What Every New Ebay Seller Needs to Know (Part 1)

A good friend of mine called me this morning and said that his boss was preparing to sell a bunch of expensive collectibles on Ebay and wanted to know if I had any words of advice.  I asked him if his boss had used Ebay before and if he had a Paypal account.  He said, "No.  He just signed up for both.".  All I could do was sigh.  There is a LOT he needs to know.

Every Ebay seller was once a newbie, but not until recieving this call did I realize just how tough it would be to be a newbie right now.  Much has changed in 10 years.  When I was a newbie, I signed up, I sold stuff, people sent me money, and I shipped stuff out..  I didn't even have a paypal account for about a year.

But what if I was a newbie right now - with a brand new ebay account and a brand new paypal account - ready to start selling today.  What would I really need to know to get good prices and avoid major pitfalls?

Let's start with a few basics.



Your Ebay Account
Just because you signed up an Ebay account, doesn't mean you can start selling.  You need to go through Ebay's process to "upgrade" your account to a what Ebay calls a Seller Account.  Essentially this means that you provide Ebay with a credit card that will not only provide some verification of your identity, but also provide a means to pay your Ebay fees.

A good basic overview is provided here on the Getting Started Selling on eBay: help page.


Your Paypal Account
Make sure you complete all of Paypal's verifications - this means you will need to put a bank account and a credit card on file with Paypal.  The bank account will make your account "verified", and the credit card will give you a "confirmed address".  Failure to do these steps could limit how much money you are allowed to withdraw from your account after you get paid.

IMPORTANT: Before you start selling, don't forget to link your paypal and ebay accounts.  Go to My Ebay > Account (tab) > Paypal Account.  Ebay says this "adds a layer of security", and you need everything you can get.

Your Reputation
What reputation?  You're a newb, and that's a big problem on Ebay.  The sophisticated buyers my friend needs to bid on his rare collectibles will avoid "zero feedback" sellers.  Nobody wants to buy anything of real value from a newbie (well, unless they can get it really cheap).  


My advice is to do everything you can to increase your rep before listing your items.  

• Get some feedback.  If you have the time, buy some things you need from large reputable sellers (the ones that love to get and give FB).  In a couple of weeks you could easily rack up 10-20 positive feedbacks (buyers can ONLY get positives or none at all).  For all appearances you're a 100% positive feedback "relatively new" Ebayer (definitely a step up from "Zero feeback newb").

• Get ID Verified.  The $5 charge is worth it if you plan on selling high priced items with very little feedback.  You'll also get a nifty little badge that makes you look a lot more official.  You're still a newbie - but your an ID Verified newbie.

 ID Verify Signup

If you've made it this far you should now have an Ebay account capable of listing an item for sale, and a Paypal account capable of receiving payment.  You have completed the bare basics.  If you weren't such a good friend,. I'd send you on your merry way and let you learn the rest the hard way.  The hard way is when you make mistakes that cost you so much money and aggravation that you either never sell on Ebay again, or you learn by them and never forget the lessons they teach you.

Though this is not a complete and totally comprehensive guide, the next part are some details I would make sure a good friend knew about before listing their first item.