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Need some advice. What would you do if you were in my shoe?
 

Hi all,

I have been selling online for over 4 yrs and it all started on eBay until I used my sister's credit card and because her eBay account was suspended indefinitely, my eBay account's selling limit could not be lifted until the hold on my sister's account is lifted. Then I stumbled on this forum and bought the eBay stealth book. I applied the stealth methods on etsy because I had an etsy account and was banned due to selling items infringing intellectual property (consequences from sourcing in China).

Then 2 yrs ago, I found this platform Storenvy that totally fits the category I'm selling in and I dedicate all of my time and energy onto that website plus selling a few of this and that on 2 eBay accounts.

As aspkin is always preaching about having my own website, I started creating my own website and successfully built a website with wordpress. However, this website has been online for 2 yrs and still only making 1-2 sales per month. I have been including business cards along with my eBay orders but I guess I'm not making enough orders on eBay and I don't have time to update my website as often so traffic is very low.

The sales on my primary site on Storenvy has been dropping lately due to many competitions and traffic drop on that website. eBay orders are declining as well. After discussing with my family, they think the category I sell in is too competitive and saturated and suggest me to sell something different.

So I started making a website selling pet related products on shopify... Due to having to juggle with family and 4 websites plus 2 ebay stores, I don't have enough time to work on every single website daily and consistency is what it takes for a successful website.

I wanted to build 2 more shops on Storenvy as this is the place where my primary stream of income comes in. The friend I made here on this forum *thanks to this forum I actually made friends in real life* suggested me to stop wasting time on Storenvy because he said there is no way I can compete with my competitors as they have 20+ staff working on their website and selling the same items I am selling. He recommends that I go back on etsy because it has all the traffic and I can make a profit and a stable and steady income without having to worry about competition, SEO, and traffic.

Now my question is, which shop should I eliminate so I can dedicate and invest most of my time on it to make it successful? I have been selling online for almost 5 yrs and I do not want to go back to a 9-5 job. I thank you in advance for taking all of your precious time to read my story.

Here are the revenues I'm currently making from all of these platforms:

eBay 1: Selling limit (HKD81,868) profit: around 300USD
eBay 2: Selling limit (USD3,900) profit: less than 40USD as I did not use up all limit sometime

Storenvy 1: Profit 900USD last month, sales declining this month
Storenvy 2: Only 1-2 sales per month averaging in 30USD

Own website 1: 1-4 sales per month averaging in 40USD
Own website 2: -15USD, only making one sale per month (in less competitive category in my opinion~cat themed gifts)

I live in Hong Kong and can source almost anything from Hong Kong and China. I have no job and am not planning to find one as I see selling online as my best career option. Can some one here give me some advice on my business plan and what I should eliminate? Should I continue running my shop on Storenvy and start a shop on etsy and eliminate the other websites I built? Thank you for your time.

Re: Need some advice. What would you do if you were in my shoe?
 

etsy is your best bet to sell things online because it's a market for specific type of items.

you may have to balance out necessity before trying to go in a direction because the key here is PROFIT.

if you're selling cat themed gifts, research other etsy sellers selling cat related items and maybe you can come up with some sort of "bundle idea" for your sales and incorporate that into getting more sales/traffic.