Ebay Store Vs Stand Alone Site

[ChiangMaiThai]

I'm looking at putting together a clothing website and was planning on going the traditional route with a stand alone site/custom shopping cart/merchant account etc. I came across ebay stores today and I am wondering if anyone has any opinions on the pros and cons of opening an ebay store rather than our own site. It is thousands of dollars cheaper and while pretty basic, it dpes give you the basic format that allows customers to browse and purchase your goods. Also, I imagine that there would be some traffic coming from people searching ebay stores. Is there some major advantage to spending thousands of dollars for our own stand alone site? We are starting small and will have perhaps a couple hundred items on the site to begin with. Any thoughts or opinions?

[The_Doctor]

Why is a stand alone store going to cost thousands of dollars?

[ChiangMaiThai]

Why is a stand alone store going to cost thousands of dollars? 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Real website design done in the States (no offence to Thai website designers, but communication is just far more effective with a native English speaker who understands the concept of the site). Real merchant account. (Not paypal, 2checkout.com etc.). Real custom built shopping cart. Real graphic designer creating a unique look for the site.

[paulfr]

Yes, I would think just the fact that all who come to the eBay portal doing a search would be able to find you would be a VERY strong reason to go with them at least initially.

Marketing expenses to get the world to know you are there are often hugely underestimated and eBay helps to solve that problem for you until you generate word of mouth recognition and repeat customers.

Then you might move to a standalone site.

Remember, the odds are against any startup succeeding past the first year. You want all the help you can get and eBay is a good, well proven partner.

[aaaaaa]

it realy depends on your project and idea of doing biz, goals, as well as idea of web site and what is it for. it would greatly differ depending on many factors. also on - what traffic do you expect.

ebay store has some advantages - not many. realy good traffic can't be attracted by ebay store - they are also smart, don't you think so? you have to pay for keywords there to have your goods realy seen - otherwise your items won't even be listed among the other items on regular time-limited auction. you get some advantages like some garantess for buyers from eBay as buyer / seller protection policies - which cna hardly be garanteed by/ on ordinary web-site. some disadvantages too - like paying fees for store subscription (if you gonna have few hundreds of items daily - you'll have to have higher than basic level of store), and then all the FVFs which has enreased (although listing fees are much lower than those for auction or fixed price) and finally PayPal fees. after all - eBay become and remain rich coz of members fees - even be it as small as 2 cent (as for store listing fees).

so, don't imagine - try the basic store first and you'll see for yourself what is worth or not. and calculate !

I have a friend who has store with min 400 books any time - and he told me he makes enough side income - besides his real retail shop. other friend has told me - he is dissapointed with eBay and prefers to sell to real, not "virtual" customers. perhaps another factor is - the merchandise itself.

although mostly items HTMLs don't have much meta tags - somehow eBay items are found by major search engines, although again - perhaps only those listed on auctions, not in stores. try it and check yourself.

[ChiangMaiThai]

Yes, I would think just the fact that all who come to the eBay portal doing a search would be able to find you would be a VERY strong reason to go with them at least initially.

Marketing expenses to get the world to know you are there are often hugely underestimated and eBay helps to solve that problem for you until you generate word of mouth recognition and repeat customers.

Then you might move to a standalone site.

Remember, the odds are against any startup succeeding past the first year. You want all the help you can get and eBay is a good, well proven partner.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks. I am thinking along the same lines as you. I see that ebay takes a final value fee on its stores of 8%, but considering the up front cost saved, it may be worth it. Also, when people search ebay, they don't see listings in ebay stores unless they specify a search of ebay stores. But still, it seems like a very cheap way to get started and perhaps get known...

[Tompa]

eBay stores are good in that they are very cheap to start up. Remember that you need a feedback score of at least 20 in order to open up an eBay store. This means that you must sell using their auction system for some time to get your feedback rating up.

You should also do some serious research of other sellers trading in the same type of merchandise on eBay. While eBay is a great (and cheap) way to reach a large audience, it can be very tough competition which could murder your margins. Many, many sellers only use eBay as a promotion tool to drag customers to their web site or to off load/liquidate unwanted stock.

[The_Doctor]

If you can build the store yourself you can save a lot in the initial outlay, (if not marketing costs, the development costs). The ebay store would allow you to design the channel yourself rather than paying your US developers...

[aaaaaa]

exactly ! seems like you've done a bit of research yourself - just do a bit more.

yes, to start - it is good. there are ways to insert tags if necessary and if you (or who will do the crude listing work) have a basic HTML knowledge.

but again - calculate everything first. and check out similar items by other sellers, watch them for a while. may be you'll change your mind regarding kind of stuff you wanna sell coz there market is flooded with dirt cheaper prices !

in terms of saving money in the beginning - it might be better than web site, however not necessarily in making them !

