Whilst there are some technical steps which Citrus-Lime must carry out in order to set up an eBay integration, the following information indicates what steps you need to take beforehand to prepare.
This article assumes that you are using eBay for the first time. If you have eBay listings which were generated independent of the Citrus-Lime eBay integration, you will need to manually end those listings. The integration will not interact with pre-existing eBay listings, only listings that were originally made via Cloud MT.
Set up an eBay selling account
Go to register to open an eBay account. This is usually at the top of the page by the eBay logo.
You need to register as a business seller. This will be an option when registering.
You will also need to open a PayPal account to receive payment from eBay sales.
PayPal
Set up a PayPal business account. To do this you will need the following information:
- VAT registration number
- Bank account details
- Bank card details
- Telephone number you can be reached at during the verification process.
Verify PayPal account
This is a series of security checks by PayPal to confirm your identity. Without these you will not be able to open a featured store and there will be a restriction on how much you can send / receive from your PayPal account. This includes paying funds out of PayPal into your bank account. The verification process involves but is not limited to the following:
- PayPal will call you at the phone number provided and give you a 4 digit code. You will need to enter this into your PayPal account;
- PayPal will deposit 2 small amounts into your bank account which will show within 2-3 days. You need to check your bank statement for these amounts and enter then into your PayPal account.
If PayPal require you to do anything else it will show on the To-Do box on the My Account overview page.
Ensure PayPal account is linked to eBay account
To link a PayPal account to your eBay account:
1. Go to My eBay and click the Account tab;
2. On the left side of the page, click the Addresses link;
3. Next to your Primary postage address, click the Change link;
4. Click the Add PayPal Addresses button.
Apply for merchant rate
You can apply to PayPal for preferential rates based on your sales volume.
You need to apply to PayPal through your account to receive preferential rates. Your eligibility for lower rates and the rate you receive is determined by the sales volume from the previous calendar month
Once your account is up and running, we strongly recommend you apply for merchant rate.
Categorizing products for eBay
eBay organizes products hierarchically so that customers can browse products by categories.
This example shows one navigational browse path of the eBay Web site:
Sporting Goods > Cycling > Cycling Accessories > Car Racks
Each eBay category has a numerical code associated with it and eBay needs this code to know where to place your product on the eBay site. You need to associate numerical codes with products. In our example sleeping bags has a code of 56202. We need to be able to associate all sleeping bags on the web site with the eBay Car Rack code of 56202.
The way we do this is to create a base category called eBay in Citrus Store. This eBay category is inactive so it doesn’t show on the web site, it is only used to categorize eBay products. We can then create a category underneath this called Car Racks. The name of this category is not important but the description is set up as the numerical code 56202. It is this code that is important to eBay. All Car Racks can then be put in this category.
We can now tell that this is a product to be sold on eBay and where it should be placed in the eBay site. Website categories need to be created for all eBay categories nodes you wish to use and then when a product is activated, you add it to the correct eBay category.
The Numerical category codes can be found on eBay by going Sell> Sell an Item > Browse categories.
Preparing your products for eBay
Assign eBay category to each product you want to sell on eBay
- Set up categories in the management interface under the eBay parent category. This eBay category will not be visible on the website but only used to categorize products for eBay.
- The name of the category should be the eBay category name. The description of the category should be the eBay category code.
- There should only be 2 levels of categories. The top level category being called ‘eBay’. All eBay categories should be on one level underneath this.
- Category codes list can be retrieved from eBay. Ask Citrus-Lime support for assistance with training on this process if required.
- When activating products online put the product into the correct eBay category as well as a web site category.
Product Pricing
- We will use the current website price for eBay pricing unless there is a value in eBay Price for the product in Cloud POS. If a price is present in eBay Price, this will be used as the selling price on eBay.
- This can be done on a per product basis i.e. you can fill in eBay Price for some products and not others. Any products without an eBay price will be listed at the website price.
Information to be provided to Citrus Lime for eBay set up
Required information:
- eBay account user name and password
- eBay account secret question answer. This is to enables us to link the eBay integration to your eBay account. We only need this to link the account as a one off and it can be changed after this has been done.
- Confirmation that a minimum of 10 products have been categorized for eBay. This will allows us to test the integration.
Optional Information: If shipping costs are not provided with the required information then the postage for UK shipping will be set to match the web site.
