Ebay has provided some amazing opportunities for many people to earn online. This widely popular auction site has become the primary destination for users who wish to purchase anything, ranging from tangible products to digital items, hence making eBay a website visited by millions of people every day. Because of the volume of transactions happening in its pages, eBay has also become a virtual market place where thousands, if not millions, of dollars exchange hands on a daily basis as well.
Do you want a piece of that big, big pie?
Then you must first have to establish an eBay store.
Now, this is not a strong recommendation. This article is not meant as a sales pitch for a membership with eBay, rather, it seeks to present the advantages and disadvantages of building your own eBay store. You must remember that eBay isn’t the only place where you could peddle your goods. It is a good place where you could sell your items, but there are other alternatives you could consider. Should you settle with eBay? Or should you explore the alternative options? Let’s study the matter more closely.
There are most certainly a lot of benefits that could be gained from establishing your own eBay store. Let’s take a look at them.
You’d be able to sell in a hotly visited environment. You’ll be able to expose your products to a wide array of prospects.
Once you have upgraded to a Featured Store, you’d be given $30 worth of PPC keywords per month. This means that your store would appear prominently in the results for the particular keywords that users will search for. Such would most certainly drive more traffic to your auctions.
A Featured Store would also deliver some advanced reports for your auctions. You could use the statistics delineated therein to improve the way you construct your sales pages, and the way you present your items for better efficiency in your future offers.
A Featured Store will also allow you more eBay pages, which would mean more exposure for your products. It’s still a numbers game. The more auctions you have running, the more earning opportunities you could capitalize on.
A Featured Store would allow you to reduce the size of the eBay banner appearing in your every auction. This would give you the chance to work on your page and bring the focus of your visitors to the items you will be selling.
Ebay provides a certain level of seller protection and dispute resolution for potential problems you might encounter with your buyers.
Though these are great advantages for your online business, please bear in mind that they do not come without cost. There are also other disadvantages that are attached to having your own eBay store.
Ebay stores don’t come free. A basic store setup would cost $15.95 per month. A Featured Store status would cost an even higher $49.95 per month. And the king of all kings, an Anchor Store, would require you to spend an onerous $499.95 per month.
Having your own eBay store would pressure you to perform well when it comes to your sales. Though some may consider this as a benefit since such will motivate the seller to plan his course of action, the dangers will be experienced when you fail to earn enough profit to cover the cost of your subscription.
People go to eBay expecting the best deals in the online market. You have to compete at this level, otherwise, the moment people would see the going rate for your auction, they’d immediately hop to the next item up for sale.
You’d be bound by eBay’s selling policies. You cannot go around some of these restrictive policies, otherwise, you account can get suspended, or worse, terminated.
Establishing an eBay store is a solid choice for a business model. But you have to determine your goals as well as your marketing plan. Would an eBay store help you accomplish them? Or would selling your own goods in your own website, or through some affiliate automation program like be better for your online business?
The choice is yours.
Saleem Rana
http://www.articlesbase.com/marketing-articles/should-you-open-up-an-ebay-store-94473.html
#1 by courage_987 on June 9th, 2009
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Would it be cheaper for me to open a Ebay store rather then tons of auctions?
I sell everyday on Ebay. With as many as up to 100 auctions going on one day. I was wondering if it is cheaper for me to just open an Ebay store? If so, can someone give me the breakdown ( examples of cost doing it either way)?. To be honest, what I pay in listing and final value fees make the whole thing not seem worth it?
#2 by Disco_Lem0naid on June 9th, 2009
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you would probably be better off to go get a real job. ebay really rapes people on their pricing now days.
they say they're going to lower costs, but they'll just get you somewhere else.
you can do an ebay store starting at 15 bucks a month though. if you list a lot then that would save you money.
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#3 by mark90_2k2 on June 9th, 2009
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Cant give a breakdown – but ebay listings are costly – at up to £4+ for a decent listing, with paypal fee's ontop – find out how much the shop costs to open, work out how many auctions you will need to run to break even an weigh up weather you can keep the auctions frequent enough in a shop to counterbalance the profit loss from individual auctions
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#4 by Lancez on June 9th, 2009
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Yes,it will a lot more cheaper and safer
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#5 by David on June 9th, 2009
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http://ecommerce-times.blogspot.com
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#6 by Rio S on June 9th, 2009
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Well, my suggestion open an online store and host it. It is cheaper and its worth it. You can check out my husband online store so you'll have an ideas. His website http://www.bubbasgaragesale.com he just have books and audio books in his online store for now but were going to put more stuff soon.
Goodluck and keep up the good work.
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#7 by Doctor Deth on June 9th, 2009
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not really – you are still forced to pay for auctions in addition to the webstore costs – you have to count on not selling everything you list the first time (or at all) and see if the costs involved eat up too much of your potential profits. It may NOT be worth selling a lot of the items you are listing – I've sold a lot of self made cdrom products over the years that sell a very low percentage of the times I list them – I make a 95% gross profit IF I sell one, but I may have to list 10 to sell just once, so that 95% profit goes way down from the listing fees of the unsold items – evaluate what you sell and concentrate on the hoter selling items or ones with higher profit maruins
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9 yrs experience buying and selling on ebay
#8 by Monica on June 9th, 2009
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Opening a store is not the best for every seller who has a lot of items. It also depends on the type of item. Do you have items that are seasonal? Or do you sell a lot one week, and then for a few weeks after wards, nothing … before they start selling again? Some items will benefit from sitting in a store, because there is not a constant want for that item. I have a store and I put most of my inventory in the store format. They are small, inexpensive items. Then I put the more desirable items up for auction and offer free shipping after the first purchase. So once someone wins my auction, they will automatically head for my store since the shipping will be free …. It works out well for me.
Why don't you just try a store for a month? The 1st month used to be free, I don't know if it is anymore. And even if it's not, they don't make you sign a contract. I also found out that if you have a store set up, and you decide to get rid of it … eBay will save your settings. So if you later decide to go back and start the store up again, most of your pages and settings will still be there. At least it was for me.
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