[aaaaaa]

If you can build the store yourself you can save a lot in the initial outlay, (if not marketing costs, the development costs).  The ebay store would allow you to design the channel yourself rather than paying your US developers...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

right !

however for developing web-site one pays once, and then for marketing, while eBay will charge you for EVERYTHING continiously - in particular cases even per characters (like in titles/ subtitles) and per image or per pixel of image. AND not once - but always. in your own website you can do and write and paste whatever and as much as you want. althoughperhaps you'll pay for same things to your workers - unless you gonna do it all yourself as well as for badwidth (which would enable the traffic to your website)

[h90]

If you want to use 1000s of USD (which is a lot for a webpage) I would say, make both. The shop and Ebay.

[Zarkow]

If you are at all experienced with creating websites or coding, I would recomend that you look at this site:

http://www.oscommerce.com/

It's a open-source and free project that has run it's stable release for almost 2 years now (2.2 milestone 2), meaning no security-flaws or bugs have been found.

If not anything else, a handy person can use it as a base for their own sale-systems.

And if you are looking for proffesional help with your project, just PM me.

Decent cost, charge in baht, not dollars.

Edited May 20, 2005 by Zarkow

[OxfordWill]

Do ebay, unless you are 100% sure you want to make a real job for yourself. If you go the route of your own website you then have to deal with problem number 1: getting visitors to view your stock, and then getting them to buy it.

With ebay, you have a massive market of buyers who are not only happy with buying, but are given the added confidence of trading through ebay.

I would go so far as to say that the only reason for doing your own site would be that this is your chosen form of occupation and it will be your life and as such the much larger investment of time and effort it will require will be fully worthwhile.

If you just want to shift stock and profit, ebay is going to do that faster for you. If you want to create a brand for yourself you will need your own site and so on.

p.s. It wont cost thousands of dollars to do your own site properly, infact you could do it very cheaply but the real issue will be getting anyone to enter your 'shop' in the first place.

Edited May 20, 2005 by OxfordWill

[penzman]

Oscommerce is great. There are tons of modules available for your needs. It's free and there are a few flavoured versions of it such as ZenCart and Creloaded, my fav. Oscommerce has been promising a newer and easier version for a few years but...

Get ready to handle php code and suffer some hairloss if you want to do any modifications. Even changing the background color isn't that easy for a new user, unlike any html editor. Some file names are similar but in different directories, confusing and dangerous at times when you try and do some modifications.

I still favor this over ebay.

[OxfordWill]

Well if you decide to go for your own site then whoever you host with will more than likely provide you with CPanel or somesuch similar piece of admin software that will let you install software like oscommerce easily, although modification will, as penzman says, be tricky if you're not well versed.

[bangkokian]

Any suggestions for websites or other resources for someone who wants to start from the abc of html...Is the HTML for Dummies helpful or adequate?

Thanks

[OxfordWill]

That is a great book for starters, yea. If you don't know good html practices after using that book then you just can't read properly!

[yuyi]

Any suggestions for websites or other resources for someone who wants to start from the abc of html...Is the  HTML for Dummies helpful or adequate?

Thanks

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Don't know the book. Usually the dummy books are pretty good for learning, but it depends here on how old it is. Now there are web standards, and all browsers support them. HTML gets replaced by XHTML. The book might still teach last century's HTML style.

Do yourself a favor and do *not* learn HTML, but start right away with XHTML. It's a lot easier, cleaner, better to update later etc. etc.

Search google for "xhtml tutorial", you will find more than you want to read

www.w3schools.com/xhtml/

www.freewebmasterhelp.com/tutorials/xhtml

and many more

[Zarkow]

Do yourself a favor and do *not* learn HTML, but start right away with XHTML. It's a lot easier, cleaner, better to update later etc. etc.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't understand the point of jumping over one step in the evolution if the basic foundation upon the rest of the knowledge is going to be placed is going to be at all any stable.

And it's not like it takes very long to understand the basic html-tags. Not many of them...

Added:

Besides, on the page you linked, http://www.w3schools.com/xhtml/xhtml_intro.asp , it says:

What You Should Already Know

Before you continue you should have a basic understanding of the following:

- HTML and the basics of building web pages

Edited May 21, 2005 by Zarkow

[pedro01]

I'm looking at putting together a clothing website and was planning on going the traditional route with a stand alone site/custom shopping cart/merchant account etc. I came across ebay stores today and I am wondering if anyone has any opinions on the pros and cons of opening an ebay store rather than our own site. It is thousands of dollars cheaper and while pretty basic, it dpes give you the basic format that allows customers to browse and purchase your goods. Also, I imagine that there would be some traffic coming from people searching ebay stores. Is there some major advantage to spending thousands of dollars for our own stand alone site? We are starting small and will have perhaps a couple hundred items on the site to begin with. Any thoughts or opinions?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Your best bet is to do both - put ebay auctions up with links to your site (you are allowed to do this BUT - follow ebay policy closely). Use eBay as a method of attracting people to your site.

Pedro