eBay dropshipping is THE best way to start when you want to begin killing it online. Ya ya, you have heard all the YouTube “gurus” telling you Shopify is the king and how easy it is to slap some products up and get rich. However, when it comes to Shopify and other similar e-commerce sites, I am here to tell you that it is not as easy as everyone makes it look.
I know… so sad.
But what if I told you there is a way to start selling today in minutes? No setting up a store, no upfront costs, no hours of wasted mediocre web design for a product you don't even know will sell. This is all made easy when dropshipping on eBay.
*Disclaimer*
Now, I am going to be completely honest with you. eBay will not make you rich overnight. Although it is easier to sell and list, it will still require work and effort. If you're rolling your eyes now and you want to move on to the next “get rich quick” article, this one is probably not for you.
But if you stay here and learn the fundamentals, tricks, and tools, I am going to show you how to start eBay dropshipping today, and you are going to be miles ahead of the game. Are you ready to pave the road to success?
Here is what we are going to cover:
1.0 – Pros and cons of selling on eBay
2.0 – eBay dropshipping with no tools
3.0 – eBay dropshipping with tools
4.0 – The complete eBay dropshipping framework
4.1 – Creating an eBay account
4.2 – Sourcing a killer product
4.3 – Creating an engaging headline
4.4 – Writing winning benefits and descriptions
4.5 – Validating great pictures
4.6 – Pricing it right
4.7 – Optimize shipping on eBay
4.8 – Beating the algorithm
The Honest Pros & Cons of Selling on eBay
Like every single thing on earth, there is a good side and a side we often overlook. Simply said, different things work for different people. So let's quickly go over some of the pros and cons of dropshipping on eBay to ensure it is right for you.
Pros:
- People are already on eBay with a buying mindset. There’s no need to interrupt their Facebook feed!
- You’ll reach a very vast and big audience.
- You can sell pretty much anything!
- It is very affordable to create a seller account.
- There is no store needed.
- eBay helps rank your products on SERPs.
- It’s easy to manage customer support.
Cons:
- You are operating under eBay’s enforced rules and guidelines.
- There are selling fees. eBay does take a small % of each sale.
- There is a lot of competition in saturated and big niches.
- Your final value fees are based on your reputation.
- eBay does have control over your listing when live.
- It can be challenging to keep your inventory in sync.
- You must ship items within 24h or less to rank on eBay.
2.0 – eBay Dropshipping With No Tools (For Free)
Although it's incredibly time-consuming and tedious, eBay dropshipping with no tools is surprisingly very easy. But if you are just starting out, you won't need to worry about this until you get rolling.
Step 1:
Once you follow the listing framework below and make a sale, the first step is to receive the customer's order request and get their address and postal code. Make sure to work fast as you do not want to have a delayed order.
Step 2:
Go to where you sourced the product and place the order with your customer’s shipping address. *Note – The customer will have already paid, so you come out on top with more money after buying the product and shipping it to their address.
Step 3:
Supply a tracking code. As soon as you get a tracking number from AliExpress (or where you sourced the product), provide that tracking number to your customer through eBay. My eBay > Selling > Manage Orders > Add Tracking #
It’s that easy! Just remember that you are responsible for your customer's experience and complications – not your supplier!
eBay Dropshipping With Tools
If you're always looking for the easiest way to do something like me, I would suggest using a tool to manage all of your eBay listings, especially if you are already selling lots of products or when you start having more success. Tools can help you to list faster from a single dashboard, automatically place orders and send to your customers, bulk edit prices, notify you when something is wrong, and complete so many more tedious tasks that fill up your day.
With our experience in this game and from having offered a service that will take care of all your eBay dropshipping needs (plus much more), we have made a list of several other great tools. We encourage you to check us out, but we recognize that everyone's needs are different. Make sure you find something that works for you! When you get the right software to manage your eBay dropshipping business, everything gets easier!
Top 5 eBay Dropshipping Tools (In our expert opinion):
The Complete eBay Dropshipping Framework: Made Easy!
I'm going to share with you the 8 step eBay framework I use when starting an eBay business. It’s a proven and easy-to-follow list. It may seem simple, but below, you will find the important parts and steps to execute the perfect listing, so you can start having success with dropshipping on eBay as soon as possible.
