Started an electrical eBay shop. Tips and Advice needed.

[Chalon]

I have just launched a new ebay shop in the last month selling some of our products, hoping to boost our online presense whilst generating us some sales also.
Does anyone have any experience with running an ebay store or online store?

Thank you,
Chalon.

 

[mogga]

Welcome to the forum
First things first as your post is advertising commercialy I suggest speaking to DAN about the forum rules on this before posting anymore adverts
good luck

 

[Phil]

Welcome to the forum

 

[Amp David]

Welcome,

For me its stupid delivery costs. Keep to the delivery timescales and don't sell tat

 

[MarkieSparkie]

Hi, welcome to the forum.

 

[Deleted member 26818]

I notice that most of your stock seems to be related to panel building, and machinery controls.
It may be an idea to identify your intended customers and contact them directly, to inform them of your existance.

 

[JamesBrownLive]

About 12 years ago when I was in the IT networking game, I also ran an eBay based bookstore selling mainly Cisco Press items.

It was ok, but only because I was getting the titles at £10 each and selling them for £30+ with some going for as much as £70.

Unfortunately, eBay have gotten increasingly greedy almost to the point that unless you have excellent margins, you're on a loser to begin with. 10% off the bat and then another 4% going to Paypal, couple that with them imposing limits on what you can charge for postage and it begins to become a real pain in the neck.

And unless you ship everything via a tracked service, you run the risk of getting ripped off by punters who receive the goods and say they haven't. It's then that you'll realise Paypal and eBay care more about the customer than they do about you and your business.

As far as I'm concerned, eBay is now just an outlet for a load of toot from China. Personally, I would not trust the authenticity of anything for sale on there.

That aside, you might find you are better off having an e-commerce website, and putting your energies into that. If so, have a look at this software:

eCommerce Software | CubeCart

Its cheap and easily tailored. Whatever you decide, I wish you good luck.

Cheers

 

[Cyberprog]

Yep, you also want to try and drive as much traffic to your ecommerce site as you'll make more money on that than via eBay - but you need to be careful as to how you advertise it on your listings - having a well published email address with mention of your online shop can be one way round that.