sanmar
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posted on October 4, 2005 11:10:41 PM
I am thinking of starting an eBay store, but don't know much about it. What are the good & bad things about one? What is the cost & what does eBay take as a commission? I know there are many of you that have stores. You can really help me make a right decision.
Life Is Too Short To Drink Bad Wine
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rhpepsi
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posted on October 5, 2005 02:54:09 AM
Hi...I have two stores..one was from my original site and just opened a second one. Biggest advantage for myself is that it costs about 25 cents to list something for a year. They do charge 8% instead of the 5.25% of the final value fee. With the store you do not have to continuely relist items like you would with auctions, done automatically. You do lose the "bidding" wars, but if you have a large amount of one type item, list a few on auction, the rest at a price (buy it now) that you want to get for them in the store. That is just some items, feel free to e-mail me to talk more.
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NEGLUS
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posted on October 5, 2005 04:28:03 AM
Sanmar - the store subscrption price is $16.95/mo. You pay 2 cents/month per item and another 1 cent for gallery. Ebay takes 8% FVF.
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http://stores.ebay.com/Moody-Mommys-Marvelous-Postcards?refid=store
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bootclan
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posted on October 5, 2005 04:59:16 AM
One of the down sides to Ebay Stores is when a customer runs a "Search", the Store items will not show to the customer unless there is a small number of items {cannot remember what that number is} that will show to the customer, for that particular search. The thinking is - run a few auctions to drive people to your Store to find Store items.
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NEGLUS
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posted on October 5, 2005 06:09:44 AM
There are many ways of looking at an ebay store:
One way of looking at an ebay store (unless you sell quantities of the very same new items) is like leasing space at an antique mall. You have to make enough in sales to justify the lease - you do have to have enough inventory to make it worth while and to drive business to your store.
Inventory sitting on your shelf and not listed is not working for you - an ebay store is a good place to "park" inventory (unsold or not yet listed) until you are ready to list at auction (if ever). Since all items are fixed price "Buy It Now" you have to price at a price you would be happy selling at (perhaps higher than you would start at auction).
Unless you are selling very unique items that will come up in a search (store items show when less than 20 autions search results appear) you will have to run auctions and self promote to drive business to your store. You can't just open a store and hope that buyers will find you. You will have to have prominent links in your auctions to similar items in your store for best results.
Once you decide to open your store don't agonize over format and web design - just DO it and fine tune it later. Stores do not have to be "fancy" to work - do spend some time setting up your categories for easy navigation. Many store owners would be better served stocking their stores than spending hours and hours in store design. I remember one frequent poster on the ebay store boards had people crtitique his new store design every other day...but never put anything in there!! I don't think he ever reached 30 FB!! I think this went on for 8 months before he just disappeared!
The ebay store seller board is a very good resource - but you can get overwhelmed and waste a lot of time reading all the posts . My suggestion is to set up your store, stock it and THEN go there to see how to fine tune your store or have people critique and offer suggestions (People are very friendly and helpful and most use their REAL ebay id's) If you are having trouble figuring out how to set up the store, there are some links at the top of the board that are very helpful. If you are STILL having trouble you can post on the board and folks will walk you through the process.
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http://stores.ebay.com/Moody-Mommys-Marvelous-Postcards?refid=store
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sanmar
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posted on October 5, 2005 10:40:46 AM
I really appreciate all of the very good info. I have one more question, can you ise vendio's gallery option?
Life Is Too Short To Drink Bad Wine
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NEGLUS
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posted on October 5, 2005 10:43:15 AM
You can use the Vendio gallery in your item listings (those are made in Vendio - just select "store" format at the top). The Vendio gallery is an excellent way to get people to look at your other listings!
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http://stores.ebay.com/Moody-Mommys-Marvelous-Postcards?refid=store
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sanmar
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posted on October 5, 2005 03:27:15 PM
Well, I took the big step!! I listed 30 items to go on at 4:00PM Take a look at "The Chinabroker" & give me any siggestions that may help get started.
Life Is Too Short To Drink Bad Wine
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NEGLUS
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posted on October 5, 2005 03:32:49 PM
Congrats Sanmar! I don't think it matters much when you schedule your store listings to end/start (the GTC ones anyway as they just rollover the next month) - from what I've read, it may take awhile for all your listings to show when you first set up your store. Will take a look when you have listings
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http://stores.ebay.com/Moody-Mommys-Marvelous-Postcards?refid=store
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NEGLUS
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posted on October 5, 2005 03:42:59 PM
You didn't ask this but perhaps it will help since you are a fellow Vendio user.
You can relist your unsold items via Vendio in your store if you'd like.
1) Find your unsolds in PostSale->Unsold
2) Put checks by the ones you would like to move to your store.
3) Click on relist
4) when the bulk relister comes up you can edit each one..you will have to change the format to "ebay store", the price to "Fixed Price", indicate the term (I use GTC), check the gallery box and "save". When you are done editing, schedule or launch.
5) If you have a lot to move and don't like the hassle of having to scroll over to edit all the time you can schedule the batch unedited for a date a week in the future. Then go to "Pending" and "cancel" the launches. You can then edit your listings one by one and launch.
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http://stores.ebay.com/Moody-Mommys-Marvelous-Postcards?refid=store
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NEGLUS
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posted on October 5, 2005 04:33:14 PM
They show up but your Vendio gallery doesn't show the new items. I don't know how that gallery works so I can't help you there.
Some suggestions:
You need to set up store categories (or you can elect to use the ebay categories) on the left navigation bar. This will help your customers find their way to the items they are looking for.
Also, pay the penny for the ebay gallery - it really is money well spent and makes you store homepage look much better and make people want to "browse".
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http://stores.ebay.com/Moody-Mommys-Marvelous-Postcards?refid=store
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sanmar
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posted on October 6, 2005 10:55:04 AM
The Vendio Gallery is working today, just checked it.
Life Is Too Short To Drink Bad Wine
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sanmar
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posted on October 7, 2005 11:09:16 PM
OK, one of you says list for a year for 25 cents. I list & it comes up 2 cents for 30 days. What is the difference??
Life Is Too Short To Drink Bad Wine
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NEGLUS
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posted on October 8, 2005 05:35:06 AM
a PENNY!?? LOL 2 cents x 12 = 24 cents. The gallery costs a penny more/month.
Store listings - no matter how high $ or how many dutch auctions cost 2 cents for 30 days. Gallery cost another penny and subtitle 2 cents (I think).
THe FVF is 8.0%.
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http://stores.ebay.com/Moody-Mommys-Marvelous-Postcards?refid=store
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gottaluve
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posted on October 8, 2005 09:19:54 AM
Hi there,
Just my two cents. I think you really want to add the gallery photo for your store items. Auctions - no, but the items that will be park in your store - absolutely yes.
When a potential buyer wanders into your store and has to click on every listing to get a glimpse, I think they will be hitting the back button pretty fast. It's only a penny more for each listing/per month. Definitely worth it.
Good luck with your store!
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