In every business there are systems and processes in place in order for everything to run smoothly. It’s the same way in your eBay business except that the overhead and cost of doing business is going to be ridiculously smaller than any other brick and mortar storefront.

So what tools are absolutely needed to run a successful eBay business?

1) A proper business structure with vendor permit, tax id and business bank account. If you’re going to be in business, it’s time to act like it. The only difference between a hobby and a business is an attitude. If you want to do business with wholesalers and suppliers, let them know that you are serious by showing them the papers to prove it.

2) A bookkeeping system. This is extremely important, but very often overlooked. If you are buying anything to resell on eBay, you are a business and need to report your earnings to your local government just like any other business. If you don’t, that’s tax fraud. Sign up for eBay’s free sales reports to keep track of your numbers, or get a program like QuickBooks and export your data from eBay using their Accounting Assistant. You absolutely need to know your numbers in order to run and improve your business. If bookkeeping isn’t your thing, keep all of your receipts and sales data and submit them to a local bookkeeper or accountant.

3) Research tools. Terapeak gets our vote. Use their free research tool to gain an in-depth look at the marketplace, price points, hot categories and more. For an even deeper look at your item’s selling history, they also have a monthly subscription. Combine with eBay’s completed item research for best results.

4) Auction management tools. There are hundreds out there, so how do you know which one is right for you? When just starting out, selling manager and selling manager pro are perfect. Depending on what you need and how large your business is going to grow, you want to get a service that does the job for you while being as inexpensive as possible. If you plan on managing employees, warehouses or even an online retail store, you might want to consider some higher end tools. For a chart listing all the available third party auction management tools you can go to powersellerpath.com/compare.

5) Autoresponder or email follow up tools. There are only a few auction management tools that will allow you to build an email list to market to it later. Many eBayer’s don’t use this simple idea of email marketing to your previous customers. Export all of your payments received data from PayPal and organize your past customer information into an excel spreadsheet. Use this spreadsheet to import emails into an autoresponder for future follow-up or to send thank you letters in the mail promoting your eBay store.