Hi

I've read through alot of posts and the general consensus seems to be running a website along side your eBay business. If you sell specific brands and popular products I guess it is easier to get hits on your website. If you are selling generic and niche products I would think its quite difficult to get any traffic on your website. Aside from the above I have a few questions.

1. For those of you that use eBay for selling and have a separate website how do sales compare on each respective platform ?.

2. How do you market your website products ?.

3. Would creating your own brand being a step in the right direction when selling on your website ?.

Thanks,
Marcus

As i know , some people use ebay to improve the selling on their own website . they sell on both side . i think it may be a good choice for some seller .

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1. eBay mostly for lead generation, even "loss leaders" - website, for pure, long term profit!

2. You mean traffic wise? SEO, PPC, CPC, YouTube, eBay.

3. Yes!

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Looking for Products to Sell on eBay? (53k+ and counting)

Starting up an ecommerce site alongside Ebay is the right thing to do long term but it won't compare with Ebay for sales initially or even ever. Everyone likes to moan about Ebay but they do a fantastic job of getting customers to buy your product.

Your long term goal should be to try to get your customers to use your online shop instead of Ebay which can be achieved by including a leaflet with every order plugging your online shop. You should also offer loyalty discount codes to encourage shoppers to use your online shop instead.

Longterm, this is the way to go but don't expect instant results unless you plough money into your own marketing. Think of the Ebay costs as your marketing costs.

I hope this helps

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Long term search engine optimisation and providing good content for your web site visitors is the best way to get free traffic to your web site and build your buisness. Once you have out the hard work in it is there for the long term and will pay for years to come.

Include discount vouchers for your site in with your ebay shipments and email responses. You can end up with ebay being a sideline if you work it properly.

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Thanks for all the helpful replies. A website seems like the future once you established a decent eBay reputation. I guess it'll work even better if the items you sell are consumables.

well considering near all the films and tv progs around, from the uk to america and beyond advertise ebay, so thats how they are winning, if other sites were mentioned then ebay would have a fight on their hands.

and id only just realised this after watching repeats of the friends series about 5 years ago, the amount of times they mentioned the site was mental, plus you get quite a few early morning after noon tv slots where they will joke and say "well thatll go on ebay"

so i bet you durign this time you wont hear of the others.

so in effect this is all free advertising and thats how ebay are winning. in the reaching out part to brain wash the consumers so to speak.

Or maybe eBay has just become a household name and synonym for an auction websites? Haven't you thought about that?

It's not a brain wash, it's called successful business idea.

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Looking for Products to Sell on eBay? (53k+ and counting)