After playing it for years, you have decided to put your console aside and switch to the new model that just came out. To amortize the cost, you would like to recover some money by selling some video games you no longer use and, above all, your old console. Having already bought online on eBay , you have also chosen this platform for your sales but, being the first time you are “on the other side” of this famous ecommerce, you don’t have the slightest idea on how to create your sale. Is that so? So I don’t see where the problem is: if you want, I’m here to help you and give you a hand to succeed in your intent.
If you take a few minutes of your time, I can explain to you how to sell on eBay both as a private individual and as a company. In fact, I will show you the detailed procedure for publishing your items on the famous online shopping platform, listing the rates and costs to be incurred both in the case of non-professional sellers and in the case of professional sellers with VAT number. How do you say? Can’t wait to find out more? So do not waste any more time and investigate the topic immediately.
Courage: make yourself comfortable, take five minutes of free time and dedicate yourself to reading the next paragraphs. Read carefully the instructions I am about to give you, try to put them into practice and I am sure that, in no time at all, you will be able to sell all your unused video games and earn some extra money. Happy reading and, above all, good sales!
Index
- How to sell on eBay as a private individual
- How to sell on eBay: costs
- How to sell on eBay: shipping
- How to sell on eBay: payment methods
- How to sell on eBay: posting an ad
- How to sell on eBay with a VAT number
How to sell on eBay.
Let’s start to see how to sell on eBay as a private individual , so if you are an occasional seller or, in any case, you do not have a real shop.
How to sell on eBay: costs
Before listing your first product on eBay, you need to know what rates will be applied to you. But do I have to pay? I thought it was without cost! How to sell on eBay for free ? Calm down, things are a little more subtle than just a fixed cost. You should know that the famous online shopping site applies commissions for successful sales but, fear not, placing the advertisements is almost always free. It can therefore be said that eBay is free, even if it has commissions. You decide how to label it.
An unprofessional seller without a shop has 150 free adverts per month in the Buy It Now and Online Auction formats : once this limit is exceeded, each advert costs € 0.35 . A seller who has created his own basic shop, on the other hand, has 250 free adverts per month (after the cent the cost is 0.15 euros per single advertisement with the “Buy it now” mode and 0.35 euros per auction listing) .
If the item offered for sale is purchased, there are also sales commissions : the commission on the final value is 5% of the total value of the transaction , to which a commission of 0.35 euros per transaction must be added . This applies to sales up to € 2,000, but if this figure is exceeded, the commission drops to 2%. For more information, you can consult the seller rates page of the eBay site.
How to sell on eBay: shipping
If you want to sell on eBay, then you will also need to plan to ship your goods as although there is the option for on-site pickup , you are generally more likely to be required to ship. Obviously, being an international ecommerce, eBay has tried to make things as easy as possible.
In fact, there is the eBay Manager , or a sort of affiliation that the platform has with some shipping companies ( Poste Italiane and DHL ). Thanks to this system, you can go directly through the platform to purchase the shipping coupon at a preferential price.
As for the package, it will be collected directly where you request it from the courier or, if your area is not covered by the service, you will have to go to the nearest branch. As far as prices are concerned, national shipping starts from a figure of € 5.26 including VAT . This sum, however, varies according to the weight of the goods and whether the shipment is national or international, plus other more or less relevant factors. For more details, see the eBay Shipping Manager page .
Of course, you can also decide to do everything yourself and not use the services that are offered to you; there is no constraint whatsoever in this. If you are looking for advantageous offers in this regard, I leave you to my guide with the best sites for sending packages .
How to sell on eBay: payment methods
If you were wondering how to sell on eBay with PayPal or any other payment method, then you should know that eBay offers several options in this regard. In addition to paying with the classic credit card , buyers can also use other systems, including PayPal .
So can you link your PayPal account to get paid? No, or at least not anymore. Until a few years ago, it was actually possible to receive money directly into this type of account but, after a change of regulation by eBay, it became impossible. It is necessary to enter a bank IBAN .
So how to sell on eBay without a bank account ? Dry and simple answer: you can’t. Nowadays there is only a single form to collect the money acquired during a sale, namely the aforementioned bank IBAN . If you want to know more, check out the eBay official website .
How to sell on eBay: posting an ad
To sell an item on eBay , connect to the official website and log in to your account by clicking on the appropriate item. If you do not have an account, you can create an eBay account by clicking on the register item (above) and filling out the form that is proposed to you.
