You do not need to be technical

The five steps

1. 1

   Create your AutoPilot account

   about 1 minute

   Go to the sign-up page, enter your email address and a password, and that is it. You are not asked for a card and there is nothing to download or install.

   You land straight on your dashboard with a catalog of products already loaded, so there is nothing to set up before you can look around.

2. 2

   Connect your eBay store

   about 2 minutes

   On your dashboard, open Settings and press the blue Connect eBay store button.

   You are taken to eBay's own website. You sign in there, the way you always do, and eBay shows you a screen asking whether you give AutoPilot permission to manage listings for your store. Press agree.

   eBay sends you straight back to AutoPilot and your store shows as connected. That is the whole setup.

   You type your eBay password into eBay's website, never into ours. We never see it. You can withdraw the permission from your own eBay account settings at any time, without asking us.

3. 3

   Choose what you want to sell

   as long as you like

   Open Bulk list. You will see a table of products with what each one costs from the supplier, what we suggest you sell it for, and how much profit is left after eBay takes its fees.

   Tick the ones you like. You can tick one product or your whole batch. As you tick, the totals at the top update so you can see what the batch is worth before you commit to anything.

4. 4

   Press the button

   about 30 seconds per product

   Press List selected. AutoPilot writes the title, the description and the item specifics for every product, builds out all the size and colour options, applies your pricing, and publishes them. Publishing straight to eBay is being switched on now — until it is, listings are created in demo mode and nothing is posted.

   You can close the tab. It keeps going in the background and the results appear under Listings when it is done.

5. 5

   When something sells

   a few minutes per sale

   Sales recorded in your account appear on your Orders page with what the item cost you and what you actually made on it. Pulling new sales in from eBay automatically is still being built.

   You order the item from your wholesale or dropship supplier and have it delivered to the buyer, then add the tracking number to the order in eBay as you normally would. Sending tracking to eBay from AutoPilot is still being built.

Words you might see, and why they are not your problem

Software people use a lot of jargon. You do not need any of it to run your store, but in case you come across these terms, here is what they actually mean.

API

A direct line between two pieces of software. AutoPilot uses one to talk to eBay so it can post your listings for you. You do not need to do anything with it.

eBay developer account

A registration eBay gives to companies that build tools. We hold ours already. You do not need one and you cannot be asked for one.

OAuth

The proper name for that permission screen on eBay where you press agree. It is the same thing that happens when a website offers to let you sign in with Google.

Environment variable

A setting stored on our servers, such as our connection keys. This is our side of the fence. You will never see one.

Chromium / headless browser

An optional backup method of posting listings that we are still building. It is switched off and it does not affect you.

Demo mode

The safe sandbox you start in. Everything works exactly as it will for real, except nothing is actually posted to eBay. Good for having a look around first.