eBay is the second biggest eCommerce platform in the world after Amazon. At the beginning of 2020, it counted 183 million users. Can it really be the best option for dropshipping beginners? On the 6th episode of the training live stream on CJ’s Facebook Group, on the 13^th of May, we talked about how to do eBay dropshipping.

Casting:  Demi from CJ Dropshipping X Kfir Shapira from DSM Tool

About the mentor

Kfir Shapira is the CEO and Co-Founder of DSM Tool, a leading software for dropshipping automation. He has a B. A in business and entrepreneurship and has years of experience in digital marketing. Kfir owns multiple online businesses and also is an active member of the global Entrepreneurs Organization.

eBay Dropshipping 101

What does a profitable sale look like when dropshipping on eBay?

The most essential factor of a successful dropshipping business is to find the arbitrage of the winning product from different platforms.

In the live stream, Krif used polarized sunglasses to demonstrate the importance of finding the arbitrage opportunity.

As the picture showed, the same product has a VERY different price on different platforms. And that’s exactly what a profitable sale looks like!  CJ Dropshipping also has tons of competitive products for you to find the perfect arbitrage opportunities from!  When beginners start doing dropshipping, no matter what platform you choose, always remember to do the price cross-check first before you land your eye on any product.

How is eBay dropshipping different from Shopify dropshipping or Amazon FBA?

eBay dropshipping is so unique, for example, in comparison to Shopify dropshipping, because you could sell this product also on Shopify and source it from CJ Dropshipping or AliExpress. So what are the advantages of selling things on eBay?

In the live stream, Kfir showed us a comparison of Amazon vs. Shopify vs. eBay dropshipping as followed:

If you look at inventory when you dropship on Shopify you don’t need inventory, but if you’re doing Amazon FBA you’re going to have to buy inventory and ship it to the warehouses of amazon which costs a lot of money.

When it comes to advertising budget with Amazon FBA you don’t necessarily need the budget a lot of times, however, you actually do need a budget because people do something that’s called PPC on Amazon. When it comes to Shopify you will definitely need a budget because otherwise there is no way for you to get any customers to buy from you.

But when it comes to eBay again you don’t need any advertisement budget and this is what makes it such a great opportunity versus Shopify and amazon FBA.

So in conclusion, eBay dropshipping is a low risk and not so bad return, especially for beginners that have no experience. If you have no prior experience in digital marketing and are not willing to risk a lot of money in the process of trying to build your own business, consider starting dropshipping on eBay. If you do have some experience in digital marketing and the funds to finance the venture, Shopify and Amazon can offer higher potential for profits.

Is dropshipping allowed? What is the eBay dropshipping policy?

Theoretically speaking, dropshipping could be against eBay’s dropshipping policy.

However, if you use and continue dropshipping where you fulfill orders directly from a wholesale supplier, is allowed on eBay. Meaning that if you choose CJ Dropshipping as your supplier, for example, then buy stock from CJ and store it in their warehouse it is 100% allowed. Because in the Dropshipping Policy, they explained that fulfilling orders from wholesale suppliers are totally legit. However, listing an item on eBay and purchasing the item from another retailer or marketplace which ships directly to your customer is not allowed.

Does software for eBay dropshipping get your account “flagged”?

First, we are going to explain what are eBay flagged accounts. Flagged accounts are. eBay stores that their owners got the selling practices policy violation email. These stores are going to be affected in a few ways: first, they are losing the option to get ranked as top-rated sellers on eBay. Second, they sometimes get reduced visibility in one of eBay’s features called Promoted Listings. Still, there is a way to make great money working with an account that got flagged by performing great market research and optimization.

Then we are going to walk through another important question: what is eBay promoted listing?

If you want to generate sales, you need to get potential buyers to see the products you offer. When selling on eBay there are a couple of ways to get your products in front of potential buyers and generate sales: Optimizing the listing to gain organic traffic using eBay SEO techniques OR using the eBay Promoted Listings feature to advertising the products yourself.

The idea is quite simple: as long as you can generate value for the eBay platform, even without the promoted listings feature and without the top-rated seller status, you will still generate organic sales. By doing good market research, reducing the costs (by sourcing from cheap and reliable suppliers), and optimizing the listings before publishing them you do just that.

So the theory that came up at the time of releasing the dropshipping policy was that the reason eBay dropshipping accounts were getting flagged is that these accounts are being managed by using the software. That is not only false but also a risky claim that can cause harm to your account.

What is DSM Tool?

The dropshipping software DSM Tool is an automation tool for the day-to-day tasks of dropshipping sellers: from sourcing the products from 50+ suppliers to automating the orders process once a sale is generated. 

Dropshipping on eBay from CJ using DSM Tool

let’s say that you started sending it or you opened the request from CJ Dropshipping.

So after you found your ideal product, this profitable product is in CJ Dropshipping, not in your store and this is where the DSM tool comes into the picture.

Install the DSM tool chrome extension, then when you go into CJ Dropshipping you will suddenly have a new button that doesn’t appear to all CJ users but it does appear if you use DSM Tool.

The most important and interesting feature of DSM is called the rapid lister. With this feature, all you need to do is copy and paste then DSM will start extracting the pictures, the title, the price, the quantity, and the description, everything that exists one by one. When it finishes the extraction process it will create or prepare the listing on eBay for you

The good things about using software like DSM Tool to manage your eBay dropshipping store are that when it comes to listing the products the first thing that happens is the lister automatically calculates for you the price on eBay based on the price difference, not just the arbitrage difference. It also includes the fee that you’re going to have to pay in the end so you would be able to know your profit.