| Using eBay to sell your products certainly has a lot of | | | | businesses is pretty slim. So we can apply what they |
| advantages, compared to selling on an online store. | | | | teach to our own eBay business. |
| The top 5% of eBay sellers are now making over | | | | 3. You can also automate a lot of the day-to-day |
| $1,000,000 each year, or more. | | | | tasks, using tools especially made for eBay sellers. |
| So what are these advantages? | | | | Many of the customer service and administrative |
| 1. For the traffic! Instead of driving traffic to your store, | | | | tasks can be anticipated and automated, leaving more |
| eBay already gets the traffic! | | | | time for online sellers to work on their business, instead |
| Why reinvent the wheel? Use eBay and piggyback on | | | | of in it. Or more leisure time, whatever! |
| their success. | | | | 4. eBay's Feedback system means that new buyers |
| 2,000,000 shoppers visit eBay each and every day to | | | | can immediately trust you and your product. Buyers |
| find products that will give them solutions to their | | | | can leave their feedback about their experiences with |
| problems, with their credit cards in hand. They spend | | | | sellers, for other buyers. This is even better than |
| $121,000,000,000 EVERY DAY on eBay. | | | | testimonials you see in online stores sometimes, which |
| It makes sense to use a market that is already looking | | | | may not be current, or even true(!). |
| for products and ready to buy. It makes sense to | | | | 5. The cost of setting up your own online store outside |
| utilise Ebays excellent reputation and extensive | | | | of the eBay system can be many thousands of |
| advertising, which you get for free when you sell items | | | | dollars, plus the cost of ongoing maintenance. All of |
| on eBay. No need to find a new market and new | | | | which needs to be recouped before any profits |
| customers (promoting a website can be both costly | | | | become available. Whereas eBay listings are cheap. |
| and time-consuming, and takes time to become | | | | 6. The auction format means buyers bid for your item, |
| established). | | | | and if you set this up correctly, a bidding frenzy can |
| Plus, Google loves eBay and many times you will see | | | | result, driving the price higher than normal. I have seen |
| eBay listings in a Google search, on the first page. A | | | | a gold chain, for example, get 26 bidders, and sell for |
| corresponding online store may easily be a hundred | | | | double the retail cost. Of course, the flip side is that it |
| pages back, never to be found. | | | | can sell for less than cost price too. But this too can be |
| 2. Nowhere else can you research past sales and | | | | chalked up to research. |
| trends as easily as you can with eBay. The information | | | | 7. eBay welcomes second hand goods, so you can |
| for any keyword/s can be as current as the previous | | | | sell unwanted items around your house, as well as |
| night, and can include starting price, selling price, | | | | your main products, all on the same platform. Most |
| percentage of items sold, and will even show you the | | | | people have around $2000 of surplus items lying |
| actual listings. Even before you start to source | | | | around the house, garage or shed, and these can be |
| products you can see at a glance whether it will be | | | | used perhaps, to fund the products you want to sell. |
| worth selling them. I would like to see Amazon or a | | | | Even if you do decide to open your own online store, |
| normal ecommerce site release this sort of | | | | then the initial research on the products can be done |
| information! | | | | on eBay for very little money. May only be a couple of |
| 3. Education about the best way to sell on eBay is | | | | dollars, depending on the product. You can test the |
| readily available. Many powersellers are happy to | | | | market, see how much interest there is in the item, |
| teach you what they do. Why would they do that? | | | | how much it will sell for. You can also put a listing on |
| Well, because eBay has thousands of categories and | | | | eBay to drive traffic to your store, and again, this is |
| millions of items, the chance of any competition to their | | | | very cost effective. |