Setting up an ebay shop - Any advice?

[raspberrybloom]

Hi,

As sales are slow through the website we have decided to set up an ebay shop. I know many of you have these and I wondered if you had any advice?

Also ebay buyers advice is also welcome :wink:

Thanks, Lou

[Seahorse]

Give as much information as possible.

The amount of times ive had to contact people re details!!tuts and rolls eyes.

[swirlyarts]

Hi,

I've sold on ebay but don't actually have an ebay shop. Always make sure you have photos - I and many of my friends just go straight past the listings that don't have photos. It's well worth investing in a digital camera if you don't have one already. Also use your ebay shop to advertise your website - a friend noticed an big increase in site traffic to his own website from selling on ebay.

Hope this helps - oh also as a buyer make sure you leave feedback - it's always appreciated and if there is a problem contact the buyer - it's 'bad form' to leave negative feedback without contacting the seller first.

Lynsey

[Bea]

Hi Lou

Start with the first level of the shop and see how it goes before upgrading.
Download turbo lister and create all your items with it, otherwise you will spend hours on it.

Ebay can be more tedious than a ''normal'' website.

You have to relist stuff everyday unless you want to pay a bit more to 'schedule' your listings in advance. There are a few websites that you can subscribe to help you with this - I went against this as it created another load of work! Of course you can choose not to list every day.

Ebay is a bit less forgiving if something goes wrong as the dreaded negative feedback is never far away. On a website, any problems will be sorted behind closed doors, but with ebay, the customer can voice their problem in the feedbacks... Hence you need to maintain a high level of customer service.

I use a scanner instead of a camera, but I suppose it depends what you are selling. A photo is a definite must!

I agree the description must give as much details as you can provide to avoid receiving emails with lots of questions. Make sure your T&C are clear and simple. Don't over-do it on the P&P as this puts people off.

Hope this helps
Bea

[craftfairy]

Hi Lou,

like you I have a web site that has very little traffic so I decided to sell on Ebay. First of all you cannot just open a shop, you have to sell at auction and when you get a feedback of 10 and have opened a paypal account you will be allowed to open a shop.

However your ebay shop is a bit like your web site as the items in it are not listed in a customer search until the end of all the auction items. So to draw traffic into your site you also still need to sell at auction. Keep an eye out for special offer listing days and remember that hardly anyone buys on a Friday evening. Mondays are good days to list, or at least i've found so.

Remember that Ebay charges for everything and if you are selling low cost items you can even lose out. You pay to list, you pay a final valuation fee and you pay PayPal a comission. The good thing about Ebay is that you can target your customers with your site advertising. Every time that you make a sale be sure to send out a flyer. this draws customers to your site.

If I had to start over again I think that I would have started with Ebay and then opened my own site. I would have had a client base to call on. I have been going for 10 months and it is only since I started selling on Ebay last November that I have seen some real sales.

Do have a look at my site, I might even tempt you.
www.craftfairy.co.uk

Yvonne

[Auntysally]

Ebay is good! its just the charges! i sometimes wonder why i bother when most of the profit from ebay sales does go on charges! but it is useful to draw traffic to your own website!

[swirlyarts]

Apparently ebay are offering the first month free at the moment when you open up a shop and the charges have gone down recently to 3p an item. Not really sure what this means but I've read it on another forum that I look at.
Lynsey

[beadsbydesign]

You need to be careful about how you direct traffic from ebay to your other online store.

I was in a similar situation only the opposite way around. I had sucessfully run a smallish ebay store and then decided to go independant. I run both side by side with the same beads and findings.
When I first set up independantly I changed all of my ebay listings so that they all said visit www.beadsbydesign.co.uk , my other online store.
It was only after a couple of months that I received an email from someone saying that I was actually breaching the rules of ebay that say you cannot promote selling off ebay.

I went into pannick mode and emailed ebay to check it out. They responded and said that on the listing page i cannot have a directive or details for off ebay trading. The only place and way to do it within the guide lines was to put a link on my "about me" page.
It took nearly a week to update and revise all 350 of my listings.

I do send out a little note with all purchases on ebay redirecting them to my non ebay store.

just be careful. Ebay are known to act first and ask questions later if they find you doing something they consider wrong.

I also find that I have very regular ebay customers and very regular ebay customers but they seldom swap loyalty.

Good luck with your move to ebay. let us know how it goes.

