store, thrift store items, or shopping on Craigslist or at garage sales.

Selling collectibles, I was able to make a profit by buying entire collections from people at much less than the individual items would sell for. Often I found deals on Craigslist or Facebook. Sometimes I found a bargain at a thrift store. I even found deals on large lots straight from eBay!

Not sure what to sell? Here are just a few ideas!

High end clothing scavenged from thrift stores
Replacement parts for appliances, or for anything really!
Replacement pieces for popular games
Books
Collectibles, stamps, comic books, etc.
Clearance items from local stores

To find out what an item is selling for, you can type it in the search engine right on eBay. Hit “advanced search” and check the box that says “sold listings”. This will give you a list of items matching your search terms that were recently sold.

More Tips for Selling on eBay

Don’t spend much money on inventory until you verify that an item will be a good seller!

Pick items that you are knowledgeable about.

Take the time to get a minimum of four good pictures of each item.

Pick a shorter handling time, such as one or two days, to give buyers confidence that they will get their item quickly. Whatever time frame you pick, be sure to stick to it!

Create an auction style listing for hard to find items that will be in demand, such as a sought-after collectible. More common items will usually do better as a buy-it-now listing that runs for 30 days, and will help you to not rack up listing fees by relisting an unsold auction over and over!

Have fun starting your own eBay store!