How to Sell Items On USA eBay Store from Any Country in the World

How does a person easily sell items on eBay store and make money when you’re a new seller?

No doubt, eBay store is a fantastic place for anyone looking to sell pre-owned goods. Some people have even built entire ecommerce businesses off of it. The one downside to eBay business, though, is that it is has a limited list of supported countries, at least for seller accounts.

This also doesn’t sit well with international users looking to profit from the digital retail monolith. If you are hoping to get around that, though, you’re in luck because we have an easy guide that can help you set up a ebay seller’s profile on eBay so you can start selling items from anywhere in the world.

So, to sell from eBay account of USA people often wonder if being physically present in the country is mandatory, but this guide is so you can sell items without living in the USA. You will need three things: a USA address, a USA phone number, and a PayPal account (this may change in a few months since eBay and PayPal are two separate entities now).

Please note that this guide is not about hacks to successfully become an eBay seller, but just an easy-to-follow guide to start an ebay buisness or an ebay store for selling items from the USA while not physically being in the USA.

Everything You Need

We will walk you through the process and the pre-requisites of selling on eBay store of USA, but we cannot help you acquire a bank account or have a verified PayPal account. And so, please proceed if you already have a verified PayPal account (which is available in over 180 countries), because it’s a ‘must have item’ for eBay stores… for now at least.

Get U.S.A Address

The first step is to get a USA address. This entire post, in fact, is directed towards selling items from USA ebay store, so kindly keep that in mind when you read on.

The US has a huge ecommerce business market, and if the buyer sees that you are in the USA, there is an implicit trust that they can reach you to answer any customer query. So, you need a US address and the best solution for this is to get a package forwarding service address.

There is a huge list of package forwarding services that give addresses in the USA and I’m sure, you can find one that will fit your needs perfectly. But what is your perfect need? Okay, so common sense says that the service should be reliable, should have decent to positive feedback reviews, the customer representatives should be quick to respond and be brilliant as well, the service should have a phone number that you can call or if not that then at least have online chat/live chat system. And, lastly, their ‘free storage’ should be 30 days or more. If the address provider has a good return policy, all the better.

The emphasis is on ‘all those qualities’ because, without even one of those, you won’t just be landing yourself in a pool of frustration but your entire ebay business could go to the dumps if the address provider turns out to be unreliable or worse… a scam. So pick a forwarder wisely.

Get a USA Phone Number

This is not a must have but a ‘good-to-have’ pre-requisite. Why? Because if your seller account profile says you are in the US, eBay will ask for a contact number and if you have one, then you can provide one, right?

So to sell on USA eBay account you need a US contact number to go with it because every business account needs a contact number for the customers to get in touch. The best way to get a US number is using a VoIP service.

We recently covered an article which talks about VoIP services that are pretty affordable, and a lot of them offer packages that are charged for per-minute use rather than monthly use. All of these services can be forwarded to regular number as well, so you won’t even notice a difference in service.

The last step is for you to add PayPal as the payment solution because eBay prefers it and there is no other way around it for now. So you better have a PayPal account and, a verified one at that!

How to Sell from eBay Account

The way to sell on eBay account is quite simple… why? Because you already have the address, the phone number, a PayPal account and hopefully a decent profile too.

If you are ready to make money, then you will need pictures of your ebay listings, a reasonable selling price, if the item is not on ‘buy it now’ option then the starting price for auction-style should be low enough for you to break even with the list items.

If this is you first time, read carefully to attract pottenial ebay buyers:

  1. Buy items in whole sale pricing from AliExpress or Amazon if you like
  2. Ship these selling items package forwarding address.
  3. Ask forwarder to take good pictures of the collectibles or what item you have bought.
  4. Ask the forwarder to send you pictures, dimensions, weight etc.
  5. Begin making your free listing on “my ebay”.
  6. Think from a potential buyers’ point of view and make the selling offer attractive by keeping a low selling fee in the beginning at least.
  7. opting for fixed price or auction-based is totally up to you, but make sure the final value fee on fixed priced selling items in worth it
  8. Add a low shipping cost to your products and offer as many shipping options as you can especially because this is something your forwarder will be handling. So add USPS, DHL, FedEx and any other so you can attract more ebay buyers.
  9. For payment method, if you are asking for debit card or credit card to receive payments, it will go down as a welcome sign becuase you can guarantee more “buy it now” and quick sales.
  10. As soon as you receive payments, add the shipping address information to your forwarding provider’s account so they can begin the ship out process for the sold items.
  11. Make sure your item selling limits are updated
  12. Mark all sold items as such because all these little things affect your ebay sales and positive feedback score.

ebay sellers can make money very easily once they gain trust and good feedback. Its a great side hustle to get extra cash and once you understand your ebay business potential, you can offer to sell similar items and get them to be your unique identifier for your ecommerce business.

