Ebay shop, is it worth it?

baron777red

hi im thinking of starting an E-bay shop, but would like a bit of advise from people who have one

i sell things through turbo lister at the moment, and generate aabout 1k of sales per month, so im looking at way to reduce my ebay fees

basically the FVF ebay charge is about 9% of the sale price, does anyone know, if i start a shop do ebay charge a fixed fee no matter how much you sell

ive seen that the shop costs £6 per month, but is the FVF less than 9% if it it might be worth it

i would also welcome any offers on cheaper alternative methods of payments that are acceptable to ebay, as i use paypal for everything at the moment.

thanks

colin

RFW

baron777red wrote: »

basically the FVF ebay charge is about 9% of the sale price, does anyone know, if i start a shop do ebay charge a fixed fee no matter how much you sell

ive seen that the shop costs £6 per month, but is the FVF less than 9% if it it might be worth it

FVF on shop listings are higher, start at 10% for £4.99 or below and there's a sliding scale, insertion fees with shop listings are cheaper and longer but visibility is not as good.
Details of fees for shops here

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/sell/storefees.html

Brooke_Daver

baron777red wrote: »

hi im thinking of starting an E-bay shop, but would like a bit of advise from people who have one

Ebay shops are a waste of time now, open you own online shop an have a link to it on your about me page.

goldspanners

Brooke_Daver wrote: »

Ebay shops are a waste of time now, open you own online shop an have a link to it on your about me page.

my sales increased after opening a shop on ebay.not tremendously but enough to more than cover the £6.00.

TKPeters

More coverage on Google with an eBay Shop & buyer can view your item categories easier than searching through pages & pages of items.

All 4 of our main selling ID's have eBay Shops & all our products are on Google Products which increases on sales as you can view where your buyers are coming from with Traffic Reports.

StaffsSW

Stores a great place to "park" unsold items between auctions - this keeps them available for sale at minimal cost, although a little work is required to get traffic to them - enough other topics cover that one - but you need to weigh up the monthly subscription against the cost of listing as auctions. 30 day on auctions with gallery costs about in Insertion Fees, but only 6p in Stores. Shops do not receive the same exposure in earches, but the key is to include links in all of your auctions or BIN's to products in your shop, and use the shop categories wisely.

Depending on starting price an gallery, but generally 30-40 continual shop listings breaks even against the cost of standard listings, but if you regularly rotate listings between Shops and regular listings and ensure all listings are well linked, you will get a fair few sales from the shop.

It is also very easy to submit shop listings to Google, and I personally find this very effective way of getting traffic - one of my products is niche so no discernable competition, and my other main product is at a price point that is competitive with big retailers due to my purchasing strategy.

There are other advantages to having a shop, such as access to Selling Manager to stremaline the sales process for you, custom pages to enhance your online presence, listing & HTML designers, mass email facilities, traffic reports and accounting assistance. IMO, these extra features alone are worth the price of a basic subscripton, especially if you want to move from hobby seller to second or main income seller.

I was a bit sceptical to start with, but the first 30 days are free, and includes the sales & traffic reports, as well as a month of using Selling Manager.

With regards fees, it is worth promoting the fact that you could accept Bank Transfers - http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/Payment-by-Direct-Bank-Transfer_W0QQugidZ10000000002794069 is a great introduction to this method of payment.

If you are having more than £1500 (inc postage) go through your paypal account per month, it is worth applying for better merchant rates. 20p + 2.9% instead of 20p + 3.4%.

Login to Paypal > Select Merchant Services from top menu > Select Transaction Fees from the left hand box titled Resources > Under the table of rates is a section marked "How is Eligibility for Merchant Rates determined?"; click the link to check the "Merchant Rate Criteria" > At the bottom of the page is a link to Apply Now.

You enter your details in the form and click submit. You will either be told you are accepted or declined.

gingababe

stevew8975 wrote: »

Stores a great place to "park" unsold items between auctions - this keeps them available for sale at minimal cost, although a little work is required to get traffic to them - enough other topics cover that one - but you need to weigh up the monthly subscription against the cost of listing as auctions. 30 day on auctions with gallery costs about in Insertion Fees, but only 6p in Stores. Shops do not receive the same exposure in earches, but the key is to include links in all of your auctions or BIN's to products in your shop, and use the shop categories wisely.

