Ebay Overview

First Step That You Need To Know

Setting up on eBay

Becoming an eBay member is relatively hassle-free – and is one of the reasons it has more than 180 million members across the globe. Simply choose a name and a password and you’re in. To start selling you follow the clear instructions giving details of the item you are selling and selecting the relevent subsection.

You can also pload a picture from a digital camera, or one off the web, to illustrate your product.

The next steps are creating a business account, and setting up an online shop. To start trading under your business name, set up a business account when you register with eBay. All you need in order to do this is a UK address, to receive a confirmation letter through the post, and bank account details to set up a direct debit.

If you enter your VAT registered number when you create this account, then you won’t pay any VAT on seller fees. (If you don’t have a VAT registered number, register with HM Revenue & Customs.)

However, be aware that as from March 1 2007, changes to eBay’s EU stucture meant that there has been a change in the prices offered to VAT-exempt sellers. The gross fee now offers VAT at the Luxembourg rate (where eBay’s new EU entity is based) of 15%. This means your fees will rise slightly.

To be able to open a shop, you need to have a PayPal, an international online transactions company, account plus a minimum score of five positive feedback reviews. Alternatively, if you don’t have a PayPal account, you need a minimum score of 10. You also need an automatic payment method on file to pay seller fees (credit card, debit card, bank account.)

Then go to http://stores.ebay.co.uk/ and click on ‘Open a Shop’ on the right-hand side of the page.

Your customers will then be able to add your shops to their ‘Favourite Shops’ list in ‘My eBay’, and you can choose to set up and receive reports that analyse your sales.

There are various options to make you stand out from the crowd, such as premium listings and titles in bold. Although these options do not cost much by themselves, it will add up if you are listing many items. Work out which items need pushing by trial and error – you can always take action in the future if an item needs to stand out more.