eBay Dropshipping: How To Dropship on eBay

Dropshipping on eBay is setting up your eBay merchant account to house products that a vendor will ship once the sale is complete. It works like other dropshipping platforms, it just happens to be on the eBay system. You can set up items to “buy it now” or to go through an auction. It is up to you how to price and market the items. When the sale is complete, you use the proceeds to pay for the product with the vendor and keep the markup as profit. You never physically handle the product—this is the responsibility of the vendor.

The eBay platform does have strict rules that it expects sellers to follow. Failure to do so can result in items being removed from the site or your merchant account being suspended. Here’s what you need to know.

Don’t Use Another Marketplace

This may confuse many who are getting started in dropshipping. Aren’t you supposed to buy the products from another party? Yes, but you should use a wholesale vendor who is set up for dropshipping purposes. Don’t use Amazon or Walmart.com to buy the products and ship them to your customer. If you are caught doing this, eBay will, at the very least, remove the product from listed sales. It could remove the product entirely from the site and suspend your eBay account.

Make Sure Items Arrive in a Timely Fashion

With eBay, there is a policy that merchants must deliver the product purchased within 30 days of payment when the eBay listing ends. Even though the dropshipper is not the person physically sending the product, it is the dropshipper’s responsibility to make sure that the product is there. This can be problematic if your wholesale vendor is overseas using the cheapest shipping methods available. Failure to deliver on time could result in your eBay account being penalized.

Make Sure Markup Is Enough to Pay eBay Fees

It is not free to sell products on eBay, and the amount needs to be considered as part of your overhead plus the actual cost of the item. The eBay fees start with insertion orders. If you have more than 250 items per month listed to sell, you will pay 35 cents per listing just to have the item on the sales list. Plus, eBay keeps a percentage of the final sale. This is 13.25% of the sale plus 30 cents per order. Factor these costs in to make sure you are listing items for the right price that brings you a profit.

Competition Is Steep on eBay

There are a lot of sellers on eBay, and many dropshippers find that they are selling the exact same products as other sellers. You have to have your prices appropriately set to get the attention of buyers who are scrolling, looking for the best price on the product they are interested in. Unfortunately, new dropshippers can be priced out of the market because bigger sellers are getting a better price for the product and can lower the sale price on eBay. Dropshippers must find a way to be competitive and still have the products that people want to buy.

You can use Google Trends data to research the search volume of certain products that you want to list on eBay. The higher the search volume, the better the chances are that people are looking for it and wanting to buy it. Look for rising trends in the data to find growing products to list. Just remember that popular items will also have a lot of competition, so fill your listings with things you can sell and also price at a profit.

Home Goods

Home goods do extremely well on eBay. People are always looking for items to decorate their homes with. One item in particular that is extremely popular is a bath mat. This is a general product that you can sell that, while being a bath mat, can stand out from the competition based on quality and style. You can look at other home goods, including kitchenware, pillows and slipcovers.

Small Appliances and Utility Items

Small appliances such as blenders and air fryers are popular items on the market. Listing these items can give you some bigger ticket sales for products that are in demand. Of utility products, one popular item is a generator. As people prepare for weather-related incidents, they search the market for generators to keep power on when the grid goes down. Listing what people want helps ensure sales.

Clothing Items

You’ll find a lot of clothing items for sale on eBay because “Clothing, Shoes & Accessories” is a popular category. Whether for kids or adults, people are always looking for deals on clothing. ZIK Analytics shows that cargo pants are particularly popular and a trend that is holding its own this year. Men and boys choose cargo pants for their utility and comfort and can use them for work or leisure.

Camping Gear

You can create a whole store around camping gear—everything from hunting knives to tents and sleeping bags. Consumers are looking to spend more time outdoors and need the right gear to make camping safe and enjoyable. If you do list camping gear, expect your peak season to be in the spring and summer, with the fall and winter seeing a dip as fewer people are heading to the outdoors.

There aren’t a lot of steps to starting your dropshipping business on eBay. Let’s take a look at what to do.

1. Create an eBay Seller’s Account

In order to sell items on eBay, you need to register as a seller. This is easily done by going to eBay and creating an account. The registration process will ask you whether or not this is a personal account or a business account. You’ll follow the prompts to register the account, which includes linking a checking account to the seller’s account so that you can collect payments. If you are using a dropshipper such as Shopify, you can connect your platform to the new store using the Spocket app. This gives you a dashboard to manage all transactions.

2. Select Profitable Products To Sell

Remember to use Google Trends to determine if a product has a growth trend in search volume. This indicates a product that is good to list. You can also go to eBay’s bestsellers page to see what products are regularly selling on the site. While you may find consumer electronics a suitable category, remember that heavier items, such as televisions, are more difficult to drop with higher shipping costs. This might eat into your margins. Look for lightweight, popular products that you can sell with a good margin to succeed.

3. Select the Dropshipping Suppliers

If you are using a dropshipper such as Shopify, you can connect your platform to the new store using apps such as Spocket or DSers. This gives you a dashboard to manage all transactions. These apps allow you to connect to wholesalers, but don’t choose any wholesaler. Research their reputation and read their customer reviews. Remember that you are responsible for a good user experience with the eBay purchase. You want a wholesaler who is a good partner and representative of your company.

4. List Your Products on eBay

Each product will have its own listing. Write a good description and have quality images of the product. Descriptions should include keywords to find your product if someone is Googling a specific related term or searching on eBay’s navigation. When possible, include customer reviews to help sell the product. Include a return policy that jives with your wholesaler’s return policy since they’ll be processing the return for you.

5. Price the Product

The last part of the listing is pricing the product. Determine how much of a margin you want to make on any given product (or, in general, as a store). You might mark up items 20% from the cost. Or you might just add $5 to the unit cost. How you choose to run your business and price things for profit is up to you. Remember to factor in the fees eBay will charge. Those fees are on the entire transaction, so make sure you include enough markup to pay it and still have a profit.

Starting an eBay dropshipping store is easy but does take an understanding of what products to sell and how to price them. It’s wise to start small as you get used to the platform and system of dropshipping to learn how to handle any customer issues that arise. You can expand and grow at any time by just adding more listings.