Ebay?

[mycoolgadget]

Hi, have been thinking about an ebay shop to support my existing website to reach more people, but as it is an auction im worried about i have to sell the products to cheap as there are to many sellers of the same products and ive never seen ebay as a place for business but for second hand private sellers forum.

I bought some new spareparts on ebay.co.uk for my car and realized a lot of business use the site for new products and use the "buy it now" feature to avoid selling to cheap!

Guess that is the right way to do it to increase sales for 2010

what you say, good or bad idea?

 

[andyoak]

I'm just going the other way. I have been on ebay for the last 4 years and just of late found it very hard indeed. Fee's, changes with feedback and the new DSR system have made it very hard.

My wife trades on ebay and is a top rated seller [this new dsr rubbish] and does ok. I think it's all down to the product that you sell and can you compete with the big boys on there.

Best of luck with it but make sure you go in with open eyes!

 

[MASSEY]

The buy it now feature will avoid it selling to cheap.

But if your product has competitors using the auction style you may not shift anything, it is only a choice you can make from observing the ebay actions on the items alike to your own.

 

[andyoak]

yes but the buy now has it's draw backs. If you don't sell enough form that listing or if your dsr are not up to scratch or if your competitors offer free postage and you don't or if the wind is blowing in the wrong direction then you won't get on the first page!

 

[silvermusic]

My advice for what it's worth is to use eBay as a clearance venue nowadays. Trying to sell top new product for sensible prices is near impossible, too many fools selling for peanuts profit. Buy It Now is the only sensible option unless you have really rare or in demand items. I stopped using eBay a few months back for exactly this reason, It's been good in the past but I really think it's best days are gone now.

Look at what you could do with the money you'll spend on eBay and you'll find much more profitable ways to generate extra sales, it's all too easy to mount up fees and make little margin. In my case it means expanding the stock range on my web sites.

 

[eBaySpecialist]

I'd say use buy it now and use eBay as a customer requisition tool. When you sell something attach flyers, cards and discount codes in the package for the next sale on your website. You are only allowed to put your website address on your 'About Me' page though.

There are about 8-10 different things you have to do to get the best chance in best Match search, it is difficult to master at first but is worth while. There is a good article on getting good results in search on a blog called Tamebay (not sure of links policy). Good star ratings and free postage are among them.

As for the fees that's all about strategy, you can waste your money in the same way with adwords too with a bad campaign and auctions are more like advertisements for your shop and should be a proportion of your total listngs, you can use a reserve but this puts people off bidding.

With 17.7 million users in the UK browsing the site for an average of 2 hours and 250 products each per month, I say for a quarter of the UK population browsing, it's still worth the fees.

Buy it now listings in a shop are cheaper. SEO on ebay is via eBay's own regular Google Base upload, Google won't accept single RSS feeds from single ebay shops anymore, but there are other ways to optimise your shop for Google you may find some more tips of this sort of help in the community boards.

You really don't have to be the cheapest on eBay to make the sales, far from it, people pay more for service and peace of mind and with good stars, return policies and service you have your reputation on your sleeve giving confidence to the buyer.

Best of luck.

 

[MH1]

I would agree with the above, I am far from the cheapest in my sections, but I take a reasonable amount, I work on a minimum of 100% mark up since after the fees etc it's hardly worth selling for much less, unless you are in a fast moving very low margin section.

Too many people think ebay is all about price, it is not. If it was that simple there would be just a handful of sellers.

 

[eBaySpecialist]

Too many people think ebay is all about price, it is not. If it was that simple there would be just a handful of sellers.

There are many misconceptions about eBay, I'm in my eighth year of trading and it's so different to what it was then or even 2 years ago, eBay is constantly changing and challenging but well worth it.

It is no longer the online car boot it was

 

[mycoolgadget]

Ty for all the usefull replies, think a ebay shop will be a good choice to convert more sales after I've been reading your input

Ive now uploaded the first products on my new webshop on ebay and will keep upload all my products and work on the integrated SEO choices i have, and keep all parts of the site updated (in the beginning it looks really like there are to many choices) but some are importnant and other less importnant.

http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/mycoolgadgetcouk

ty for the usefull feedback once again and happy new year!

 

[easyasit]

I have considered starting a new optics business, and selling on ebay

However, i am concerned that you get charged for whatever you list whether it sells or not.
I know you have to speculate to accumulate but when your unemployed and the pennies are scarce as it is, you do need value for money.

I am startled that to date there is no competitor for ebay.

I am sure now after so many years of domination its time for something with a fresh approach.

 

[AndyP]

........

I am startled that to date there is no competitor for ebay.

<snip>

I think I am correct in saying that the reason that you can't see any competition on eBay for your proposed optics business is because this area falls into the prohibited goods category.

 

[eBaySpecialist]

Andy

Just a quick one, your logo and shop name is against eBay policy, you're not allowed to have a web url anywhere but your 'About Me' page, change it quick.

I've been toying with the idea of giving an existing eBay shop critque but not decided on the price, if you DM me I'll do it for you for free to see what you think. Only if you want to of course

 

[silvermusic]

I'd say use buy it now and use eBay as a customer requisition tool.

I think you mean a customer acquisition tool.

In the past I would have agreed. However, in recent years the effort to turn an eBay customer into a web site customer has got harder and harder. Not helped by ebay's dire warnings to trading outside of eBay on site and in their emails.

By all means include leaflets, promotion for you web site in every package sent out, but don't expect great things from it, although it does tend to depend on what you sell so some degree. Comsumables and the like seems to work better in conversion to web customers.

On the same subject you might be better off offering a limited range of your best sellers on ebay and keeping long tail ranges on your web site, something that I found worked better. No point in paying to list tons stock that rarely sold.

One word of warning, don't try converting Amazon customers by including flyers, etc in packages. Amazon take a very dim view of it and it can lead to your account being suspended, seen it happen.

 

[eBaySpecialist]

Yes, you're right I did mean asquisition tool, didn't read it through properly

I've found that in the last few years the customer return rate is less but I still find the flyers etc still worth the time and effort and unlike Amazon there isn't any policy to prevent eBay sellers from doing this although it's not allowed in email, in listings, logo or shop header, only in the 'About Me' page.

On a buy it now stock listing, it costs the same to list a few thousand identical items as it does to list one and with multi variant listings this also cuts the listing cost. I agree with you regarding the good selling products but at the same time if a listing is stale it needs reviewing. You should revisit all your listings regularly and as long as you don't change the title and item specifics it won't affect your Best Match Sales weighting.

 

[LucileKennedy]

hi everyone,

eBay classifieds works exactly like the classified section in the newspaper. You determine the price for your item. The buyer can come and view it, he also can negotiate the price with you, can give you offers that you can accept of refuse.

 

[Happy Dayz 4U]

Go in with Buy it Now prices!!!!

Kind Regards.

Happy Dayz 4U

 

[mycoolgadget]

must say i made a good decision when using ebay as a second sales channel, many of my products sells more than expected, im now trying to get a small business loan to buy products in bulk and kick ass in 2010