Online shopping ebay vs mainline sites

[Mrjibbles]

I was just wondering if there had been any studies on how many people goto ebay/amazon for what they are looking for first, instead of mainline sites or
sites dedicated to an area such as electronics, shoes etc

Its also a look into the weighing up of ebay fee's to PPC/website costs but overall the percentage of people in different traffic directions

any views would be good

Rob

[scifind]

My personal opinion is that ebay is fantastic entry point to market.
But I also see it as a compliment to a webstore. More of a way of offloading sale / end of line items.
Ebay works on set fees plus commission - if you are prepared to pay these you might want to consider 'affiliate marketing'. This is a fantastic alternative or compliment to PPC. Plus you can fix your commission so you know exactly what you are going to spend to achieve sales. Something that you cannot do with PPC.
If you have access to stock and have an 'angle'/USP into the market you should get a website - if you express interest in getting an ecommerce site up and running there are several people on this board that will give you very reasonable quotes. Or you can do the DIY method if you are suitable talented

[Mac Yeti]

You might want to take a look at Yahoo! too, they launched "Panama" yesterday which is their new marketing system that they're hoping will challenge google.

It supposedly gives sponsored ads higher billing based on keyword matches to page content rather than listing the ads based on who bid the most.

Obviously it's a really new system so you might want to wait to see what people think but some customers have been testing it for a couple of months and given positive reports.

[Pete Williams]

I have (and still do - more moderately) use eBay. I have found the problem with eBay is that people are always afetr something cheap. That is not necessarily the message I am trying to convey as most of the goods I sell are £50+. Then there is the wastage, listings on eBay don't always sell so you could be wasting a lot of time and money by using it.

I really want sales on my main store to give me the turnover I require without having to use eBay. It is a long process though and I use eBay as a means to generate some cash.