When you decide to start your own eCommerce venture, you may consider various ways of organizing the process. Most people think first about online retail giants: Alibaba, Amazon, eBay. As for eCommerce entrepreneurs interested in drop shipping, eBay is one of the possible options. Let’s take a closer look at how to drop ship on eBay – and decide if it is worth trying.
eBay is the world’s largest and well-known auction site for buying physical goods online. It is famous for enormous discounts that can reach 90%. At any moment there are millions of auctions running on the platform and millions of active buyers. No wonder that eBay is one of the first marketplaces that spring to minds of numerous eСommerce newcomers. So, what is eBay drop shipping and how can you benefit from it?
Table Of Contents
- How to start drop shipping on eBay
- Dropshipping on eBay: selling goods through eBay account
- Drop shipping with eBay: using eBay as a supplier
- Drop shipping with eBay vs Dropshipping with AliExpress
How to start drop shipping on eBay
The main question probably is: can you drop ship on eBay? Is it actually legal?
The answer is YES. Drop shipping with eBay is absolutely legal, but there are some points you should consider and some rules you should follow.
If you want to start your online business with eBay, you need to register on this platform. You can have more than one account on eBay – just use different usernames and email addresses. It may be helpful to manage a large number of products or to sell different product types. The only restriction is that you can’t use more than one account for activities related to the same listing.
There are two ways to benefit from eBay Dropshipping. In the first case, you find drop shipping suppliers and sell their goods through your eBay account. In the second case, you find sourcing companies on eBay and sell their products in your own online store or use other marketplaces to get your profit margin.
Since it is not prohibited to have several eBay accounts, you can even try to combine both methods. Each of them has its pros and cons. Let’s see how dropshipping works on eBay.
Dropshipping on eBay: selling goods through eBay account
Your first step is to find reliable wholesale suppliers. Then you should create an eBay seller account and add a listing.
eBay rules don’t oblige you to state in your listings that an item doesn’t belong to you is coming directly from the supplier. But you must define the actual item location (the country of your supplier), otherwise, you have no chances to prevent your account from being blocked.
Then the process goes as usual – you get an order on eBay and send it to the drop shipping supplier who delivers the product directly to the customer.
The benefits of this scheme are obvious:
- You can start your business really quickly. And it’s easy: just a few clicks and your account is created, go ahead and sell.
- You get the access to a vast audience with zero work from your side. That means you spend fewer efforts on marketing. Millions of online buyers will see your eBay listings anyway – without SEO, SMM paid ads, etc.
Still, there are some pitfalls you must consider when using this method:
- The competition is extremely sharp. And if your product is not unique, you’ll have to set reasonable prices. This leads to low-profit margin. Finally, the price you get from your drop shipping supplier can be even higher than your eBay competitors set for the same product.
- eBay charges listing fees. Only the first 50 listings are free, and then you’ll have to pay. Besides, the platform will take up to 10 percent of your total sale price. All these factors reduce your potential income even more. To make money, you’ll have to maintain a HUGE sales volume.
- You have fewer opportunities to build your brand and customize your store. All eBay accounts are as like as two peas. Unlike an independent online store, your eBay seller account is not an asset that can be sold if you decide to quit someday.
- Since eBay is an online auction, you need to keep your eyes and ears open if you want to stay on top. You’ll have to monitor and relist your products all the time.
- eBay is focused not on the sellers, but on the products only. Better to say, they don’t take much care of your interest. They dictate how you should communicate with your clients, how you should present your brand, and set plenty of other restrictions.
- If your drop shipping supplier runs out of stock, you’ll have bad feedback. It means that your account can be suspended. And to tell the truth, there are dozens of other reasons why you may be punished. What is more, when one of your accounts is suspended, all the rest will be suspended as well.
All that doesn’t sound very promising. Let’s view another option of dropshipping with eBay.
Drop shipping with eBay: using eBay as a supplier
The second scheme represents the classical dropshipping model. You find a suitable eBay supplier and use your site or account on social networks to dropship products.
This business model has some undeniable advantages:
- eBay provides a wide range of goods, so you can always find something interesting to offer your clients.
- With the help of eBay, you can easily find out what products are in demand.
- Selling products on your own platform, you build long-term relations with your customers.
But this type of dropshipping from eBay also has significant drawbacks:
- It takes a lot of time to find quality products at really low prices.
- Here you will face the problem of low profit again.
- You should constantly check the supplier’s prices and update yours.
Article by AliDropship
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