Tips for eBay Product Sourcing

Being an online seller has been a lucrative profession for years now, and more so at the moment. As more and more digital portals continue to open up, there are some staple brands that will always be in the lead, eBay being one of the biggest names in this regard. Registering as a seller on eBay can be a big, profitable step for your business. The platform is easy to navigate and you don’t have to pull in all the stops financially to set up your store. With our multichannel selling software, multichannel listing tools, and real-time inventory sync tool, creating your store on eBay will be a walk around the park. However, establishing your niche is a crucial thing you have to look into from the very beginning. You may have an idea of the kind of products you want to showcase, but you need to be certain of where to source your products. If you want to learn more about product sourcing for eBay, keep reading to find out about some tips that will prove useful for your business.

Explore the Sourcing Methods

Before you decide the products to sell through your eBay account, explore the various sourcing methods that are available. Firstly, there is ‘Arbitrage’, in which one buys discounted products from stores and resells them at a profit. Secondly, you have ‘Dropshipping’, for which you need to list a catalog of products from a supplier for sale on eBay. If a customer buys the product, the supplier needs to be notified of the purchase, post which they ship the product directly to the customer. This way, you don’t have to pay for the product till it’s sold. The third method is that of ‘Wholesale’, which involves the seller buying the stock in bulk at a discount directly from a manufacturer or supplier. This can be done by either getting in touch with the manufacturer directly or buying from wholesale marketplaces. Lastly, there’s the method of ‘White Label/Private Label’. White labeling is when you sell a product with your own branded labeling after you’ve bought generic items from a manufacturer directly. Whereas private labeling refers to working loosely with a manufacturer to develop and create an exclusive version of a generic item.

Debate the Practicality of Your Product Choices

When thinking of the kind of products you want to sell and how to source them, there are some crucial points you need to take into consideration. Ask yourself certain questions regarding your product choice before you start sourcing inventory. The first question should be if the products are easy to source and readily available. If in case there ever arises a problem with your primary supplier, always keep multiple methods or suppliers in hand as backup options to obtain the items from. Second question to ask is how shippable it is, because efficient shipping is a part of every successful ecommerce business. You have to choose a shipping method wherein you can deliver the orders to your customers as safely, quickly, and inexpensively as possible. The size and durability of the products, too, play a huge role if you want them to reach your buyers in a safe and intact manner. The last question to consider is probably the most important one, and that’s the popularity of your product choice. Do a survey to check the demand for your category of products, and think of how you can add more quality and substance to it and please your customers.

Determine the Appropriate Profit Margin

Of course it’s important to select products that you enjoy selling and marketing, but what matters even more is to evaluate how much profit will your business be bringing in. If you don’t make money off being an eBay seller, that pretty much defeats the purpose, does it not? Draw an estimate of your expenses and projected revenue to determine the profit margin and whether it makes the products worth selling.

Survey the Competition

When researching about the demand of your products, you will come across sellers who have similar products. It’s of utmost importance that you know who your competitors are, and conduct a thorough survey of their work, so that you’re prepared and know how you need to up your scale. You can firstly conduct an online search, where you Google your product and see which ecommerce channels show up at the top of the list. This will help you determine the best way to launch your product, and also understand proper categorisations, effective product titles and descriptions, and if the market is too saturated or not. You can also invest in some paid online tools, which you can then use to enter the product keywords that will generate a list of the most high-ranking website for those respective keywords. Post this, you can proceed to look up the websites and see what makes them tick. Lastly, make use of the eBay tool named ‘Explore eBay’ which allows you to dig into information such as bestselling products, popular keywords, the latest trends, and also the value of the products purchased in the last three months.

Conclusion

For those looking to set up their ecommerce business or just to take it to a more successful level, eBay is a great place to begin with. With our inventory management tool and software and the tips listed above, you will have exactly the strong foundation you’re looking for to build your store on eBay.