Forum

Ebay vs own websites
 

With the new ebay rules and the fact that with just a single bad run of cases you can get kicked, I'm thinking if I should start all over or just invest the time and money in my own websites. I've spent $35k in ebay fees the last 12 months. I'm not counting the refunds I've made to avoid negative feedback. If I invest that 35k in my own webstore and then spend it for advertising, maybe I'll be better off. What do you guys think.

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

I have been preaching that for years now.. use eBay and Amazon but always have backup plan (your own website). Personally I started with my own eCommerce website and used eBay to expand our sales. If I had relied on eBay completely.. I would have been screwed.

I talk about creating your own website with SixFigureBoss.com

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

I already have around 15 webshops generating pretty good income. I'll just give that money for seo and adwords. I've always been wondering how many people actually go to ebay and search for something and how many google it and stumble on the ebay ads there.

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

Good stuff! Personally I'm an Amazon fan before eBay (I rarely buy on eBay). I'll go to Amazon first before Amazon simply because it's convenient. That said PPC and SEO ranking for your product keywords bring in the sales..

For me.. Google > Amazon > eBay in regards to the sales that can be brought in.

Of course what you sell is a huge factor. The thing about eBay and Amazon is it's easy. Anyone can use these marketplaces easily. As for Google (general search engine traffic) and you own website takes a little more brain power. That means less competition :)

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

I set up my own website a year or so ago now, it's doing okay, nothing special, but I don't pay for Adwords, I've not fully completed the SEO for each item, but it still sits there and gradually gets busier. I'm not lazy by the way, just too busy.

As for how many hits you get on eBay from inside eBay Vs. Google, you can look at your sales reports and it will tell you, not sure how accurate it is.

My eBay
Account
Marketing Tools
Traffic Reports

This brings up your Omniture reports and will show you various information about where traffic to your eBay shop came from.

Can anyone give a brief summary of 6 figure boss? Will it help me sort out my SEO on the website?

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

SEO is well covered in the guide. Along with PPC, Email Marketing, Product creation, etc.

SixFigureBoss: Create Your Own Online Business! (reviews from the forum are on this page)

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

Very well said. I sell auto parts. Ebay is really easy, but now I realize what everyone saying "don't put all eggs in this one basket" meant. Plus, with auto parts, and I guess everything else consumer-based, the real aim is repeat customers. In my case, that's repair shops and similar venues. It's priceless if you can get such people to shop through your own website. And worthless if you do it through ebay. I

I've never spent a dime on ebay. I do all my shopping on amazon - far better, easier, and not so many chinese sellers selling ****.

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

Not accurate at all because ebay doesn't advertise your auction, but rather their best match page for a given item so the person is first taken to ebay, and then to your page, and you see ebay.xx as a referral.

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

Good experience there - you can avoid PP having control on your funds too with your own website (avoid using PP)

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

Correct, however, I would say it is a good idea in the initial stages to offer PayPal as possibly an alternative, to gain buyers trust on a newly launched site. Lots of buyers feel more protected paying via PP....stripe (UK users) in addition to PayPal should work well as a CC processor.

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

IMO paypal is a must, there are people that prefer using it, but is mainly use skill, not bad at all, I have a very nice account manager which solves all kinds if issues for me and it's British so trustworthy enough. And of course no stupid inr and snad cases and money holds. Nochex is also an option. Directly taking cc info via a merchant acct is a no for me because the added cost of certificates, PCI compliance and the chance of hacker attacks are things I just don't want to deal with. I'm even thinking about adding bit coin and other alternative payment methods, doesn't cost anything but any extra sales brought by them are welcome

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

There are services that accept PP payment without you having to have your own pp...

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

Tried one called Icepay. The point where it gets messy is when you get a dispute or claim because you don't have direct access and you have to go through a very lazy ticketing system and in most cases you end up losing your money.

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

Has anyone here used shopify.com to create their own site? If so how's the sales.

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

I have PayPal, Skrill and my own Barclays Merchant account on my website.

95% use PayPal
4.5% Use Barclays
0.5% Use Skrill

If I'd have know that I wouldn't have bothered with the Merchant Account, but I guess it's always handy to have there ready if I need it.

I've not used shopify before sorry.

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

Most people will want to pay by PayPal. It's just easy for them because no credit card details entered and it's something that they understand and use easily. However.. I find if your check-out page is CLEAN and secure they will use credit card options such as Authorize.Net as well. Just most prefer PayPal. It's how it is. :)

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

Can I know what are these services please?

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

2checkout is good

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

CCNow works with a 5% loss

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

ebay is good marketplace for over the world with ready seller and buyer.
your site to promote internet then get buyer.

