Sell on eBay Training

How to start business? This blog post is to address the questions I receive titled “sell on eBay training”.

Back in 2004, when my wife Nicole and I decided to make eBay our full time business, I immediately immersed myself in almost every type of eBay training I could find.

This involved many trips from Sydney, Australia where I lived at the time to the USA and UK to attend eBay training events like eBay live and Channel Advisors Catalyst as well as many other smaller events. My goal was to learn how to make money consistently and as fast as possible from as many successful multi-million dollar eBay sellers as possible.

I was brought up without a father and being a technical kind of a person with a passion for anything that runs on petrol, I have had to work out tons of things myself. However this has taught me how much time and effort can be saved by learning from somebody else who has already figured out the problem earlier.

My goal with eBay training was to learn to make money in the shortest amount of time and to do this my preference was to read eBay books and attend eBay seminars rather than spend extra time trying to figure out every single thing myself.

The eBay seminars were great places to meet multi-million dollar eBay sellers and many were prepared to sit down with me for a coffee and/or dinner and some even invited me to their location as they realized coming from a different country I was no threat to their business.

Every bit of spare time I had on planes, in airport lounges, etc, I read every single eBay related book I could get my hands on.

People always ask me what is the best piece of advice or the best eBay seminar I attended?

Unfortunately there is no one answer as there are many different ways to make money on eBay from selling used items to drop shipping to importing and several in between. My preference these days is importing and drop shipping, I also enjoy the fun of buying poorly listed items and then relisting them right away on eBay.

The first step when choosing to build an eBay business is to choose which methodology you wish to pursue. There is nothing wrong with having multiple income streams from eBay however it is best to just start with one until you master it and then diversify to another.

In 2008 we built our eBay business up to over $1 million in turnover however it certainly wasn’t easy sailing as we made many mistakes. Thankfully none of the mistakes were so big that we got into any serious trouble with eBay, however it was a steep learning curve and we did our best to learn from those mistakes. Over the years we have managed to automate much of the business and create systems and procedures.

One of the hardest things living in Australia was the lack of available eBay training and networking with other full-time eBay sellers. I always had in the back of my mind that if we succeeded in eBay I would do something to make it easier for everybody else.

In 2013, I founded the non-profit Sydney eBay Sellers Meetup group then later the Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide groups. These four groups have rapidly grown and are now the largest eBay groups in each state. They are designed for new and experienced eBay sellers to get together and learn from each other. I regularly put on a 50-minute presentation to each group to help eBay sellers grow their businesses as well as inviting guest speakers.

Another very successful Australian eBay seller who also had a desire to give back is Phil Leahy. Phil took over the reins of the yearly PESA (Professional eBay Sellers Alliance) conference and has now not only renamed it to Internet Conference, but has also built it up to the largest annual Internet conference of its type in Australia. This three-day conference is solid content with no fluff and no “pitching from the stage”. I attend this conference every year and this year will be the third year I have been fortunate enough to be invited to speak there.

Over the years I have attended countless numbers of e-commerce seminars all over the world and many of them are “pitch fests” where so-called experts get on stage just to sell their courses.

Like Phil, I also made a mandate with myself that if I ever held eBay seminars they would be only solid content with absolutely no fluff or upsells.

My advice from anybody looking for “sell on eBay training” is immersion.

Read as many books as you can about making money with eBay, attend as many eBay and e-commerce seminars as you can, network with as many successful eBay and e-commerce sellers as you can. If there is an eBay meetup group near you, I highly recommend you come along. Networking with other successful eBay sellers is a great way to help build your business. If you are already a successful eBay seller, come along and help the others. There is always more to learn, just one off-the-cuff remark can dramatically change the profitability of your business.

Always choose wisely which eBay training you immerse yourself in. Just like if you wish to learn how to purchase shares, you can either listen to the advice from a 20-year-old share broker who is obviously not making enough money to go full-time or you can read from the third richest man on the planet “Warren Buffett”.

To your success

Neil Waterhouse