With over 185 million active buyers and 19 million sellers worldwide, there is no better place to start an online selling journey than eBay. There are two options for selling products on eBay. Either you can choose an eBay business account or a personal one instead.
Those who have small sales volumes, plan to sell unwanted items, or decide to sell casually can choose an eBay personal account. Otherwise, one has to cover the fees and other sales regulations.
With the help of this article, we aim to provide all the necessary information for you as an eBay seller. We will introduce how to open an eBay account and detail the eBay seller registration process.
eBay Seller Registration
eBay is one of the largest eCommerce marketplaces and offers a wide range of sales categories. Apart from it, you can choose to sell on eBay both with fixed and auction-formatted prices. No matter the reasons you decide to sell on eBay, the process is easy.
The first step to start selling on eBay is making an eBay account and creating items for listing. Once your eBay account setup is all according to the requirements, you can begin trading.
Creating a new eBay account is also possible by using your Facebook, Google, or Apple accounts. But note that in that case, eBay will have access to your public profile and email address information.
The next step is about creating product listings and starting to sell. It is worth mentioning that while you make product listings, you should put them in the proper product categories. Certain sellers choose to manipulate the product search policy on eBay by listing their products in the wrong categories. This is carried out mostly when those sellers reach the limit for certain monthly sales. In these cases, the sellers are violating the Search Manipulation Policy.
eBay Business Account vs. Personal
As already mentioned before, there are two options for eBay account signup: choosing between a personal or a business account.
It is not big news that eBay has two main types of fees: eBay Insertion fees and Final Value Fees. Those sellers who have a relatively small number of goods or choose to sell randomly decide to make an eBay account where they can handle the fees. Here is why the sellers with small sales volumes mainly opt for personal accounts.
If you plan to sell products in large quantities, you can register a business account. In this way, you can enjoy all the benefits of being an eBay business account seller. Along with all the benefits, you should also consider the eBay business account fees.
Business eBay sellers can choose a company name for the registration, which will appear in the invoices issued by eBay. In order to become an eligible business account user, you can either change your account to business or register a new business eBay account.
Shifting to eBay Business Account
To change your user account to business, you’ll need to go to the account settings and follow the steps.
Note that the majority of accounts cannot edit their eBay account type. If you have a personal account but are considering starting an eBay business, you will need to create a new business account. The main steps are the same as with the personal page.
Once a seller creates a business account, they need to fill in the following information:
- Business name
- Address
- Phone number
- Email address
- Website (optional)
- Business category
- Product details
The next step is to start listing items for sale and managing the online store.
Inventory is the most crucial asset of any eCommerce business. It needs to be accurate, up-to-date, and reflect the current stock levels. eBay provides various listing tools that make it easy to categorize your inventory according to different criteria, such as product type, condition, or brand.
You can also set up alerts to be notified whenever someone buys or bids on one of your items.
As your business grows, you will need to scale your operations accordingly. This might involve investing in inventory management software that can help you keep track of your stock levels and automate some of the more tedious tasks, such as listing items or processing orders.
For instance, platforms like eSwap are designed to provide online retailers with the ability to list their products on multiple channels, including eBay, seamlessly. This can free up your time to focus on other aspects of your business development.
Note: Find a more detailed description of eSwap-eBay integration at the end of the present article.
The Perks of Using an eBay Business Account
Reduced Selling Limits
eBay puts certain sales limits on certain sellers, especially the ones who are new in the business. It can be even more strict as of even 10 items per month. In case of choosing a business account, you can have access to reduced selling limits.
Business Account Tools & Promotions
Along with higher selling limits, eBay also offers tools like Promotions Manager to handle better sales control. This tool is free for business account users and enables them to create customized discounts. Apart from it, you can create coupons with this tool which boosts the buyers to spend more in your Store. This tool allows attracting buyers at the right time via showcasing the right products.
Lower Taxation System
Even though businesses pay additional taxes on top of everything, they get more chances of having deductions simultaneously. Apart from an advanced taxation system for Business Account sellers, there’s an opportunity to get sales privileges in crisis situations too. It particularly refers to the COVID-19, in this case. This is mainly carried out in order to prevent price gouging.
Enhanced Customer Service
Business account users get to enjoy better customer service in comparison to personal account users. They are given the topmost priority, and the issues are resolved as fast as possible. Also, business users have the upper hand while filing a claim against buyers. If you want to get your issues sorted out quickly, having a business account is the best way.
The Disadvantages of Having a Business Account on eBay
Paying Extra Fees
If you want to use some of the other tools, you might have to pay additional fees. eBay charges an extra $50 per month for business accounts. If your transactions are not that big, it is suggested to avoid having a business account as the charges can outweigh the benefits.
Complicated Tax System
As businesses are subjected to more taxes, filing them might get a little complicated. You will have to invest time and money to get professional help for the same. Also, the taxes can get even more complex if you’re selling internationally.
eBay Selling Limits
Anyone new to start selling on eBay has particular limitations over the product category on sale. It is done deliberately by eBay to save time in understanding the rules set by eBay.
As one of the biggest eCommerce platforms, eBay offers sellers a wide range of benefits. It refers to multiple issues like helping the sellers solve their problems via the Seller Resolution Centre or offering discounts.
In order to help the newbies on eBay and make their stock manageable, eBay maintains certain selling limits. This is carried out to ensure your store can provide good customer service. This is mainly done as the new sellers on eBay or any other platform has a hard time properly meeting customer demand. There are many cases of failures due to the lack of accurate inventory management.
eBay starts increasing your selling limits only when you properly meet customer demand. eBay reviews your seller account every month and makes adjustments according to the sales volumes and customer feedback. You, as a seller, can check your performance level by checking it on Seller Hub or Seller Dashboard.
eSwap-eBay Integration
eSwap, as an inventory management solution, offers the sellers the eBay Integration tool. By using our powerful tool for your eBay sales management, you can always keep an accurate track of your stock. This platform lets you make all the stock arrangements via one dashboard. It refers primarily to your real-time inventory syncing and multichannel sales management.
It goes without saying that you can put away the heavy burden of making manual updates or creating new sales orders per each sales platform. Using our eSwap for eBay stock management will help you with the order fulfillment process, too, as far as we offer shipping courier service with USP, UPS, DHL, FedEx, and many more.
Key Takeaways
Hope you found today’s article helpful and are now ready to start selling on eBay. eBay is a global online marketplace that allows you to sell your products to millions of buyers worldwide. Remember to familiarize yourself with the different policies and procedures, as well as the eBay Seller Center, in order to make the most of your experience as an eBay seller.
One of the critical elements to consider is that management is the king whether your business is big or small. So, make sure you have professional software in place to manage the overall workflow. Thanks for reading, and happy selling!
