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astor
(stranger )
09/05/07 11:35 AM
Are ebay stores worth it? new  

Newbie here...still setting up over the course of several days - think I should transfer to my laptop, but now I may need a new laptop...anyway...

At ebay Live/Boston I heard tons of contradicting opinions on the value of the ebay store - positive is the complete integration, ebay's builti in marketing, appearance on search results etc. But others pointed to the ever rising ebay store fees and voiced a desire for 'other than ebay' - ie, website - gear towards search result marketing etc...and that this was the way to go. Just use ebay for it's listings to ulitimately drive traffic to your own, ebay-fee-free site.

I see there are some people here who have websites, but they seem to be marketing tools for their auctions and ebay stores rather than marketing tools in and of themselves. Am I making any sense here? Just starting to thing about strategies...

I primarily sell costume jewelry - presently liquidating tons of estate/vintage items but have alot of contemporary items to slowly add for a transition on multiple item products. that's the game plan - to create the model. This year will be spent liquidating vintage/antique items and slowly begin a transition to non one-of-a-kind items that I can easily and quickly scale up via staff.

I'm tired of having ebay and Paypal as my silent partners - the fees go up but their focus is on the buyer and not the seller way too much.

Anyway, I'd like to hear some opinions and the pros/cons of an ebay store outlet!

Maybe we could get a group of people together for ebay live next year! how cool would that be!!! anywaz, your thoughts?



bluepennylady
(Pooh-Bah)
09/05/07 12:41 PM
Re: Are ebay stores worth it? [re: astor]  

Hi,

If you decide you want to move AW2000 to your laptop, let me know. I can help you move it so you don't have to redo registration codes etc. So let me know if you need help.

I think it would be totally cool for AW2000 users to meet together at eBay Live! Be a wonderful opportunity to meet each other, put a face with those names , share ideas and perhaps even have some time to learn more together about some of the features, functions and other power in Aw2000. I'm all for it!!!

As far as the eBay store--- I have a store and have had for several years. There is a price point where it becomes more economical to list in the store versus listing in regular auction style listings. That price point is $6.99 or under.

If you list a $6.99 in regular auction style listing, the insertion fee is .40. The Final Value fee is 5.25% which totals up to .76 if the item sells the first time around.

If you list in the Store, the insertion fee is .05 with a 10% Final Value fee for a total of .74 meaning you get $6.25 for the item in a store listing sale as opposed to $6.23 in a regular auction style listing.

In terms of the Store subscription fee, I only use the basic store subscription which is $15.95. I can't rent any type of booth or store front anywhere with the kind of traffic eBay provides for $15.95. And if you use the Store Referral credits and promote your store, it is completely possible you end up getting back in Store Referral Credits far more than you spend for the subscription. I can't remember the last time I actually paid for my store subscription as the Store Referral credits are much greater than the subscription charge.

There are two Store themes that are completely searchable on the Internet. The text in the headers will pull up in regular search engine results. So you should use those one of those two themes. The features eBay provides for sending email marketing, RSS feeds, file exchange, affiliate linkage, promotional flyers, business cards, and the other free marketing tools are a great value for the $15.95 per month. Or I should say, at least in my opinion they are a great value.

One of the reasons you will see lots of AW2000 users uploading AW2000 thumbnail pages to their website linking back to their eBay Auctions is those links qualify for Store Referral Credits. As the buyer is entering their seller's eBay store from outside the Auction venue.

We consider eBay as a mean for advertising our products, liquidation services and company. I cannot purchase a more effective means of advertising anywhere as I do not have that big of an advertising budget. And eBay is world wide. People from all over the world see my stuff. And those people could very well become my next big buyer and then returning customer.

We see our buyers becoming customers which email back on the AW2000 shipping notice or payment received email notice requesting more product. Or asking if we have something else they need. Which is what we want. Convert buyer's into customers. And that is just one reason we use AW2000 to manage our auction business. It is third party. Not an eBay, Overstock or Player auction venue tool which means independence from the auction site itself. Not good to put all your eggs into one basket :o)

So with that in mind, Auctions should be just one avenue of any business instead of the whole tamale. A multitude of avenues is much better than one. When we are finished with our goals, we will have a full fledged e-commerce site, larger eBay store and regular auctions listings as well as a much larger wholesale site.

Now that I have talked your leg off and wrote a long novel, I hope that helps a bit.

How's the setup going anyway??


Judy/blue

Visit my eBay store!
http://stores.ebay.com/bluepennylady?refid=store


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