Becoming an eBay Seller

I’ve been an eBay member since Mar 2005; membership is free, so I figured why not give it a try, but, that’s as far as I went. For over two years, the people from eBay were kind enough to maintain my sign in credentials; though I must admit, I had forgotten all about them. However, around the second week of Sep 2007, I was reading an article about running an eBay business and decided to become an eBay seller.

I didn’t have any items to sell, but I didn’t let that stop me. I went to the eBay website, clicked the register link and filled out an electronic form. Immediately, after completing the form, I received a message indicating that I was already an eBay member; I was also provided a link to reset password. I clicked the link, answered a few security questions and was on my way to browse the big world of eBay.

My membership allowed me to shop and place bids, but I was not yet considered an eBay seller. To become a seller, I clicked a Sell link and was taken to the seller’s registration page. The first step was to prove to eBay that the individual registering for the seller’s account was me and not someone else pretending to be me. Your identity can be verified by providing a credit/debit card and/or your checking account. If you don’t have a credit card, rarely the case nowadays, or don’t want eBay to maintain your card on file you can have your identity verified with ID Verify.
Verification through ID Verify costs $5.00 and it’s valid until you get rich and decide to move to a larger home or if your phone number changes. I used a credit card and answered a few questions to convince eBay that the person at the other end was actually me. They believed me and I was automatically taken to the next step. By the way, the information you provide to verify your identity is encrypted to ensure hackers can’t intercept the communication and steal your identity. You know it’s encrypted if the web address begins with “https” instead of “http”; clue, the S at the end of “https” stands for secure.

The next step was to tell eBay how I was going to pay my sellers fees; yes, membership is free, selling is not. I had the option to pay the fees through PayPal, credit card, checking account or by check. I opted to pay through PayPal, which accepts credit card and electronic check payments online. Though, as a seller, you can accept credit cards and electronic checks as payment methods, getting pay through PayPal can be much faster and less troublesome for both buyers and sellers. Also, using PayPal to run your eBay business makes sense when it’s time to pay your taxes at the end of the year. PayPal maintained all your transactions and fees stored in their servers; accessing this information is only a few clicks away.

Anyhow, I followed all steps as requested and, like magic, I became a proud and celebrated eBay seller. However, that was the easy part; now I had to find something to sell. But I’ll tell you about that experience later. Until then, happy computing to all!!