eBay vs. ecommerce

[loveiswar12]

I'm stuck between deciding whether to focus my efforts on eBay or starting an ecommerce store.


With the new fees and non-existent support for sellers on eBay, I find it very discouraging. Not to mention that I would be putting my financial future in someone else's hands, and paying them a share of my profits for every sale.

On the other hand, I heard starting an online store is also relatively difficult. I'd have to learn about SEO, build a site, drive traffic, etc. I also heard it takes a long time to bring in profits.


If anyone has experience with either method or both, please let me know your experiences. Any advice is genuinely appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[195471]

I've never had an ebay store -- I've only used it to sell stuff that I wanted to get rid of, but even that is becoming a pain due to the high fees, including shipping costs.

I've never had my own e-commerce site, but I've worked as an in-house developer for a company that sells products online. Yes, it's difficult to build and maintain. There's a LOT that you need to deal with, especially if you're a reseller of other companies' products.

Having said all that, ebay is a good starting point, and if you do things right, you can use ebay as a way to build a customer base for any e-commerce store that you want to set up in the future. What some ebayers do is come up with a way to get people on a mailing list (i.e., autoresponder list) that doesn't violate ebay's rules. This might be something like including a note in the package offering them a free gift for being a valued customer. You can put a web address for them to go to in order to sign up. Once you have people on your own private list, you can do business with them outside of ebay. (I don't know if what I just said is actually allowed by ebay, so do your due diligence -- it was simply an idea to get you thinking.)

So that's one way to get started with ebay and build it into something bigger. There's also Amazon. It's a lot easier to sell on Amazon because you don't have to create elaborate listings or take photos of your items. There's a book by Steve Lindhorst called Selling on the River that you might want to check out. It's about how to be an Amazon seller (not an affiliate), and it's geared toward people who have experience selling on ebay and want to make the switch. I've personally sold items on Amazon, and it's been a great experience.

 

[fnd80]

is this even a question? your own ecommerce store is an infinitely better idea.

 

[ying-yang]

 

[eBayMafia]

Starting up an eCommerce store isn't difficult, it's more simple now than ever. I have a site that sells 30 of one specific items a day, on eBay I sell 2 a day. The difference is that eBay is for people that can only run a business at a flea market, and an eCommerce store is for those that are capable of running a modern day business store front.

At the end of the day, it's all about building a brand. On eBay, you can't... when someone says to your customers "oh, where did you buy that from?" - you think they are going to say bobsgolf2901 on eBay, or "bobsgolf dot com" ?

 

[loveiswar12]

195471: Thanks for the great input. I've thought about including business cards with orders and using EB as a starting platform. I'll definitely check out the book you recommended.


eBayMafia: Thanks for the tip. What makes for 15-fold difference in sales between your e-store and EB listing?


Submission restrictions for noobs on this forum are a pain...

 

[wholesalereplica]

do both hand in hand to start with, as above build your list and lock them in with deals to start

Also once you have them locked in , mail them offers that incentivise them to recommend to friends and family, word of mouth is the best recommendation

One happy customer can mean 10 more customers

Once you have a solid base dump ebay as fast as you can

good luck

 

[wholesalereplica]

 

[loveiswar12]

just looked at the site and no mention of the pound fee, says everything is free to list and no sellers fee

as an aside , to get any traffic to the site will be nearly impossible

ebid, spent around 3 million last year and still has hardly any buyers on the site

good luck

Damn, that's hardcore. It makes me wonder how the hell I'm gonna get traffic. Better start diving into SEO...

 

[eBayMafia]

195471: Thanks for the great input. I've thought about including business cards with orders and using EB as a starting platform. I'll definitely check out the book you recommended.


eBayMafia: Thanks for the tip. What makes for 15-fold difference in sales between your e-store and EB listing?


Submission restrictions for noobs on this forum are a pain...

I charge more on my eCommerce site, even when Google compares my prices to Buy.com, Amazon, and eBay and I still sell consistently. With eBay, in the $1 - $10 price range fees are about 15% if you have average volume which is constricting because this price range is the most competitive on eBay because you are going head to head with Chinese sellers. So, I increase my prices on my eCommerce site for most items, and instead of paying out 5% to 15% in fee's, I put that towards my monthly advertising/marketing budget. When I'm bringing in the new trendy items from China that are just getting a bit of publicity in the U.S. and people search on Google for it, I usually stand a chance of making a couple hundred increased profit sales from just 1 item within a week or two. On eBay, theres probably already people from China competing for the lowest price.

eBay sucks for SEO, and Google isn't a big fan of eBay listings because it takes a long time to rank for a term and then by the time its near the 1-6 spot on the first page, you are out of inventory, and its no longer profitable.

With eBay, you can start listing stuff right away (well, sort of, now a new account cant just list 20 items right from the start) and start making some type of income. With an eCommerce, you'll probably need some kind of investment in setting up a shopping cart on your site, getting some kind of theme, etc but in the long run, it's better and more smooth. I've never woke up and had my site taken down because I listed some item that I never even heard of that turned out to be a VeRO item. Plus, I like returning customers and doing the marketing side of things that you just can't really do with eBay.

eBay is not meant to be a sole source of business, instead use it as an extension of your business. I do it to get more contacts and get my sites name and products out there.

 

[loveiswar12]

eBayMafia:

Thanks for the info!

How long did it take you to establish a consistent sale stream from your eCommerce site?

Do you actually have all the product you sell on your website in possession, or do you dropship?

 

[IAmAbomination]

I personally utilize every single platform i possibly can.

The more eyes that see my product the more money i make. Sure, ebay takes a cut, and then so does PayPal, but i don't list products to lose money.. For instance, i sell 5-10 of one item on my ecommerce site daily. On eBay i sell three, on Amazon i sell two. I make more money on my website and Amazon, but i still won't turn away the eBay sales to increase my volume. Even if i make a buck on the product after all of my costs in acquiring and shipping the item and fees, i'm perfectly fine with it. Those $3 are an extra $1095 a year in my pocket, and another 1095 units i sell a year.

 

[oguen]

well if you are working 200 hours extra for all these 1000 $ you might question it

 

[loveiswar12]

IAmAbomination:

I see what you mean, thanks. At first I was thinking why sell elsewhere, but extra exposure is only a good thing, along with extra sales. The question is if minimal sales for a small margin is worth it. I guess it depends on what else you could be doing with that time instead, as oguen said.

 

[anatho]

Of course you can save eBay fees with your own website, however, the problem is to drive the traffic to your site that eBay already has.
If I list an item on eBay, within very little time I see there are many viewers of the auction. If I offer the same product on my own site, I will be the one to drive TARGETED traffic to it .... and that is the one point I did not have success with up to now ...

 

[loveiswar12]

Of course you can save eBay fees with your own website, however, the problem is to drive the traffic to your site that eBay already has.
If I list an item on eBay, within very little time I see there are many viewers of the auction. If I offer the same product on my own site, I will be the one to drive TARGETED traffic to it .... and that is the one point I did not have success with up to now ...

How long have you had your site?

 

[jheyslow]

Ecommerce is the way to go.Whats the reason of learning seo here. But I suggest don't leave ebay and amazon unless you already successful in your site.

 

[Xavier19]

ebay policies suck for sellers, but success on ecommerce is much more difficult just because of the lack in tarrffik

 

[Xavier19]

*traffic

 

[phluid]

I would do both but with a business plan geared towards putting your main resources into ecommerce. Ebay/PayPal sucks plus they are getting worse and worse for sellers. I waste so much time dealing with them and their crap it is pathetic, whatever happens the buyer will be right.