Plecostomus
Commodore
Ok, I have been tasked with setting up an Ebay Store.
HELP!
Seriously, anyone here have experience with this?
HELP!
Seriously, anyone here have experience with this?
Ebay Store -- Setting one up...
- Thread starter Plecostomus
- Start date
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
Why bother, you just end up paying a monthly fee and paying more than if you just list everything separately.
Plecostomus
Commodore
That was my argument as well, this is the task that has been set before me so I must do it.
Plecostomus
Commodore
Stupid old people wanting things that make my life complicated >grumble<
Any other helpful tidbits?
Any other helpful tidbits?
Ive sold things but not as a store, they seem to not be worth it. There's probably a tutorial for how to do it in the help section...
They're probably worth it if you have a large amount of regular stock for sale at fixed price. eBay likes them because they're trying to transition to the income predictability of a big box retailer. For low volume and occasional sellers, they're not worth it. Even medium sized sellers probably would do just as well with regular listings. But big sellers might find them more cost-effective.
Plecostomus
Commodore
The item in question is a large volume fixed inventory type thing, thats why they think an ebay store will work for them.
Yo Plec,
Only bit of advice is if you are trying to shift large volumes definately register as a business seller and don't try and sneak in on private listings. The Ebay 'know-it-alls' on the community 'help' board will spy and watch and bitch. I was commented on for selling 10 silver chains before Christmas. It's not Ebay itself that winge but other users who are self appointed 'worse than Neighbourhood Watch' sad people. Not that I'm bitter or anything. lol
Only bit of advice is if you are trying to shift large volumes definately register as a business seller and don't try and sneak in on private listings. The Ebay 'know-it-alls' on the community 'help' board will spy and watch and bitch. I was commented on for selling 10 silver chains before Christmas. It's not Ebay itself that winge but other users who are self appointed 'worse than Neighbourhood Watch' sad people. Not that I'm bitter or anything. lol
It can work.
I know someone who, until recently, made a handsome living off of their store. A few thousand dollars a month, sometimes as much as 10,000!
I even occasionally get something out of such; I collect 8x10 Trek photos, and sometimes will buy a lot of them from somewhere, and only want 2 or 3 out of 5 or 6. So after a few months of stock-piling, I'll have a few dozen photos to sell, do so for a few dollars each X 30 or 40, make a quick $300 or so, and the individual I sell to turns around and over the same length of time re-sells them for $500 or so.
They make a profit over the duration, I make a quick buck, everyone is happy.
I don't recommend it. I know someone who *had* an E-Bay store and ceased because the cost of doing business was too prohibitive. He specializes in antique records, record players, phonographs, and the like. He is one of those who helped E-Bay get where it is today and ended up getting screwed over by E-Bay with the incessant fee increases. E-Bay also tends to favor buyers over sellers in disputes, which has driven away many sellers, no to mention negative feedback no longer exists.
Instead, he opted to set up his own store/website which is cheaper and more efficient. You should look into that.
Instead, he opted to set up his own store/website which is cheaper and more efficient. You should look into that.
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
Indeed, apparently you can give positive feedback straight away but before you can give neutral or negative feedback you got to wait a few weeks, even if you've already got your item through the post after only 2 days of purchase which is pretty fricking stupid.
I don't know why people don't just buy themselves their own ecommerce website, you can buy them from as little as £9 a month and you can put as many as 150 products for sale, you can be payed via paypal just like ebay and you can even have ebay auction integration. You can have your own domain name and advertise your own web shop online or in newspapers etc
Plecostomus
Commodore
Not an option, E-bay store was what I was told to set up, not discuss the options.
I came here to get information on the actual process not discuss the merits and disadvantages.
Alrighty, then.
Plecostomus
Commodore
I asked this same question on four different fourms and every forum it turned into a discussion of options other than ebay. We already had the meeting, this is what the boss wants.
Ah well, it's not as complex as I thought... just a buttload of fees.
Ebay has large built-in numbers of viewers. Sellers use eBay because of the automatic exposure (and pseudo-legitimacy/security) it grants your listings.
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
You give ebay too much praise. There are that many people selling the same stuff that per item you're talking 200+ pages and for some people they're so unlucky that their item is actually on page 200. Just do a search on something like a specific book and you'll see what i'm talking about.
If you start your own website and shop off and you advertise it well enough you could easily make more money than you would on ebay and you'd get regular customers. You won't be paying for every item you want to list and you won't have to compete with the millions of other people putting items up every single second of the day. Have you seen the price you have to pay just to put your item at the top of search results? for that price you could pay for your own website for 2 months and have ALL your OWN items on your site on the front page.
Do you know how much it costs to do this properly?
One of the small businesses I run sells a service and relies very much on the model you're talking about and advertising costs are considerable. And that's within a relatively niche market.
For other products that are "ebayable" it can make a lot of sense to use the umbrella of ebay rather than a go-it-alone site. In time, as business grows, it can THEN make a lot of sense to use a separate e-commerce site. But for some businesses, eBay makes a fair deal of sense.
Look, believe me I really hate eBay's fees. Another small business I have does use eBay sometimes (last resort, when I can't shift items directly) and I hate forking over money to them. But they DO provide unparalleled level of exposure - items that don't sell directly and on niche sites, will sell on eBay.
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
There's a reason why advertising your own business costs, it's because it's more effective and it works. The amount of extra business that would be acquired through self advertisement makes it beneficial, far more beneficial than a tiny shop hiding somewhere in the depths of ebay that can only be found if someone accidentally stumbles across it.
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