Print or download the eBay Dropshipping Framework PDF here
Step 1 – Create an eBay Seller Account
eBay makes onboarding easy. Start by signing in or creating an account for eBay.
Enter your name, email, and a password of your choice. Select “business” if you already are selling products or “personal” if you are just starting out.
After you enter all the required information, click “create account” to be taken to the eBay homepage.
Before you begin to sell, add a bank account to your account so you can get paid!
To add a payment method, click on the top right corner where it says “My eBay”, and then click “selling” from the dropdown menu. From there, you can click “account” and set up your most preferred payment method.
After setting up a bank account, you are ready to receive payments from customers. It’s that easy!
Note – It is not mandatory, but small things, like your profile picture, seller description and so on, can help convince certain buyers. I would also recommend familiarizing yourself with the eBay platform to understand the basics from a buyer's perspective.
Step 2 – Source A Killer eBay Dropshipping Product
Now that we are done with the boring part, pay attention because sourcing a winning product is the single most important part of this whole process. Without an incredible product, you will not be able to sell near as well or as much. If you have a product that people want, need, and love, the product sells itself! I can not stress enough how important this is.
But how do I find a winning drop ship product?
If you want an in-depth and very thorough way to find a product in under 5 minutes, check out this blog post I wrote a couple of weeks ago: How to find a Winning Product in 5 Minutes.
Here is a quick overview of one of the three ways discussed above to find winning products using social media:
- Download TikTok
- Search the phrase, #tiktokmademebuyit, into TikTok’s search bar
- Filter the results to ensure there are only new and up-to-date videos (3 months and newer)
- Search through trending and viral product reviews to validate a winning product that has at least over 100k likes
- Source the product with AliExpress or a US Marketplace
Easy enough, right? I would highly suggest reading through the three detailed methods to learn the steps, tips, and tricks to find and validate a winning product. This skill is crucial and is what makes a “great marketer” successful.
Here are some questions to ask about the product you chose to further help validate it:
- Is the product trending? (Are there lots of orders/competition on social media?)
- Can the product sell for over $20? (This is a good general rule of thumb when dropshipping)
- Would you buy it in the customer's shoes?
- Does this product solve a problem or make something easier or more fun?
- Is the product easy and light to ship? This will help with the cost of shipping.
Once you have found your winning product on AliExpress, Alibaba dropship or a U.S supplier, you're ready to move on to the next step. Just ensure to keep the link to your product source safe!
Step 3 – Create an Engaging Product Headline
Headlines are the first thing a customer will see when they come across your product on eBay. It is important to create one that stands out to increase your click rate on your listing. The product headline is basically your ad headline. There should be much thought that goes into this.
One thing I always do is write out at least 5 variations of a headline and pick one that stands out the most. Make sure to read them aloud to see if they actually flow. Below, I'll illustrate 6 tips when writing out your 5 variations. Feel free to use your eBay Dropshipping Framework to keep your thoughts together.
5 Key Takeaways When Writing Dropshipping Product Headlines on eBay:
- Make sure to include 3-5 keywords in your headline. These words are descriptive words that will relate to the product search terms.
Ex: Instead of a “Kids Suction bowl”, try something like “No-spill Suction Bowl For Babies and Toddlers”
- Make sure the product is actually related to the headline. I know, it sounds obvious… but you would be surprised at how many people miss out on key parts of the product in the headline.
Ex: If you’re selling a suction bowl, make sure to actually include “suction” not just “baby bowl”.
- Is your headline somewhat of a product interrupt? Is it interesting enough to actually catch the attention of a reader?
- Ensure to avoid all caps in your headlines. Although it may seem like you will get more eyes on your listing, it is actually the opposite as it looks spammy and is harder to read.
- Make sure to include things like the item's traits, their model, year if you can, color and size. These are all things that may make a difference when your customer is searching for it. Where you can, try and include these in your headlines.
Step 4 – Write the Products Benefits
Another important part when getting your product ready to list is to write out the benefits. What are the actual benefits that my customer will get from buying this product? How does it help them? This is a key part to learn when selling online. Don't just state the features, turn the features you have into benefits.
