To open Ebay shop or not?

[KELKEL]

Hi Guys

please can I have your thoughts on opening a shop on EBAY - this is to run alongside my online store for sales items and end of lines etc.. I may venture with new stock?

What is the general feel?

 

[citizen_erased224]

Hey I am opening up an ebay store too! Is it easy to make £200 a week? Thanks

 

[Vision2]

Hi Guys

please can I have your thoughts on opening a shop on EBAY - this is to run alongside my online store for sales items and end of lines etc.. I may venture with new stock?

What is the general feel?

Ebay is great for this kind of thing, especially when you are knocking from both sides of the coin.

just don't forget, ebay fee's + paypal etc, lots and lots of fee's, so make sure you include these thing sinto your prices.

Also, ebay if you are going to get a ebay shop make sure your shop looks clean and tidy.

 

[KELKEL]

Im not off to a great start I started to create a shop account then my system crashed so i had to start again, but I think its saved my details as I must have gone to far as its saying my name is already registered - when I try and log in it tells me to authorise my account which I cannot do as I have no password - talk about frustrating!!

On the other side somebody may already be trading with the same name and email address I even tried registered with my personal email address but I have a personal account too so that wouldnt register:redface::redface:

 

[chris.quinn89]

Ebay is a great way to sell but not a particularly profitable way. There are lots of potential customers but just as many competitors. Ebay will however provide extra exposure for you website which can only be a good thing. I would even suggest posting your URL when leaving feedback for buyers for example "Many Thanks From www.yourstore.com Great Buyer".

To be successfull on ebay you have to be the cheapest it's really that simple, yes your location, feedback score & listing layout pay a contributing factor to your success but the cheapest item sells & the more you sell the higher ranking your listing will become when searched.

I sell a mixture of items on ebay & my net profit ranges from 50p upto £170 per item. The £170 item will only last so long as someone else will soon stumble upon it & undercut me making my net £170 shrink to £10 or even less.

It all depends on what your selling, there is a successful computer accesories store on ebay completing 20, 000 transactions a month but their net profit would be well below £1 for every item, still a very health profit but you really do need the volume to make any money at it.

As for registering on ebay here is their helpline telephone number, I think if you enter your email and requet a password reset it might sort this out though:

0800 358 3229

And here is a very useful website to calculate your ebay, paypal & postage fees & gives you your net profit. I couldn't live without it (well I could but life would be 10x harder).

http://ecal.altervista.org/en/fee_calculator/ebay.co.uk/

Hope this helps...

 

[jenx222]

I myself used to have an ebay shop and it was a great way sell your products. If your starting out small I wouldn't advise that you purchase a shop but just sell your products from a normal account. If your selling very few items then a shop is likely to cost you more money than it would make. If however, your making sales on a daily basis then it would be best to open a shop as this would work out cheaper that selling them from an account. As said before, keep an eye on those fees! ebay will charge you for anything and everything. Take a look at the different accounts and see what sort of prices you'll be expecting to pay.

Hope this helps,
Luke

 

[MASSEY]

Your best bet is to point traffic from your ebay store to your site, tell them to visit and buy off the ite for a 5% discount,

Ebay are too expensive end of

 

[MASSEY]

double post

 

[chris.quinn89]

You have to be careful if ebay think you are diverting customers away from their site to complete the purchase they will close your account. I think the best way to avoid ebays fees is put your number on your listing making it inviting to call then accept payment over the telephone through a virtual terminal. Expensive to start out setup is £125 with paypoint but will pay off in the long run.

 

[dingbat]

Ebay is a great way to sell but not a particularly profitable way. There are lots of potential customers but just as many competitors. Ebay will however provide extra exposure for you website which can only be a good thing. I would even suggest posting your URL when leaving feedback for buyers for example "Many Thanks From www.yourstore.com Great Buyer".

It's against ebay rules to place a website link on feedback comments.

 

[LinkBright Media]

there is a successful computer accesories store on ebay completing 20, 000 transactions a month but their net profit would be well below £1 for every item, still a very health profit but you really do need the volume to make any money at it.

I've been thinking a lot about profits on eBay lately as I've just opened my own eBay store, alongside my e-commerce websites. After you pay the eBay and PayPal fees, it's really difficult to make a decent profit, especially as people will always go for the cheapest product.. so you have to be the cheapest on eBay to get a lot of sales. I can imagine the costs of processing 20,000 orders... do you think the net profit is really £1 per item or would you end up with even less that after paying staff and storage fees etc?

Running after what seems to be mostly tiny profits isn't my idea of the perfect business, but I see other reasons for selling on eBay. I like the idea of pushing my brand via eBay, which I am starting to do with some gorgeous looking product pages and eBay shop... with my logo and business name all over it. It's easy to google my business name when you see that. I also don't like the idea of selling cheap sale stuff on my main websites, so the eBay shop provides an excellent 'stock clearance' opportunity for customers to snap up a bargain.

I have noticed it's against eBay policy to drive sales away from eBay, but when customers send me a private message I have been mentioning the RRP on my standard websites with a link... I wonder if that's allowed?

 

[chris.quinn89]

The business I was refering to selling 20 000+ items a month would net approx £1 after ebay paypal & postage but rent on premises & staff would also have to be deducted from that £1 which I over looked & to process that many orders you would need a good few staff & a large commercial property.

Still a good health profit but I shouldn't imagine it is easy as they receive an average of 150 negative feedbacks a month.

It's easy to make money on ebay if:

your the cheapest in the UK selling that product OR

your the only business selling the product in the UK.

If your not one of the above your wasting your time, people only shop on ebay for a bargain & every penny counts.

The difference is the businesses selling these items at £6.99 probably have other over heads such as rent & staff where as I don't the real question is when I am unable to store stock at home & process all orders myself will I still be able to offer such a low price? Probably not....

 

[KELKEL]

Many Thanks to you all for your feedback, I have now registered and listed my first items - only time will tell now.

I am quite fortunate that I have no main overheads at the moment working from home so I can keep the selling price slightly lower than my competitors - I have put my logo all on the site so hopefully it will get my name more known.



I have taken on board what many of you said so t only time will tell I suppose?xxx