You may be trying to decide how to go ahead with your dreams of an online product sales business. Many times a new product seller is torn between creating an eBay store and setting up a web store on your own domain. Because many sellers get their feet wet by offering a few products on eBay, it’s easy to move smoothly into an eBay store, but is it the right choice for your business?
Positioning is Everything
The first thing to remember is that there isn’t anything magical about setting up an eBay store. Some have the idea that an eBay store gets better exposure online than other options. This just isn’t true. An eBay store only gets as much attention as you stir up for it.
eBay users, the people who do find your store, tend to be looking to pay as little as possible for whatever they want. If you’re looking to make a good profit on your products, a traditional web store is usually a better choice. People who find your web store are more likely to be looking for a good product, not just a bargain.
Financially Speaking.
There are costs involved in creating a presence on the web. When you use a Basic eBay Store, you pay the monthly $15.95* plus any insertion and final value fees. With a Watersweb Shop Kit Plus, you get started with one time license fee and a flat rate of $10 per month. You own your shopping cart and never pay any additional insertion or final value fees on your sales.
Let’s Compare Costs For A New Shop Owner.
If you sell 10 products a month for a full year, each valued at about $25 through an eBay store. You would have sold over $3,000 and paid $417 in costs. With Shop Kit Plus, you’re costs would only be $205.00.
Another Comparison.
The difference in fees gets more noticeable as you grow more successful. If you sell 100 products a month for a full year, each valued at about $25 through an eBay store. You would have sold over $30,000 and paid $2,599 in costs. With Shop Kit Plus, you would still only have paid $205.00 in costs. The only time your costs would increase is if you needed additional storage space, server resources or bandwidth. And then your additional costs are still fixed – instead of growing with each additional sale.
It’s Smart Business
It is better to start now with the big picture in mind. Starting a website now means that all of your time spent in promoting your business will have long term value. As you spread the word, you share your domain name and people will remember it.
With some simple search engine optimization tactics you’ll soon start to receive good traffic from the big search engines. At Watersweb Shops, we include several resources to our new store owners for learning how to market your site, optimize for the search engines and target the people who are looking for your product.
You Can Still Use eBay
Once you have your store ready to go, if you want to reach the eBay crowd, list a few items and put a link to your website in your About Me page. This can be a great option for selling your clearance items – that won’t eat up your profits.
*Ebay pricing accurate as of September 12, 2006
About The Author
Michelle Waters helps Work At Home Moms take their home businesses ideas to reality with her ecommerce software and hosting services at http://www.ShopKitPlus.com. She offers support and business advice for her clients at http://www.waterswebshops.com.
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