posted on August 11, 2010 07:08:22 PM new
This weekend I will be closing my eBay Store. It is the culmination of a year's work to shift my business from eBay to my own store. It is with excitement, not sadness that the closure will occur.
My business will no longer be an eBay business. It will now be an Internet business with select listings at eBay, BidStart, DelCampe and eBid. Only my full inventory will be sold at my webstore.
While eBay will always be a part of my business plan, it will never again, be the main part of my business.
I plan for an auction tab at my store, which will take a shopper to eBay auction items, which will not be sold at the main store.
There is a reason for this. Customers at eBay, should not be led to think that the listings at the eBay store, constitute a complete store. And, eBay will not be able to list my eBay auction items in a Google search, to draw buyers into eBay.
posted on August 15, 2010 07:15:17 PM new
I closed my Yahoo store this summer and lost many pictures I took through the years,I had this store for 10 years and I kept telling myself it is a nice store,and it gets sales and margin was good and all the customers were so nice except for the Nigerians and Indonesians.
Initially I paid 300 a month,then it was base plus so much per item,then it was back to base of 39.95 and 40,000 items.I used to get orders faxed to me,it will ring at night and I will get out of bed and run to the fax machine.
Then Yahoo fell out of bed with Google and bought Overture,Yahoo kept changing its store format and my shop became a legacy store and they kept forgetting how to apply new changes to fit legacy store,they will lie and said nothing happen.
Yeah,nothing happen because some pictures just disappear!How can you place order without seeing the merchandise first?
then they removed the fax feature from my plan,then they must have removed my shop from surface of the earth as my orders were few ,so I closed my merchant account to save money and accept paypal.
Finally I just decided it is time to try Ebay store and since March 14,I have sold 377 items.
What did I learn,I learn either way we have to pay,when I was paying Yahoo 300 a month,I was making decent money,when I was paying 39.95,I was making less and getting less orders,now that Ebay has made changes to its store vs auction,the new Ebay store is getting more visibility than old Ebay store.
So money does matter,you get what you pay for.
Oh,I should add Yahoo switched to cheap base plan of 39.95 for 40,000 items but we have to pay TO BE INCLUDED IN OVERTURE SEARCH ENGINE which just dont seem to work ! You deposit say 50 dollars and next day you look at your account,and 15 is gone and no order,then another $10 went out the window and then soon I have to deposit another 50 and so on and so forth and few orders come in.
Ebay store fee is cheap !
*
There is no 'Global savings glut',only wild horses and loose bankers.
[ edited by hwahwa on Aug 15, 2010 07:22 PM ]
posted on August 15, 2010 09:09:47 PM new
hwahwa. I am pleased that your store on eBay is doing so well. Those are impressive sales for such a short period. I bet that you will have a good selling season on eBay.
As to your advertising $$, perhaps you should try Google, as I find that their results are much better, than Yahoo.
I have found that on Yahoo my Christmas Seals were placed into competitive cost bidding with motor seals, door seals, and Navy Seals. I'm thankful that Seal World hasn't purchased keywords.
As to the closing of my store at eBay - this has been in the works for over a year. The past year has been devoted to my reaching the goal - no longer dependent upon eBay, or any other site to provide traffic to browse my inventory.
Now, I have a store with no listing fees, no FVFs, and best of all, my business is free from the ever changing policies determined by a third party that is trying to survive.
As I mentioned before, it is with excitement, not sadness that the closure occurred.
posted on August 16, 2010 05:07:56 AM new
I should say I never spend a lot of money on advertising and a basic fee of 39.95 fetch me the results commensurate with what I paid.Few orders,few traffic!
I tried Google by launching my store inventory to Google ,then Google removed that feature or added some twists to it as some folks were launching merchandise which they dont have or belonged to someone else!
I am not savvy enough to figure all the new changes of Google,or even Yahoo,if you think Ebay is bad,Google and Yahoo are worse,they assume every one is a Geek!
Some of you complain Ebay is terrible when it comes to customer service,but at least they speak street English,not HTML.
Unlike Ebay where most of its revenue come from providing a sales venue to third party,Google and Yahoo have other fish to fry,Yahoo shopping is not a major profit center ,neither is Google shopping and you can tell from the level of customer service they provide to merchants.
*
There is no 'Global savings glut',only wild horses and loose bankers.
posted on August 16, 2010 05:25:12 AM new
Someone here once posted an article quoting an ex Ebay seller who is a professional antique dealer and he wants Ebay to separate auction and store.
I think it makes sense,most businesses start out on the low end of the business spectrum and after achieving a certain degree of success,will cede the low end to someone else and go after the higher end market where the margins are better,you sell less but you make more with less hassles!
Putting every one in the same mix bowl is not doing anyone a favor,the one who takes lousy picture with bad description selling say stolen cable modem from cable companies are hurting the professional retailers who buy from factories or wholesalers,professional retailers have fixed expenses and they cannot just list an item at 99 cents and hope for the best!
The one who sells from home and start their auctions at 99 cents do not want to pay the Paypal fee,chargeback fee and DC and signature confirmation and eat the loss if they dont insure the package,the guy makes sense,let the professional full time sellers compete against each other and let the 'weekend warriors' compete with the other weekend warriors,separate the two groups of sellers,let them each have their own playground!
*
There is no 'Global savings glut',only wild horses and loose bankers.
posted on August 16, 2010 11:28:15 AM new
I closed my ebay store down after they made the last round of changes. I had an ebay store since the beginnings of ebay stores. It didn't make sense to continue with the new price structure, so I changed things around. While I still do a decent business on ebay, I feel less affected now by the continual changes. Good luck with branching out on your own, hope it works out well for you.
posted on August 17, 2010 12:46:36 PM new
Wish you the best Bill. One thing many buyers don't understand or appreciate is all of the extra work vintage/unique collectibles dealers go through to offer items.
Where a typical retailer can go online and place an order and have their stock shipped to their door, we have to find these items, in my case often clean items/prep items, photograph each individual item (instead of using a stock photo for the same thing over and over again).