[colourart]

I opened an ebay shop in December, but shut it a few weeks ago. You can have the first month free, then after that it is £6.00/month. I shut it because from my point of view it was easier/cheaper to list the items in auction. Having an ebay shop does generate extra hits though, I found that if I auctioned some items, then people when people hit on your auctioned item they would have a look in your shop also. I believe that if you have lots of items to sell then a shop is beneficial because the inventory list is cheap about 11p at the time and the items can be listed for 30 days.

When I send out the won item, I send a business card also with my website address, well actually more than one, this generates business to the website.

Good luck with the shop if you decide to go that way.

Amanda

[Katianne]

I listed some of my mosaics last Tuesday on ebay, to 'test the water'. If this goes well, I am thinking of having an ebay shop, as I have sold nothing as yet through my own website, etsy or craft jumble. I am probably just being impatient but I would really love to sell something so figure everything is worth a go. I will let you know how I get on!

[goldy1]

Have you seen this site http://www.etsy.com/ dedicated to crafts and you can list items for longer than e-bay. Cheaper too. oops sorry didn't see your last post till i posted this

[craftfairy]

One thing to remember is that E-bay might only charge a small amount for listing in the shop but they also charge a final valuation fee on all that sells.
You really do need to be careful.

I am considering shutting the shop and concentrating on the web site.

I have started to do the bif fairs like Creatice Stitches and Hobby Craft. while the cost of a stand is astronimical, there are a lot of potential customers and it is a good way of introducing them to the products that you sell. They can see and feel the quality.

craftfairy.co.uk

blog.craftfairy.co.uk

Yvonne

[littlesnuggler]

I have bought and sold a lot of items on Ebay (feedback 525) and I think it's brilliant. Anything I list I try to add a bit on to cover at least SOME of the charges. Good, crisp photo's are essential aswell as full details of the products.

I opened an Ebay shop around Christmas but closed it after a few days because the shop listings are after the auction listings and I could never find mine when I had the shop. So I prefer to list things through the normal auction or Buy It Now.

If you are selling something small you could always offer free P+P - this always attracts plenty of bids but won't work for larger, heavier items.
You can add a link to your website through the http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/uk/aboutme-small.gif (http://members.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=snugglersbay)http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/s.gifpage but you cannot put your url in the listing itself.

Ebay is great but I wasn't impressed with the Ebay shop. Hope this helps.

[Running_wild]

I have sold through an ebay shop for a few years but am now running down my listings and selling beads and findings through my own website.
The ebay fees mount up without you noticing. You can list an item in your shop for 90 days, and when it doesn't sell it is easy just to click the relist button for another 90 days. before you know it the listing fees are mounting up and when the item does sell ebay take a cut and paypal take a cut and you are left with nothing. All the success stories on ebay are people selling expensive items eg exercise bikes. A packet of beads rarely makes much of a profit.
Having said that I will close the shop when the current listings run out but run at least one auction a week to drive people to my website.
So far that isn't happening, even though I am selling the same stuff, lower prices and cheaper postage! Like another poster said, some people stick to buying from ebay.

[Katianne]

I wonder why that is? I used to buy my mosaic supplies from ebay, but then my supplier set up her own website so I started using that instead, as the prices were a little cheaper. I suppose some people may feel ebay is more secure and because of the feedback system less likely to be ripped off maybe? It's a shame if that is the case. I will have to see how it goes then, maybe see if my mosaics sell this week through the auction. If they do try the free shop for a month and if no good hope the craft fairs are a winner!

[littlesnuggler]

I have just discovered that the Ebayer who I get my mailing bags from has left Ebay and they were a Power Seller with huge sales.

I wonder if Ebay is just getting a touch too expensive and sellers are transferring to cheaper auction sites.

Nevertheless, I have had some excellent sales through Ebay so I'm with them for the foreseeable future.

[michelleC]

Hi E-bay shops can be very useful. As others have already said the fee's can be a bit of a pain. and Paypal fees too. I tend to list my most popular items on as a buy it now and keep the rest down in shop inventory which cuts the cost considerably but that can mean less traffic. Though im finding that our popular items are bringing in more than enough traffic.
Good luck with it

[Snow angel]

I dont sell on ebay anymore but im trying out 2 new sites i have found both a bit slow but i think they will pick up 1st one is Craft Jumble (http://www.craftjumble.co.uk/index.php) and if you register you are given £5 credit in your sellers account, so that can go towards fees etc. to begin with. Also if you refer anyone you can both get credi and the other is www.auntysauctions.co.uk (http://www.auntysauctions.co.uk/) im on both of them as Snow Angel it might be worth you trying on them

