Ebay Store Vs. No Store

[electronics220volt]

I've just been added to the Canadian PowerSellers program as a bronze member and have noticed many succesful eBay'ers have an eBay store. Does having a store really affect your sales or the number of views your items get? If so how much does it cost to open and maintain an eBay store? Thanks!

Best Wishes,
Electronics220volt

[llee2]

Congrats and welcome to the board! Have a look around the board if you haven't heard about the considerable increases being imposed on stores in the near future. I don't think you'll find that opening a store now is going to help your margin any, although it will likely boost your overall sales. Unless you're selling an awful lot through your store, you're probably best to keep to the regular formats.

Lincoln

[shoplineca]

Congratulations and welcome.

What has been going on for the last several days is several thousand people have been closing their eBay stores due to eBay's recent price hike.

You may not get the comments you hoped for at this time asking about the stores.

We were planning to open our store this week and have now done an about face and will not be opening an eBay store because of their fee increase.

Malcolm

[sunset_sports_cards]

I am shutting mine down too, it is not worth it. I do better on auctions myself.

[ospreylinks]

We ran a store for about a year (a couple of years back). It was pathetic. No traffic, small sales..... And with the new pricing structure, there is no way I would open another store....

Jeff

[muminlaw]

We opened a store about a month ago (enticed by the free month!) and, while not much has happened in it yet, we've decided to keep it open for at least another couple of months while we tweak the set-up and the methods of drawing business to it -- might as well give it a fair trial although now it's going to have to do much better than it would have.

Glenda

[catseye*]

About 30% of my monthly sales come via my store, so it makes no sense to shut it down.

[montrealmaps]

Hallo everybody,

Some information about the income generated by my store in
December 2004: Sale: 340 USD. eBay fees: 28.50 USD.
For the same volume I will pay in March 41.50 USD. (about 50% more). I will keep my store open.

Andrew

[marcopoloca]

The better/wiser measure would be (ebay plus paypal fees) vs profit (not sales). Last month for every $1 i made they made 50 cents! And i am the one who's doing all the work and assuming the risk!

[rd1000]

$41.50 in fees for $340.00 in sales. You have no problem paying 12.2% of gross sales for the service? eBay will be pleased.

I have a problem with it and I will be looking for other avenues to sell through.

Rob

[shoplineca]

Rob
I looked at what Andrew stated about not having a problem spending 12.2% on advertising.

I also looked at his store's sell through rate of about 25% and I know that I would be concerned over moving only 25% of my advertised product at a cost of 12.2%.

Regardless, none of this is how a sucessful business looks at running his business. You dont look for efficiencies in how you run your business to put more money into the pockets of a 3rd party supplier of a service such as eBay. You do it under certain conditions for increases arising from the cost of your products.

A company such as eBay should be putting something on the table in return for the service.

Ben, they should be coming to you and saying for that extra XX% in fees we will be charging you, we will bring 10 million more customers into eBay this year and work at seeing you reach a sell through of 35% or 40%.

But to levy increases when their costs havent increased for those services, they are simply gouging and that is not right.

I suppose part of the problem is that alot of people have obtained their business experience through eBay and have come to accept them as the guiding mind as to how to run a business.

Too bad, they dont have the foggiest idea about running a business for "Long Term" success.

Malcolm

[shoplineca]

Sorry, I dont know why I put in Ben's name, my mistake.

I also wanted to add is that the first pocket used for monies saved from implementing efficiencies should be your own!

Malcolm

[rd1000]

eBay is acting like the monopoly they are. It is their privilege to do that, but sellers really need to examine the cost vs. benefit.

I have heard references that eBay is a like a business partner. Wrong! eBay is a business expense, just like Paypal and banking fees. eBay is not your friend. eBay is not your partner. The only interest they have in you is your money.

Every dollar they take from your sales, is a dollar they take from you. Make sure you are getting value for your money. There are many different ways to sell products.

Rob

[montrealmaps]

I think 12,2 % is not so bad. I am an experienced webmaster (more than 100 websites prepared, 20 maintained), so I can easily build a store with a shopping cart and host it on my servers for free. I can provide a link to the store in "about me" page. The question is: will I have the same traffic? Will the people go to my store and look for another items? Many, many people often didn't know, that I have eBay store (!!!) and many don't even check the "view seller's other items" link (!!!). Hard to believe .. but true...

Andrew

[shoplineca]

My son is the webmaster for our site which does not list anything for sale. It tells a little about us, the business and what we sell and provides links for people to email us. Despite not listing anything for sale, we currenly are receiving an average of 2,000 distinct hits per day with a peak of 3,500 per day.

Despite not listing specific products and prices we still manage to sell about $2,000 per month through our web site. The advantage is that there is no cost for us as we host our own servers as well.

I suspect that if we invested the time and effort and listed exactly what we list on eBay and added a shopping cart, we would have the same sales without paying eBay a nickel.

Ben, it seems that you are raising some important points further to what I was trying to convey about eBay failing to give us value for the money we pay them.

You said " Many, many people often didn't know, that I have eBay store (!!!) and many don't even check the "view seller's other items" link (!!!). "

That is eBay's responsibility and that is what you are paying them for.

So with a price increase eBay should have come to you and said, for the extra XX% we are charging Feb 14, 2005, these are the improvements we are implementing that will generate more traffic to your store.

Instead they simply are promising nothing greater than the diminishing service we received last year in exchange for paying them more.

Sorry, that is not a good business partner in my books. This is not a company that I can trust for the long haul as their actions reflect nothing more than corporate greed of the worst type as they fly their banners telling unsuspecting people that we are all partners with them, members of a special club, all equal and with a voice to which they will listen and respond.

Malcolm

[sunset_sports_cards]

Malcolm I totally agree with you...couldn't have said it better myself!

[sunset_sports_cards]

Notice I have no store icon anymore......:^O

[rd1000]

"This is not a company that I can trust for the long haul"

Exactly why I am moving to another sales venue.

Rob

[dragonimpact]

If you plan on opening an eBay Store do so with gusto. I see so many sellers out there that list 10 items and only have 2 unique "store only" items in their ebay store.

Why pay the now $14.95 a month for only 2 items. I recently just passed 550 unique store only items with, as of tonight, 40 auction only items with large links to my eBay store.

Focus on a eBay marketing plan within eBay. Find a way to generate traffic via your auctions and bring people to your store. And once you have them in your store, keep them interested by having a lot to look through.

From the 7th to the 27th of December I had closed all auctions and just left my eBay store open. At that time I had about 300 unique store only items. Without auctions to guide customers to my eBay store or any advertising I still made roughly $400 in sales.
If customers want it, they will find it.

Alex.

[shoplineca]

Alex
What was your cost to run your eBay store that generated $400 in sales, that is what is important.

If you had to pay $14.95 plus listing costs for 300 items and then your FVF, what was your eBay invoice for generating $400 in sales during those 3 weeks?

For the extra money in new fees, eBay should be generating more traffic to the auctions and to your site however the general consensus is they are falling flat on their face in that department.

Its not a matter of having sales or making profit, its a matter of making 20% now instead of 40% a few months ago with prospects of making 15% in another couple of months while eBay is up 44% over last year, NOT because of new business they have generated but increased fees imposed on the Sellers.

Malcolm