Which is better, personal online store vs eBay store?

ausware

Have been pondering about, whether or not i should waste time developing my own store (oscommerce) or just simply get an eBay store, upload my products and be done with it.

My site is about 50% complete, but there is too much mucking around with add ins etc .

What do you guys think of eBay stores, they worth it?

Do you get a lot more traffic?

grace-salehoo

To give you a short answer, I think eBay stores are better in the short-term, but having your own store is much better in the long term.

Having an eBay Store is like renting a house: It's much easier to begin with and you can essentially just walk in and start getting sales right away. If you haven't already, check out this blog post on eBay store benefits: Link hidden: Login to view

At the end of the day however, eBay has all the power, and you can only do well while eBay is also treating you well.

Having your own ecommerce store on your own domain name is like buying a house that needs renovating: Much more work in the short-term, but you are building an asset. An over time the value grows and you can even resell it for a profit eventually.

Hope that helps!

ausware

i will start off with an ebay store and promote the business via ebay with the traffic i generate.

then once my store is ready i will get my customers going to the actual store on my own domain.

its about 75% complete (own domain)

crazieprofits

Hi,

Eric here, new to salehoo. Good to be here as well. Thought i would mention my experience with ebay stores to online stores. I use to sell on ebay for quite awhile while i was working on my online store.

It worked quite well in generating traffic to my store when i opened it. Right now i am renovationg my online store and dont use ebay at all now. It takes some work, however the best thing about owning your own store is the minimal fee's (only the hosting fees mainly) and no listing or fv fees. Its well worth it, just remember its allot of work, depending on what products you sell.

My old store use to hold just over 600 products. In the middle of renovations with it and have just placed only 300 items so far. I am lucky thou that most my customers keep in contact via email for updates and such for products and purchases while my site is worked on. I also own my own auction site they can purchase from.

Keep with it, it can get fustrating to get it all working together but it pays off.

Best of luck

Eric Bailey

fudjj

Nice one CP,

The "is it really worth the effort in developing mu own site" is one of the most popular questions I get to see, and it's always nice to hear from those that have taken that route.

Grace covered it quite well, eBay is a great way to get selling online. It's fast, simple and delivers you instant traffic. The long term goal of any online retailer should be to develop their own platform to sell from.

As you know, it is more work and certainly more expense in the short term, but the gains can even out quite quickly. It's all about traffic at the end of the day. Even though I always develop my own sites to sell from, I always keep a profile on eBay to ensure I am making the most of the extra traffic it produces ....... save me having to look to hard for it : )

Drop a link for everyone to check out your site when you're ready, may well give some others in the process, or considering the process of developing their own site some great ideas.

Cheers

crazieprofits

Hi fudjj,

I am hopeing to have the site nearly full and back up in running in hte next week. It is however something a little different than most of the usually online sites. I thought i would try a different route and try be a little different than most sites you see.

Traffic for me sint high as most of my business is face to face or via email with m ost of my customers. But when its up and running i will post a link for everyone to see and comment about.

Ebay for me was good made quite a bit, good relationships with my customers and then took them with me after i quit there. It all comes down to customer relations and response times. If you are good at that then your customers will follow. I am just lucky over the years i have come to know allot of my customers via email and phone all over the world and they mention me to their friends. I am quite open which is good for business.

Just remember everything takes time. Work hard and play fair at start and then everything will work out eventually.

Cheers

Eric

shoessupplier

In my opinion, personal online store is much better than ebay store if you can get a lot of traffic.

I suggest you create a personal online store if you are good at advertising and getting traffic, or you can create a ebay store.

erika-garnica

My suggestion is that you have both an eBay store and your own webstore. As you said, the eBay store can help you drive traffic to your webstore, but beyond that, it can be a viable sales channel in its own right.

There's a huge segment of online buyers who only go to eBay to buy things, and a huge segment of buyers who only go to Google or other search engines, or directly to retail websites. You'll have a much greater chance of establishing a thriving, successful business if you maintain multiple sales channels.

Erika G.

Theauctionguru

ausware

well i eventually looked at it, and the fees are too high for me....

not worth it for the area i am selling in..

will stick to my online store, which is now ready...

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