How much sales should I get on my own website if I ditch ebay and make my own site?

[keepaskingqq]

lets say I make up a website and then list about 1000 items.. how much sales should I get?

[stanislav]

Probably zero. You need to optimize your website. Otherwise if SEO was that easy, every shmock on planet earth would have left ebay and amazon.

[lisa21801]

H,
I feel ya, I've been there done that.
I am not a real computer savvy person.
I am a people person, and I know eBay,inside and out.
The advice I give you,you may not like,but it's truthful.
If you are like me, and like simplicity, then I would stick with eBay.
Yes, their fees are up there.
But I cannot get it through my thick head,how to use the back door to list items,etc.
I've had at least 6 web sites set up for me, paid the llc fees, bought the domain names,etc.
Even bought advertising from google ad words.
It doesn't work for me.
You've gotta have a shopping cart,but most of all, you've got to get folks to your site.
Especially when they webcrawl,or yahoo search,or google search for your items.
Years ago,eBay used to sell keywords and you could bid on them.
I could get a key word like ink pen, or pen,
For like .35-.50 cents per hit,
I understood this.
And I made good money that way.
The website,.forgetta bout it,
Anyhow, those websites,I can't even remember all their names,they are all lost and gone.
I went back to what I know best.
Take the pictures outdoors,
Upload to eBay, and list,list ,list
I try to make a goal of 10 new pics a day,10 new listings per stealth acct per day.
Doesn't sound like alot,but it's realistic for me.
A goal that's obtainable.
Especial.when I run anywhere from. Low of 15 after January, to. Peak now of 28 accts.
That's 280 items per day, full set of photos per item,full descripts,etc.
Takes me 3-4 hrs per day,
I spend 2 hours min, answering customer emails,
I spend 3-4 hrs a day packaging,shipping.
I spend another 1-2 hrs/ day planning for the next day
So, all in all.
For me, a personal website is out.
For others,maybe it's the key to their financial freedom?
Whatever you do, good luck,
Lisa

[jeffweico]

Websites build over time. Newbies make the mistake of thinking they can list on their own websites and get the same sales as they do on eBay. That does not happen.

Building a website is a great idea. But you have to have realistic expectations. First, expect nothing within the first couple of months.

With each eBay or Amazon order, start including coupons or some other form of promotion for your new website. Optimize your site for the search engines. Try Google Adwords or other traffic generators to see what works for you.

My site takes in about $5k per month in gross sales. But that is after 3 years of promoting it and including coupons in thousands of eBay and Amazon orders each year.

Some people will go to your site, others will never leave the confines of eBay/Amazon. You just have to keep building and promoting your site and it will become successful over time. But you have to keep at it. Building a site and then leaving it alone after you get discouraged will do nothing for you. In the beginning, that is hard, because you might be spending $50 - $100 per month just to maintain the site. You see an expense with little return. So, many people just give up.

It is a good idea to keep going, as it would be much harder for anyone to shut you down, unlike at eBay and Amazon where an account can be closed at any time. It gives your business more stability. Sure, I still sell on eBay and Amazon and I have no plans to stop. But if they manage to shut me down altogether, at least I still have an income - a SMALL one at this point, but it grows a little each month.

[stanislav]

Excellent post!

[stanislav]

One more thing I would like to add. I don't know how true it is but in order for you to really see big difference in traffic and sales on your website you will need to invest between 2-5k a month on ad words. So investing only 100$ for advertising on ad words will do nothing. It's going to be a waste of your money.

[LoopHole]

Hey Jeffweico, whats your website. Ill be your customer

[stanislav]

Don't show them your website. They want to find out what you sell.

[jeffweico]

Originally Posted by stanislav

Don't show them your website. They want to find out what you sell.

Kinda defeats the whole purpose of STEALTH, as well...

[golden_monkey]

woooo, this will be a night and day glass of cold water in your face.
like was said above, you'll get zero sales.

if you one day want to have your own site making money on its own, start NOW, and get ready for lots of hard work.. and if you don't understand servers / tech and the internet.. you are biting off more then you can chew.

you'd also have to know how to run PPC campaigns and get them converting, shopping cart upsells... abandon rate, email follow up marketing, this is so NOT for the noobie i can't even explain it.

you aren't jumping into the deep in of the pool, you are jumping into the OCEAN.

[keepaskingqq]

if I want to run some PPC campaign should i wait until my website gets crawled first by google?

[golden_monkey]

no, and i wouldn't start out using goog adwords either.

they are the most expensive, and if they adwords bot doesn't like your site it will charge you MORE per click, then one day you account will go down due to low quality.

start with microsoft adcenter, you'll get on bing and yahoo.

watch it though... PPC can burn your bank up fast if you don't have converting products / site.

You think eb4y fees are bad? try paying more for traffic then you are making

[morningwood]

Use Ebay to gain traffic to your website. Make the items on your website a few bucks cheaper to entice the customers to purchase from there instead. Works for me. Good luck on your adventure.

[golden_monkey]

^ eb4y violation, if they catch you *BAM*

[css1]

Yeah, eBay doesn't like traffic leaks

[MM78]

That's what little notes in the packages are for, you don't flat out put your website on ebay messages or any where on ebay.

[golden_monkey]

until one of those eb4y buyers buys from you.