Depending on starting price an gallery, but generally 30-40 continual shop listings breaks even against the cost of standard listings, but if you regularly rotate listings between Shops and regular listings and ensure all listings are well linked, you will get a fair few sales from the shop.

It is also very easy to submit shop listings to Google, and I personally find this very effective way of getting traffic - one of my products is niche so no discernable competition, and my other main product is at a price point that is competitive with big retailers due to my purchasing strategy.

There are other advantages to having a shop, such as access to Selling Manager to stremaline the sales process for you, custom pages to enhance your online presence, listing & HTML designers, mass email facilities, traffic reports and accounting assistance. IMO, these extra features alone are worth the price of a basic subscripton, especially if you want to move from hobby seller to second or main income seller.

I was a bit sceptical to start with, but the first 30 days are free, and includes the sales & traffic reports, as well as a month of using Selling Manager.

With regards fees, it is worth promoting the fact that you could accept Bank Transfers - http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/Payment-by-Direct-Bank-Transfer_W0QQugidZ10000000002794069 is a great introduction to this method of payment.

If you are having more than £1500 (inc postage) go through your paypal account per month, it is worth applying for better merchant rates. 20p + 2.9% instead of 20p + 3.4%.

Login to Paypal > Select Merchant Services from top menu > Select Transaction Fees from the left hand box titled Resources > Under the table of rates is a section marked "How is Eligibility for Merchant Rates determined?"; click the link to check the "Merchant Rate Criteria" > At the bottom of the page is a link to Apply Now.

You enter your details in the form and click submit. You will either be told you are accepted or declined.

Wow thanks for that, I am thinking about opening an ebay shop & was about to post a question when I fell across this thread.

Thanks
Ginga

FloFlo

Its the reduced visibility on ebay that worries me.

StaffsSW

FloFlo wrote: »

Its the reduced visibility on ebay that worries me.

I can't deny that's an issue, but for the listing fees, you get what you pay for. The challenge is, like any shop, to get the vistors to it in the first place. The obvious way is to ensure there are plenty of links in the normal auctions and BIN's that act as a signpost to other items in the shop. Also using the Listing display frames and fully utilising the customer categories helps drive vistors to other related items.

Perhaps the best-kept secret on shops is utilising Search Engine Optimisation methods and promoting the shop listings through GoogleBase Store Connector- with nothing more that a bit of keyword analysis and clear description writing, I avearge 750 visits per month from Google search referrals. With Guest Buying now active on parts of eBay, this is a free and easy way to boost Shop Format sales.

FloFlo

Sorry to be dense I understand what the google store connector does but how much work is it? do you have to upload individual listings?

Also would I lose my feedback so far if I opened an ebay shop?

StaffsSW

The Store Connector simply reads your shop format listings directly, and converts them into a format that Google Products understands. It does not work with auctions or BIN's though.

Opening a shop is simply adding a few extra features to your existing ID - your details remain exactly as they are, but you have the shop name and logo next to your user name, and you have a lot more flexibility in creating your listings and "branding" yourself.

The £6.00 per month is IMO a small price to pay for the extra functionality and reporting that opening a shop offers - remember it is not just 30 day availability from 3p per listing, but also traffic reports, sales reports, email marketing, html link builders, and the Selling Manager programme is included as well.

For the pure economics of listing purposes, look at how much it would cost to list an item continually for 30 days on a BIN, and compare to the same cost in shop format - at least 45p for the BIN, but 3p for the SIF - 14 listings and it's break even point, allowing for the slightly higher FVF's on 99p listings the breakeven is 25 items per month.

Providing you have enough linkage and signposts going on, a 3:1 ratio for shop to auction format is generaly adequate enough to balance costs and exposure, so if you are working on 100 listings per month you really should consider a shop option.

The first 30 days is free as well, so there really nothing to lose in trying.