To Conclude…

Everything you need to become a successful ebay seller is right here in this guide on how to sell from ebay stores. We’d like to take a moment to stress that, while some of these ideas are certainly out of the ordinary, all of them are completely legal. Just because eBay hasn’t added your country to their list doesn’t mean you can’t benefit from their high selling service.

You May Also Like

More from author

32 COMMENTS

  1. Hi Zahra,

    I tried this so I could buy from the US and bundle items up with my forwarding company to save on the shipping to the UK.

    I bought an item with my new account, paid for it via PayPal and after about 30 minutes, my account was permanently suspended by eBay.

    I contacted them via their messaging service and was told that I am no longer able to use eBay and any accounts associated with my details including my UK account that I’ve been trading with for nearly 20 years would also be permanently shut down.

    They asked for the details of my other account which a refused to give them and fortunately at this point my UK account is still active.

    I asked what it was I had done wrong and they said they were unable to divulge this due to security policies and the ban was unappealable, they then cut the message off without giving me any chance to respond, very frustrating!

    To top this all off, the seller never sent the item I bought and paid for, and has since re-listed it and sold to another buyer.

    Because my account is no longer active, I have no way of getting the money back through eBay and I’m concerned that if I chase it over the phone, they’ll link my other account that I rely on for my business and shut that down too.

    PayPal haven’t been able to help at this point either as according to them, the item is still in the process of shipping even though I have provided them with photographic proof that it has been re-sold.

    What a disaster! Do you have any suggestions?

    Thanks,
    Adam

    • This is very disturbing and quite unfortunate. Several redditers are saying that PayPal is giving them a lot of grief, so maybe Covid is getting to everyone including eBay and PayPal.

      Is there any way you can get info of the seller, like an email, ID or even contact number, full name maybe… Seller maybe the only person who can send to you.

  2. Zahra . Re: E-Bay, I,m inquiring about up here in Canada. I have a PayPal account here registered with my Bank. Can i ship here from Canada
    to the U.S. or do i still need the US Address and phone number…Thank You..[ i did the E-Bay thing last time in 2005 ]

  3. Hi Zahra im new to Ebay and i am from Asia, i can provide US Address and US Phone Number because my sister leaves there, but the items is here with me. the problem is the shipping how would i let the buyer knows that the items would be ship around 1-2 weeks? Thank You 🙂

  4. I tried creating eBay US account from India ,

    I used US Parcel forwarding address , US phone number for the registration purposes but they immediately suspended my account once I was done creating it.

    In India GST is a big headache as eBay India want you to have it in eBay India account but currently they have halt their services here (Indian division)

    I did tried to debate with the customer service department why did they suspended my account instead they dont provide me particular reason.

    I did asked CC if I could able to use my US friend address and phone number to create the US account and they said Yes you can ! I asked them dont why you take new account registration ? Yes they do but they cant explain of my case !

    This eBay is very ridiculous , pain in the ass and like to dominate people !

  5. Thanks for the informative write up! My case is slightly different .I am from Nigeria i have two drop shipping companies in the us to work with but the challenge is i can’t withdraw through paypal here but can only send unlimited if after the paypal account has been verified by a Nigerian bank.

    The phone number,address and product sourcing are are not a problem any longer.But the issue of getting money from ebay/amazon to us drop shippers and PARTICULARLY,having to cash out paypal.Your insight on this will be appreciated.

  6. Hi and thanks for these article. I live outside the USA and I woudl like to sell some products (mobile device) on ebay.com I understan that I have to notice my current location in item location field, the only thing I can not understand is about the shipping and delivery. From my country to USA takes 14 business day for delivery. The thing is that I can not understand how can I notice it as it shows me only USA post options like fedex, USPS and so on

  7. All you need is a Paypal account, not a US address. I live in Japan, and ship to the US and worldwide all the time. Just have a Verified Paypal account and you can easily use the US eBay site.

  8. Thank you for the information. I am registered on ebay.com.au and I dropship on ebay.com. I am thinking of changing the address on my account to US. Would this cause any problem? Or should I open another account with US address?

  9. Thank you so much for your article. I have one tax related question regarding this business structure though.

    Assuming a person has a U.S. registered Address, eBay account, and PayPal address, but obviously he/she is not an US resident, nor living within the states, would that person has to eventually pay for taxes in the states?

