How to Launch an E-Commerce Business (Little to no Startup Cost)

Unless you've been living under a rock by know you know that people are making money selling products on eBay and other e-commerce platforms.

I'll be honest, because of my pride and mistakenly thinking that I had to start a tech company I was last to the game of "reselling".

This is where you take goods that you already have or buy liquidated goods (we'll expand on this later) and sell it to people around the world.

• eBay had over 701.7 million site visitors in May of 2023
• Users browsed to 6.91 pages per visit
• And stayed on the site for an average of 6:58

Once I understood the I could start this type of business along with my other micro companies, things took off.

During my first year starting my eBay business, I generated over $25,000+ during my first 6 months.

My wife and I started with the stuff we already had laying around in our house. We gathered up items like jewelry, clothes, shoes, electronics and many other items.

If you just walk around your home right now you have stuff that's been there that people are more than willing to buy. Start there.

We launched our eBay store during the pandemice in which at the time I thought was crazy. People were losing jobs so who was going to buy this stuff?

Man was I delightfully wrong.

So by now you may (should) be asking yoursel how can I get in on this?

Let's hop in and I'll show you how.

1 - Start With What You Have

Take a day to start gathering all of the old stuff you've been looking at, collecting dust and not wearing or using any more.

All of it.... shoes, makeup not opened, clothes, hats, electronics, kids toys or kids clothes. Gather all of it and put it in one pile.

What you're looking for will be your first products to sell on eBay.

2 - Register Your eBay Selling Account

Don't overthink this step and wonder if you need to structure profile as a business with an LLC, etc. We'll get into that later.

For now, just simply register your account.

Once your account has been verified, you're ready to list your first products and open your store.

eBay has a nice onboarding process to help you run your business to follow rules and best practices as a seller.

3 - Learning How to Run Your eBay Store

Do not skip this step and go right into listing your items right away. It's important to learn the right way to run your business.

There are many other sellers on the platform with extensive experience and making really good money.

It's important to take this seriously and treat this like you would running a Fortune 500 company.

4 - Officially Launch Your Store

Now you should feel comfortable to start adding items to your store. Remember, this step is about getting started not being perfect.

Over time you will start to learn the best habits and practices to list items on your store. Focus on speed and efficiency here.

Regardless what strategy you use to start listing items on your store, make sure you're consistent in how you do it.

Above is a glimpse of my store, you'll notice the clothes are positioned in a consistent manner with a nice light background.

This is intentional as I want my new customers to immediately focus on how professional my listings are. Additionally my existing customers to know they are always going to get the same look and feel of my store.

5 - Keep Learning and Growing

After a few months you'll start to notice some sales coming into your sotre.

Additionally, you'll start getting feedback and reviews from your customers. storeDon't take bad reviews as the end of the world.

Instead take it as valuable feedback to keep increasing your store. Here are some things that I noticed early in my store to make improvements:

• Make sure the clothes aren't wrinkled
• Be sure to thoroughly test any electronics before you sell them
• Make sure your clothes don't smell bad (if used)

These are things that can make or break the success of your business on eBay. They do have a rating system of the quality of your store.

Their algorithm is structured so that the more you will with high quality, the more traffic (customers) they will send to your store.

If you break that by way of low quality, eBay isn't going to risk sending you more customers.

Summary

Starting an eBay store is by far one of the easiest side hustles you can start with little to no startup cost at all.

The hurdle of having to have a lot of liquid cash can't be used as an excuse. There is however a bit of a learning curve, but worth taking the time to get over that.

Here's a recap on how to get started:

1. Start with the items you already have
2. Register your seller account
3. Learn the right way to run your store
4. Start selling
5. Keep learning and expand.

That's it for today

Whenever you're ready, there are2 ways I can help you:

1. If you need some additional help launching your side hustle, I'd recommend starting with very affordable course that I'm building:

• The Side Hustle Accelerator: This course will take you on a very thorough and step-by-step guide to help you identify your skills, the key tools, secret formulas and potential side hustle ideas to help you start your journey. Join 1000+ students here

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