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

How does one start to get sales on their own website? Personally I wouldn't buy from a website that was launched just a month ago with no track record whatsoever. Seems really hard to get a website started up

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

You start a website the same way you start a zero feedback EBay account....eventually someone will take a chance and buy from your site. It's all about patience, advertising, getting people to your site.

A lot people advertise their website via EBay by adding some type of advertising in the package they ship out.

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

The only problem with that is the FEES. They can be VERY EXPENSIVE. Not a big deal if you have great profit margins, but really bad if your profit margins are just average.

Personally, I would only use one of these services like 2CO if I had no other choice. If it comes down to it, a little profit is better than no profit.

But I have no had a problem creating PayPal accounts to accept website payments. Of course I use them for eBay first and then start adding the website payments. An I always sell related items on both eBay and the website.

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

It definitely takes time, money and PATIENCE! The first six months, I had almost NO sales on my website. But I enclose a coupon and a flyer with each of my eBay and Amazon orders. Technically it is against their rules, but I have not had much of a problem doing this. It got reported to Amazon ONCE and I apologized, telling them I didn't know it was against the rules and I promised not to do it again. My account was OK.

I really didn't do very much with SEO as I got BADLY BURNED on my first website and it was banned by Google.

But now, it is about 5 years old and my sales range between $5k and $6k per month (GROSS, NOT PROFIT!) so it CAN be very worthwhile.

I also started using Adwords, thanks to Six Figure Boss. I found out I was originally using Adwords ineffectively, so it was costing me a fortune and providing no results. Now that I know how to PROPERLY use Adwords, it is profitable for me.

I highly recommend ALL of Aspkin's guides. Each one I bought paid for itself VERY quickly!

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

I am very surprise to read this. I actually started a thread few month ago
asking if Amazon allows business cards in packages I send. Most,
if not all replies from users here were - yes. I then called Amazon CS,
and after he checked with I guess his supervisor, he came back and said
it is OK to include flyers, bc, or other promotional in packages.
I know many reps in both Amazon and eBay, don't know what they are
doing, and I really don't want to lose my Amazon account over this issue.
I hope there is someone here who can give me a definite answer. Thanks!

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

At the end of the day the biggest argument in favor of running your own site is that you own your customers, not eBay or Amazon.

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

I have my own website and I've got about two sales so far (Started about 9 days ago). One from a random google searcher, and another from my mailing list. (Just started a weekly giveaway and am getting people on my mailing list that way. Trying to figure out how to make it viral/exponential, but it seems to be fairly linear to how much time/money I invest.)

I started SEO and I'm still waiting on the results. Current position is about 20 on average for all the important keywords, hoping that improves over time. (Nice thing about my market is that I have no /real/ direct competitors on google, as of yet. Most of my would be competitors don't have the skills and/or inclination to run a site.)

I've been getting more sales from etsy, and I'd imagine I'd probably get more sales from ebay/amazon (My accounts have another 30 days to age before I can effectively use it. Even then, though, ebay limits are retarded compared to my ability to expand on etsy/my-site/amazon/etc; ebay effectively hampers my ability to sell. Even then, though, it still might be worth the "cost of doing business" on ebay since my listings got like 10x the traffic etsy does and I believe I got around 1.5x-2x the amount of sales per view as compared to etsy. In terms of sales/item-listing cost (Not including FVF), ebay is cheaper and you get much more traffic sooner. However, including FVF, the cost of doing business on ebay may be much higher depending on your going price. Nice thing about etsy is that they give you keywords people used to find your listings and all sorts of traffic stats that you can easily apply to other platforms like ebay/amazon/google. I.e., don't list the items on ebay that get no traffic on etsy, or least make them the lowest priority. Now, on google(Your website)/amazon, there's no penalty for listing more products (In terms of fees and listing limits), so there's no reason to not list something on those platforms.

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

Good start swbluto

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

Never ever rely on eBay - set up your own website and use that to grow your sales. I'm looking for a good online shopping cart...shopify or big commerce seem a good bet

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

prefer shopify, trouble with using a platform like that is they can just increase their prices whenever they like, bigcommerce are doing that now for people selling a lot.
Set up your own site on woocommerce or magneto, woocommerce is a lot easier to learn but magneto looks more professional

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

you know its not very hard to make a website, you make a website with magento cms, host it and buy the domain it actually costs about £8, obviously if you can't code just buy a theme and customize it yourself it ain't hard, seo is the big thing but how you get round that is to use PPC advertising,

i mean the original poster is right 35k in ebay fees is steep and you can always sell a website once you have added value

Re: Ebay vs own websites
 

I created a website about 3 years ago
You get sales for sure but are slow and never compare like the big sites ebay, amazon or etsy. We need lot of cash to get rank well and start getting good results. Even if we have a very good product to sale.