[Katianne]

Well, none of my mosaics sold on Ebay, despite having a number of watchers. I have relisted 3 of them for a week, but if I have no luck I think I will stick with the craft fairs. I feel sorry for myself now!!!:mad:

[swirlyarts]

Have you tried Etsy? I can't remember if I've seen you on there or on Flickr!! It is frustrating when you get loads of watchers and no-one bids but at least it shows that you are heading in the right direction with your mosaics.
Lets hope for better luck with this load of auctions :mf:

[Katianne]

Yes, they are on Etsy and Craft Jumble too. Since relisting I have 2 people watching each again so hopefully this time around I'll get some bids! I saw some posters up today for a craft fair I'm doing (my first!) which made me feel quite excited!!!

[urban objects]

I find my ebay shop is really hit of miss. I have an online shop and do my ebay shop as an add-on, although I think I am about to close it. I don't feel that it is worth the money as my items (card making materials) are cheap, I end up practically giving the stuff away when I take the fees into consideration. I started the shop to generate traffic, but to be honest I don't think it makes much difference.

I like etsy (although I haven't actually sold anything on it yet), and can see that it works well for a lot of people. i think the stuff on etsy is fantastic - I am very envious of how well people can craft!!

Good luck
Lor xx

[CleoCrafts]

Hi, i have been selling on ebay for over a year, only moved to an ebay shop about a month ago, really because the charges for listing at auction are so high when sellin low-cost items (lots of my card supplies are around the pound mark) - listiing on my ebay shop can be about 6p - 3p to list for 30 days and 3p to put a photo on. I am finding that about one in five people are buying from my ebay shop stock, the rest from the live auctions - there have been a few customers who have bought one at auciton and then another five items from the shop - i like these customers a lot!! Since sending out my flyers with all my ebay sales, I have had three sales on my own website so I guess its progressing slowly...

The other thing with Ebay is that paypal not only take a percentage of your final sale, they take a minimum amount too, so if you sell something at 1.60 for example, they take 20p immediately, then they work out the percentage, so you pay about 26 or 27p to them - if you sell something at £10, they only take about 70p... so its not proportionate!! (these figures are off the top of my head, but its pretty frustrating to lose such a cut to the paypal transaction)

The other bit of advice, is when you are posting something, get a proof of postage certificate from the post office (they are free) as I have been stung before by someone claiming I had never sent them their goods, and I had no way to prove that i had, so i lost the money (even though the person was chucked off ebay for attempting to acces other peoples accounts about a week later!!)

good luck!

Louise x

[naomi]

I don't really mind e-bay taking their share of profits as they are hosting your shop after all. But what I totally resent is paypal - they charge you (as the seller) a percentage to receive money, then they charge you another percentage to move this money into your own account which I don't think is very fair.

I'm going to keep trying the listings on e-bay without opening a shop, everything crossed!!

[Poppy4lee]

Like many people I've found selling on eBay really expensive, they must be making huge profits & I think they ought to try to help the people who don't sell huge amounts - they could seriously reduce their listing charges for the smaller shops etc.

I think the reason why lots of people choose to sell on eBay (myself included) is because it is SO well known and gets lots of traffic. I would love to know the best way to drive traffic to your own website!

I suppose the only way to find out whether eBay is worth it for you, is to realistically think about how much you are prepared to spend (and lose) then try it.

I'd love to know what you decide to do and how you get on - I wish you lots of luck (and lots of customers!)



Sorry, I know this probably hasn't been very helpful!

[Tip Top]

I think that probably the easiest thing to do is try an ebay shop for perhaps 3 or 6 months alongside some normal auction listings. If it doesn't work after that period then close it, but at least you've given it a try! :)

I'm going to be opening an ebay shop in the next month or so and have set myself a target of 6 months to see sales increase realistically enough to keep the shop viable. I currently list auctions for 10 days under blueeyessammy and its a bit hit and miss - I can list 22 items and 2 will sell, or will list 10 and 6 will sell...:confused:

I also send out a little flyer with all ebay sales with my website address and although there is no shopping cart facility on the website (will, time permitting be changing this in the near future!!) I do get orders - the potential customers email me as usually its customed to their colours or personalised (hair style & colour etc)

I know that if I see an item on auction that I like (want!) then I'll have a look in their shop as postage will be better. For instance, the first item will be £1 and then every additional item, just an extra 10p.

Keep your listings simple, don't use big text and don't use templates as these can sometimes cost extra ;)

Good luck! :D