At this point, click on the Sell item at the top and press the Start selling button . Then write in the Tell us what you want to sell bar the type of product you are selling and, if you come up with options , click on the one that is most relevant to your item.
In the new page opened, if you have identified an object similar to the one you intend to sell , press on it then choose the status and press the Continue button with the advertisement . In case there are no matches, click on the Continue without any match option at the bottom, put the check mark next to one of the options between New , New: other , Used and For spare parts or not working to indicate the condition of your item, then press the Continue with listing button .
On the following page, you will be asked to enter all relevant information related to your subject, box by box. Since these vary depending on the type of product, I cannot be more specific about it.
In any case, it is necessary to insert good photos that do justice to what you are selling and, more importantly, the Price section must be filled in with the type of advertisement you intend to create by choosing one of the available options.
- Online auction: to create an auction listing with a duration ranging from 1 to 10 days. Indicate the Starting Price , the Duration of the online auction and choose whether to give the buyer the opportunity to buy the item immediately, placing the check mark next to the Buy It Now item and entering a higher price than the starting price. If you wish, you can also set a minimum price to indicate that the product will be sold only if the minimum amount entered is reached.
- Buy It Now: Allows the buyer to buy the item right away. For this type of advertisement, you must specify Price and Quantity as well as, if you wish, put the check mark next to the item Allow proposals to allow the buyer to send you offers to be evaluated. You can set your ad start date with the Schedule ad start time feature .
To complete your listing, indicate the Shipping method by choosing it from the drop-down menu next to the Service item ( Ordinary parcel , Pick up in the area , Fold of books , Courier etc.) and indicating the price , while if you want to offer free shipping put the check mark next to the item Offer free shipping .
Then choose whether to enable shipping or only allow collection in the area and, when you are done, you can press the Preview button to give a general check or, if you think everything is fine, press the Put for sale button at the rates shown . After a quick review to verify compliance with the rules, your product will be on sale.
If you prefer to operate from a smartphone or tablet , you can use the eBay app for Android (also available on alternative stores ) or iOS / iPadOS . In this case, the steps to take are slightly different. From the Home, after logging in or creating an account, click on the Sell button and then on Sell an item .
At this point, enter in the search bar what you are selling: here too, you can go in search of matching results , to avoid having to enter the parameters manually, or tap the Continue button without any correspondence to write everything by hand.
Therefore indicate the condition of the object , then fill in the various parts that are requested of you. In short, from the app the differences are almost completely stylistic than practical, so you can easily follow the detailed explanation I gave you for PC.
If you are a beginner with eBay and are still trying to understand its features, I leave you to my guide on how eBay works , where you will find other useful information in this regard.
How to sell on eBay with a VAT number
Are you a merchant who needs to sell many products and has to manage a real shop ? Then you need a professional account and, to get it, you simply need to change the one you have by clicking on My eBay , then on Account , again on Edit and changing the settings from here.
Once this is done, you are ready to sell as a professional seller on eBay, but first you better know the costs of doing so. Also, once you switch to a professional account, you won’t be able to go back to the private one, so make sure that’s what you want.
When you sell as a professional, you will pay 3 potential types of fees : the first is on the creation of the ad, which is quite marginal and amounts to 0.35 euros for the buy it now mode and 0.50 euros for the online auction .
The most impactful is certainly linked to the commission on the sale of the object, which is higher than that from a private individual and here has a variable amount depending on the category of the object. For example, selling something technological will involve a commission of 6.5% while, spare parts for cars and motorcycles, even reach 12%. The list is long and deserves to be viewed calmly, so I leave you the link to the official page .
The third rate is optional and is linked to the eventual sponsorship of the product : if you want to highlight it, an additional expense is added to the final product, which varies according to various factors. You can find the details on the same page linked a few lines ago.
As you may have easily guessed, you pay more than a standard account, but there are also numerous advantages: the first is to have a high-level seller console , ideal for keeping track of your shop in a simple and intuitive way.
Added to this are discounts for sellers and, last but not least, the possibility of connecting a proprietary ecommerce to the eBay page. If you have your own online store made with Shopify , Wix or any other compatible platform, you can also take advantage of eBay to sell your merchandise without having to recreate the entire store from scratch. If you want to know how to create an ecommerce with Shopify or how to do dropshipping on eBay , I leave you to my dedicated articles.
