Ebay stores

[Essex_boy]

Im thinking about opening an ebay store, could anyone that has one or had one please post as to what happened with it ?

I.e was it worth while, would you do it again and just what was teh reason you opened one for.

Just a little puzzled as to why I should do it.

[jwolthuis]

@directwheels, Is you advice New! in the original box!? lol

Watermarking also works well for us. We use an IIS HttpHandler (basically an add-in) to add watermarks on the fly.

We also look at the referrer, and if it's anyone we don't know (an image-stealer), we return a blank image.

[Greenbeetle]

We opened an ecommerce site 5 months ago and were forced almost immediately to eBay for lack of traffic. As others have said, this is really what you are paying eBay for with their outrageous fee structure - traffic, ie. marketing.

We have had several attempts at scams and even some schizonphrenic guy who harrassed us via email for a long time. No paypal scammers yet.

Selling low margin items is a complete waste of time on eBay. You will get killed. Someone out there has gotten their hands on 100 of (your low-margin widget) that fell off the back of a truck and is underselling the dealer cost ALL THE TIME. I agree with others, it is for high margin items with your website plastered all over the place to drive traffic to your site.

We sell knives where our profit is $1-$2 when priced competitively with other eBayers. How many knives would we have to sell a year to make a living after taxes and overhead? 500 knives a day 365 days a year?

Re: feedback. We have eaten one scoopfull of poo to keep it 100% and we are only at 120 sales. 50% of satisfied people do not leave feedback at all while 100% of unhappy people do. eBay has done nothing to address this. They should auto-positive feedback you if the buyer doesn't leave feedback within 30 days imho...Between "poo-scoop" losses and ebay fees we are making about 60% less profit than we would selling at our own site!

We ship everything delivery confirmation and charge the customer in shipping fees. On items over $100 we require a delivery signature. If your margin is high enough you can eat the cost of it, well worth it, - or pass it on to consumer.

In summary, eBay is a necessary, margin-devouring evil for now for us. We have tried eBid and Gunbroker but traffic is just not adequate. I will look into Bonanza.

[votrechien]

If you're selling massive appeal, brand name items, eBay probably isn't right for you. The competition is incredibly fierce. As others have mentioned, your overall cost is around 15% to eBay so that means you need margins well above this, which is unlikely in the case of name brand items.

If you sell niche items with little competition, eBay is a godsend. As others have mentioned, watermark everything, display your URL in your logo, etc.-it's free traffic. If you have a phone number you use for ordering, advertise that. A large portion of people who call with a question about the product will also ask "Can I buy through you or do I have to go through eBay?" and an even bigger portion will just call and say "I don't want to go through eBay- can I buy direct from you?".

Not to mention, when they do buy from you, you now have their mailing address and email address, which is great for marketing other products to them. It's the one huge advantage of eBay over Amazon- you're allowed to brand your company almost to no end.