    Any feedback regarding this matter would be appreciated.

  10. Thank you Zahra for this informative article! I have a couple of questions.
    1) Do we need to send our package to the package forwarding service and they need to send it to the customers? Can we send it directly to the customers? and if we do so, will having an international address on the package create some issues for us?
    2) Do we need a US bank account? And in paypal if I use my bank account will that create an issue, too?

    • 1. Depends. I know sellers can sell on US eBay, or any other, from outside of the US but the item location will show as their location. I see this all the time especially with small electronics and accessories coming from HK or China. The seller on the US eBay site is in China, selling items that are in China, and shipping them from China. I have also seen US sellers who will have Chinese companies drop ship certain items, but that is a different type of situation. The good thing about this is that you do not need to have the up-front cost of shipping the supplies to the US before the sale is made. The negative is that if someone in the US needs something right away they may not want to wait for the item to be shipped from an international location; which may necessitate having the product in the US to compete.

      The only “issues” I could imagine with regard to an international address being on an eBay shipment would be the US buyer may not be expecting the potentiality of duties/taxes when it arrives here. Of course this will depend entirely on the value of the item and the category that it is.

      2. I do not believe so. PayPal is international and should be able to accept payments for eBay purchases from any other PayPal account.

      Now, if the PayPal account was setup as a US PayPal account I think PayPal USA may require them to link it to a US bank account before they can transfer more than a certain amount out of it per month. I am not real certain about this though. Linking a foreign bank account to a US PayPal account might work but would not grant it Verified status. If I were in your shoes, I would just setup an international PayPal account and a US based eBay account. The only reason to setup a US account would be if there were some conversion issues that would make it better to keep the money in US Dollars. With this, I think contacting PayPal for clarification would be best. Although they are quite often not very clear, they are in the best position to state how the proper setup should be.

  11. Could we also use Auction Essistance to help us open an account in the USA so we can start using it to sell?

  12. Hi again Zahra
    I’m from turkey.I try to sign up on ebay as a seller and I see all countries name in “Provide Your Contact Info” page on ebay.com,
    For this step I must choose USA, is it true?
    If its prohibited sell on Ebay.com from outside of USA,why all countries name are in “Provide Your Contact Info” page?

  13. Hi Zahra
    Great article
    My Paypal Account is from UAE(United Arab Emirates),Is there any problem about this for selling on Ebay?

    • Don’t know the details for using Amazon US as a shipper so you need to understand those aspects of it and make it work successfully. Do give feedback if you’ve been successful.

      • It didnt worked well , eBay suspended my account for security reasons which cant be revealed by them. I used US IP to create eBay account in addition with US Phone number (using an app) and address (parcel forwarding services). They were allowing to list 5 items , I listed 3 but they said I was too fast for it. Funny !

  14. Hey Zahra

    Great article but one thing I’m not totally clear on. If I sign up for say, USendHome or ShopFans I will get an address to get packages sent to me in Iceland, which is quite cool and I will certainly use one of those next time I need something that isn’t shipped to Iceland.

    I also understand that for selling items on eBay I need a US address and that one of those services will enable me to sign up for eBay sellers program which is something I need to do.

    But as I want to sell items from Iceland and send them to a US address I will still need to send them straight from Iceland, right? And will eBay allow that and allow me to charge the appropriate shipping costs for my goods?

    Thank you in advance
    Gunnar

    • Yes that’s exactly how you will do it. If they don’t allow it… then consider shipping items from Iceland to your USA address. And then forward it onwards to the buyer…

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Related Article

Must Reads

Best Virtual and Prepaid Cards for International Shoppers

Tired of being declined for a credit card? Living in a country that doesn't allow debit cards to be used online? Need a card with an international address? We've collected some of the best virtual & prepaid cards for international shoppers so you won't have to get into lengthy credit checks, annual fees and fraud.

Best Parcel Forwarding Services for Expats & Overseas Shoppers

Want to shop from Amazon, Ebay, Walmart, BestBuy and get the parcels delivered right to your doorstep no matter where you live? TechVise has accumulated some of the best to help international shoppers

How to Install WhatsApp on Tablets and Laptop/PCs

WhatsApp may be a smartphone app, but people want to use it on Tablets and PCs. So here is how to install WhatsApp on Tablets and PCs

Want to stay up to date with the latest updates?

Please fill in your details and we will send you an update every time we publish a new article.

We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.
322