Ex: If you are selling a camp stove, don't just tell them, “120 minutes of cook time”. Give them the benefit of that. “Cooks all your favorite camping meals over the weekend without running dry of propane.”
A big trick with finding benefits is to go into the reviews of related products, going to one-star reviews, and seeing what people can't stand about the product. This will usually give you a great idea to include as a flipped benefit in your description to have more edge over your competitors.
You can take this negative review of another camp stove (or similar product) and turn it into a benefit of yours.
Ex: “We know the wilderness can take a toll on your gear. This is why we made our camp stove with high quality and durable steel to last you years of outdoor use.”
Made simple, ask yourself what would convince you to buy this product? Then write just that.
Step 5 – Great Pictures
Pictures are just as important as anything else in your product attributes. This is what confirms in the buyer's mind that what he is reading is really true. I personally would not buy anything online without first seeing a picture, and there are not many who would.
The first picture that a customer sees is like the first impression of your brand or product. The higher the quality, the better the impression. But this can also work the other way. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words.
The free eBay Seller account supports up to 12 pictures. I highly suggest making the most of these. Either take your own high-quality photos with a product sample or use photos from your supplier.
Step 6 – Pricing your eBay Dropshipping Product Right
When dropshipping, pricing your product can be challenging. Usually, you're paying for a product that is a bit high in price, but you still want to be able to sell at prices that are competitive. Lucky for you, you don’t need to worry about advertising costs as much on eBay, because eBay brings buyers to you!
Here are the things I personally do when pricing my product:
- I usually make sure that I am making $15+ of profit. This is a generalized rule as every product will vary, but try to pick products that can have a high-profit margins. On eBay, there is more room to play with markup as you do not need to account for advertising costs as much as on Facebook and Google platforms.
- The second thing I do is to make sure it is priced in a similar range as my competitors. It is okay to be a bit higher priced, but you should stick around the same price range. Do not go for the lowest possible price. Although price is a consideration, most buyers will make a decision to buy based on the benefits. A lot of the time, a higher price will equal a higher perceived value when the product saturation is lower.
Ex. When buying bed sheets, if I find a set for $10, I will probably assume to get $10 worth of quality. If I see bed sheets that are $70, I will correlate that pricing with more luxurious or soft sheets.
- eBay offers a ”bidding” preset when listing a product. Ensure you do not hit the “bid” option when pricing. Especially for dropshipping products, make sure your pricing is clear and transparent with the “fixed” price option.
- The money-back guarantee! This is CRUCIAL when wanting to make sales. Although it is not directly pricing, I think it falls pretty close to the tree. Always ensure to have a money-back guarantee. This will establish trust with your customer, as there is no longer any excuse for a questioning customer to buy because they can always return it.
Step 7 – Offer Free Shipping
Not really a step but come on, it's 2022… and free shipping is expected when buying something online. It's very important. Studies show that a higher-priced product with free shipping is perceived to be a better deal than a lower-priced product without free shipping.
Now that you are educated about the price of your product and how much you're going to sell it for, work on the cost of shipping as best as you can. If it seems impossible to offer free shipping, try to have a maximum of $5.00 for shipping. Work the rest into your price.
Step 8 – List Daily! (Beating the Algorithm)
This is where the work comes in. I know.. it's tedious and can get boring, but this is what separates a successful eBay seller from a mediocre one. Think about it. Just like working out, you can't do it once and expect to see rock-hard abs. It takes days and disciplined hard work. With eBay selling, you can't put up just one or two products and expect to make $10,000 a month.
Listing daily will do 3 things to drastically increase your chance to succeed.
- The eBay algorithm will reward you for listing quality products often. It will start to recognize you as a well-established seller and move you and even your store up in the eBay rankings.
- It will make you very good at finding and creating product listings. Yes, you can read 1,000 articles on how to dropship on eBay, but once you know the fundamentals (which you’re learning here), it is the experience that will make you the best of the best. With trial and error, you will figure out what works for you and your store.
- The more you list quality products, the more coverage you have. Simply put, your chances to make sales depend on the number of listings that are live. Even if it takes 20+ listings before you start making sales, that is okay… and is normal! Push for success!
