Ebay Store - Dummies guide please

[Yorganic]

Is it possible that someone could maybe give me a short dummies guide to setting up an EBay store? Please don't go lots of trouble and real experience from people who have EBay stores.

I am sure that I more than capable of setting this up [I think] therefore, I am mainly looking to save time and avoid the usual pitfalls. It's actually a favour for a friend that I'll be expected to sort out over the weekend [and the weather forecast is far too nice for driving a PC].

Another reason that I am asking is that my exprience of 'experimenting' with EBay and Paypal doesn't work. i.e. for reasons connected with combatting fraud it is not easy to set up test accounts etc. And as soon as you give them your credit card they immediately tell you that you already have an account etc etc.

[coultog]

My first response is, don't! eBay store costs have gotten so high, I want to close mine down. It's becoming too uneconomical to sell on eBay. It costs over a pound extra per item to sell on eBay as it does through my website.

However, if you really need to set one up (I still have mine begrudgingly), let me know and I can provide advice as and when required.

The process takes about ten minutes to open a store (I have a basic store).. Then general config's are:

Create categories
Set up automatic cross selling
Increase the cross selling box to 12 (not the standard 4)
On all your posts make a point to get people to look at your store
Anythingt that doesn't sell after two months, put it on a website and leave it there not costing you money.
If you think you're going to stock product x and there's a ready supply, put down you have 99 on eBay (saves the picture costs of 11p) and not the number you really have
Try and get people to use soemthing other than PayPal - too expensive
Try and direct people to your website wherever you can
When you send packages, send the customer some information about your website and explain it's cheaper or something like.

I can't think of anything else - if you need to know anything, feel free to PM me.

My store is here if you want to look:
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Think-Technical-Solutions/

[Yorganic]

Hey Coultog. Excellent reply. Thanks. Now I know why joined the forum.

And whats your mobile / can I ring you at 9pm on a Saturday evening....?

Just joking.

Many thanks

Carl

[coultog]

Yeah, no problem - my number is 079 666 666 ;-)

I would also strongly recommend using Turbo Lister for populating your shop and listings. It saves a lot more time than eBay's website.

[angels960]

My first response is, don't! eBay store costs have gotten so high, I want to close mine down. It's becoming too uneconomical to sell on eBay. It costs over a pound extra per item to sell on eBay as it does through my website./ (http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Think-Technical-Solutions/)

100% agree...thats why I set up my own website.

About 3 years ago i used to sell shoes on an ebay store but it was becoming more and more expensive and my target market were not looking for bargins, they were looking for quailty. Thats really why i left I needed have a proper site all of my very own.

I guess its good for people just starting, im sorry i cant give you more techincal advice im sure someone here will be able to

:)

[Yorganic]

100% agree...thats why I set up my own website......
Thanks but, as an SEO I dont need to be convinced of the benefits of a web site. My friend has done the market research [in fact I've done most of it for her] and, it all points to the fact that customers prefer EBay over web sites in this particular market.

I [we] believe the two need go hand in hand - web site and EBay store. I'll let you know when she makes a million and she buys me a beer for the help I'm giving her ;)

[Comspec]

Yorganic, I have a couple of small guides I downloaded re. setting up ebay shops & trading on ebay in general.
Please PM me an email address, and I will send them to you.

Mark

[Matt1959]

Advising against using an Ebay store due to cost must be seen as over generalised advice surely?? It depends on the levels of profit you gain on your sold items. Where can you obtain such a huge audience for your goods with free linking to your website anyway for what in reality is peanuts??