The Wholesale Forums

[GLS Games]

(This is my question posted on another forum if you are wondering)

Hi,

Just wondered, out of you that do own online stores, what would you say the pros/ cons were?

Obviously its down to how well your site is maintained but is anyone making healthy profits which outweigh sales/profit on Ebay?

Is it repeat buyers or new customers mainly?

Was it easy to setup, and when did you decide to set it up?

Regards,

Shaun

[double_d77]

easy to set up and run
hard part is getting the rankings in SE's , time is needed for this

Sales and profit compared to eBay are alot better than eBay! alot better

Dave

[Pete]

No comparison with eBay. eBay is a constant CHORE. Online stores may need a tweak once a week or month, but pretty much mind themselves.

And the buyers don't treat you like they are royalty and you are a pile in the road. You run your business your way, not eBay's.

I don't mean you can screw with your customers, but as a group they tend to be real folks, not people looking to buy everything for 88 cents and then complain about it.

As I said, no comparison.

[YNWA]

I had one made a bit of money and then sold it for £600. I found it to hard to get customers, most use eBay as to put it simply its cheap and people think there protected.

[Saajan]

I agree. When shopping online most people prefer eBay than online shops.

[MustHaveMobiles]

I have a number of online stores and operate several Ebay accounts, the Ebay accounts are used to support/push traffic to my main sites. My online stores are obviously more profitable as I control the overheads however I operate in a couple of niche sectors on Ebay that would make less if I ran them through a store of my own so it really is market dependable.

[adam2007]

eBay is a good core to start with, but if you have alot of products which you know wont sell... it could be a good idea and alot cheaper to have your own website.

I advice all my clients to spend a little money on PCC and also watermark all there ebay images with there website url, i also get all my clients products featured on froogle etc..

[MustHaveMobiles]

Originally Posted by adam2007

eBay is a good core to start with, but if you have alot of products which you know wont sell... it could be a good idea and alot cheaper to have your own website.

I advice all my clients to spend a little money on PCC and also watermark all there ebay images with there website url, i also get all my clients products featured on froogle etc..

If it wont sell on Ebay then it wont sell anywhere tbh...

Whats PCC by the way or am I being thick?

[tom456]

I have an online store and it has proved to be very hard to generate sales, I think this could be due to the nature of the products I sell and the competition from larger companies. eBay is better if you want to sell your stock fast and can settle for smaller profits. Or if you want to make slightly larger products but are in no rush to sell the stock a website may be OK. I usually get around two sales a month, so not very fast. I rely on the traffic from forums as I stopped PPC as it was just so expensive.

Originally Posted by MustHaveMobiles

... Whats PCC by the way or am I being thick?

PCC - A method of studying chromosomes in the interphase stage of the cell cycle.
Source - http://www.genomecanada.ca/GCglossai...sp?alpha=p&l=e

I think he meant 'PPC'... Don't think you were being thick MHM.

[adam2007]

Yes sorry !!!!

What i meant was.... some sellers might have over 1000 items which they dont wish to list on ebay at the same time, so a website would be a good way in which they could display there entire range.

and yes i also meant PPC - pay per click advertiseing