9steps, about half an hour
This is the whole path, so nothing about setup is a surprise, including the one step that is eBay's and takes a while. A checklist on your Overview ticks itself off as you go.
Nothing to buy first
You need four things. Only the first two cost anything, and you probably have them.
A few minutes
Sign in to your account, download the Setup file (named like Sellhelm-Setup-4.x.x.exe) and double-click it. A normal Windows wizard takes you through it: a welcome page, a short page saying what it will do, then Install and Finish. It takes about a minute, and there is nothing to unzip.
It installs into your own user profile, so it never asks for an administrator password and never touches other users on the PC. It adds Sellhelm to your Start menu with its own icon (and a Desktop icon if you tick that), and lists itself under Windows Settings, Apps so you can uninstall it like any other program. Nothing else is left on your Desktop. If an older copy is running it is stopped for you first.
Your Downloads
Afterwards
SellhelmIllustration
Do not be put off
Windows shows it for any new program that has not been code-signed yet, and it does not mean Sellhelm is unsafe. We are still actively developing Sellhelm, so we have not bought a code-signing certificate yet.
Your download page shows the file's SHA-256, so you can check the file is genuine.
A couple of minutes
Open Sellhelm from the Start menu, or from the last page of Setup. A small Sellhelm icon appears by the clock (right-click it to stop Sellhelm) and your browser opens the panel, which starts on an Activate screen showing this computer's Machine ID.
Copy it, sign in to your account and paste it against a licence. Your licence key appears there straight away (and in an email). Paste it back into the Activate box. At that moment Sellhelm connects to our website once to confirm the licence (it sends the key, the Machine ID and the Sellhelm version, nothing else), so you need an internet connection for that step. After that it renews its licence quietly in the background, and keeps running through a short loss of connection: it needs to reach our website at least every 14 days (every 2 days on a free account).
Sellhelm · Activate
This computer's Machine ID
4E1F-90AC-7B22-0D5E-C1A8
Copy the Machine ID
Your licence key
SM1.eyJ2IjoxLCJwcm9kdWN0Ijoi…
Your account · Licences
Machine ID
4E1F-90AC-7B22-0D5E-C1A8
Get my key
Key ready · Copy key
Illustration
About 15 minutes
This is the longest step, and it is eBay's, not ours: every seller creates their own free developer keys. Sellhelm's Settings page has a click-by-click guide open on the page as you go. Here is the shape of it.
A couple of minutes
Needed for some of the best parts: Amazon Prime and delivery in Product research, AliExpress, and the shops that refuse a normal program. It also captures a product from any page you are looking at. If you only use shops Sellhelm reads directly, you can skip it for now.
The easy way: open the Start menu, then Sellhelm, then Set up the Chrome extension. Sellhelm opens a step-by-step window with buttons that open Chrome's extensions page and the right folder for you, and a box that turns green when it works.
Or do it by hand:
chrome://extensions into the address bar and press Enter.%LOCALAPPDATA%\Sellhelm\app\extensionmanifest.json. Click Select Folder. Sellhelm now appears on Chrome's list, switched on.The address works as written on every Windows computer: Windows fills in your own user name for %LOCALAPPDATA%. The full guide has every fix if Chrome complains. After each Sellhelm update, press the small circular arrow on the extension's card so Chrome picks up the new version. Running more than one eBay account? Each account has its own Chrome profile: add the extension in each one, and reload it there after an update.
About ten minutes
Four short jobs make every listing look like yours. The Overview's checklist lists them and ticks each off when it is done.
A few minutes
Sellhelm starts with sensible defaults, listed here. Choose the return you want, decide how big a jump should wait for you, and say whether you are VAT registered. Fee rates are settings too, so they stay right when eBay changes them.
Sellhelm refuses settings that would misprice your shop, such as a floor above a ceiling, and tells you why.
A few minutes
Two ways in. On Add, paste a supplier product link and Sellhelm reads it and makes a draft with the price, stock, photos, specification and a suggested eBay category. Or open Product research, pick a category and let it run: it ranks what is worth selling, and one click adds the winners to Drafts. Nothing is on eBay yet.
From then on, it looks after itself
Automatic checking is on from the start, and it sends what it finds to eBay, with safety limits: a big price jump is held for you to look at, a check that could not read enough pages sends nothing, and a limit stops too many changes going out at once. If you would rather watch first, open Settings and choose check only: it reads your suppliers and updates the figures without touching eBay, so you can see what it would do. Switch sending back on when you trust it.
When a sale comes in it appears on Orders: open it to see the supplier's page, the buyer's address in copy-ready lines (read live from eBay, never saved) and what you will keep. Order from your supplier, then paste the tracking number in and it goes straight onto the eBay order.
Your Overview shows what needs you, most urgent first. A backup is kept every day, and Export everything gives you one file that restores onto a fresh install. Leave Sellhelm open on your PC: automatic checks run while it is running.
On your Overview, until you are done
Both are simple, and neither costs you your data
Every release is listed on what's new.
Once it is running
None of this is needed to get started. Each is there when you want it.
One licence covers your computer, not your eBay accounts. Add a second shop, or your eBay US shop, in Settings. Each has its own products, orders and books, and the same developer keys serve all of them.
See many accountsSeller hub, traffic, money, messages, cases and your seller level, read live from eBay. The Money page needs a one-off signing key, which Sellhelm makes with eBay for you.
See your eBay accountProduct research ranks products from your suppliers by profit and eBay demand. Competitor research reads any seller's shop and finds the supplier behind each winner.
See the research toolsAn optional add-on fills in the Amazon order in your own Chrome and gives your buyers a tracking page in your shop's name. It is not part of the price.
See the add-onIf something is not right
Stuck on any step? Buyers can open a support request from their account and attach Sellhelm's diagnostics report, which contains no keys, orders or buyer details.
Windows shows this for any new program it has not seen much yet, and Sellhelm is not yet code-signed. Choose "More info", then "Run anyway". Your download page shows the file's SHA-256 so you can confirm it is genuine.
Right-click the small Sellhelm icon by the clock, choose "Stop Sellhelm and close", then run Setup again. Setup also tries to stop it for you first.
Sellhelm carries its own copy of Node.js so you install nothing else, and some antivirus tools are wary of that. Add the Sellhelm install folder (%LOCALAPPDATA%\Sellhelm) to the allowed list, or send us the name of the warning.
Something else on your computer is using it. In the install's app\data folder create a text file called .env (in Notepad: Save as, All files) containing the line PORT=4180, start Sellhelm again, and put the same number in the extension's Panel port box.
A licence works on one computer. Make sure the Machine ID you sent came from the computer you are activating. A new PC or a Windows reinstall has a new Machine ID: send it from your account and move the licence.
Re-check each of the four values from your developer account (App ID, Dev ID, Cert ID and RuName). A stray space is the usual cause. Each seller needs their own keyset.
Reload the extension on chrome://extensions in the Chrome profile your eBay account uses, and press F5 on the panel page. The extension finds its account's port by itself; only if you set the port by hand and it still reports a mismatch, put the same number in the extension's popup.
Stop Sellhelm (right-click its icon by the clock), delete panel-lock.json in the data folder, and start it again. Nothing else is touched.
From £79.99, once. Fourteen days to change your mind.