Tips on using eBay to drive traffic to your web site store

[mandy]

Various tips on using eBay to drive traffic to your web site store:

The lure of eBay is its massive built-in audience, as tens of millions of buyers eagerly seek bargains. The lure of having your own store is (hopefully) a higher profit margin. Many merchants find they can charge a higher price outside of the auction environment — and avoid eBay fees.

Also, on their own sites merchants have complete control and flexibility in how they present products, without rules imposed by eBay.

For plenty of sellers the best strategy focuses on creating synergy between their eBay auction and their own online store. Savvy sellers work the advantages of both. They leverage the traffic of eBay with the higher profit margin of their own site to create a hefty revenue stream...

Comment on eBay's ProStores:

ProStores' various tools all help drive traffic toward eBay — not from eBay toward ProStores sites. In the relationship between online stores and eBay, the auction giant is clear on which direction it wants to drive buyers.

full article: http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solutions...hp/3609791

[DecorativeDishes]

ProStores' various tools all help drive traffic toward eBay — not from eBay toward ProStores sites. In the relationship between online stores and eBay, the auction giant is clear on which direction it wants to drive buyers.

I'm pretty sure anyone who goes to the trouble of opening their own site has a different direction in mind. >

I am playing around with Shoppal's eBay redirect checkout with some auctions. It's the cheapest I have heard of ($5.00 month). I opened another i.d. on eBay so I could turn off eBay's checkout. I've sold 2 items on auction and neither has paid yet  :-\ (example: 7417369733 if anyone wants to see how the shoppal gallery button clicks through to my "gallery" off-eBay site  ).

So far I have been extremely happy with Shoppal. I highly recommend it for people like me who don't know much html. I got my merchant account set up on there yesterday.

I have had 3 sales now (one repeat buyer and she didn't even use the coupon I sent). I'm really glad that Bargain mentioned Shoppal as one that would be good. There are so many it's hard for the uninitiated to know which one to pick. Kim

[xppman]

Cool...
Yet another one who ebay will be seeing LESS money from.

I like that. 

[bargainbloodhound]

I highly recommend it for people like me who don't know much html.

I think for a lot of sellers (maybe most) who don't have a lot of web site knowledge a hosted cart like Shoppal (or the upper end ones like Make-A-Store, Volusion, Monster) is probably a better choice than osCommerce, Zen, etc where you would have to spend weeks/months learning html/php/etc. and customizing a cart...time that would be better spent selling.

[DecorativeDishes]

There was a guy on the stores board saying it was risky to use the hosted shopping cart method like Shoppal, because you can't move your store in case they go under or change their fees etc. He's got a point, but I guess it is the difference between me being up and running and not at this point.

If you have your files in turbo lister is there a way to import them into other programs besides eBay?? I'm just thinking if I wanted to go to my own cart later??

How would I go about learning about

osCommerce, Zen, etc ...  html/php/etc. and customizing a cart.

? I've been working with computers since the days of 5 1/4" floppies, black and white screens, no hard drives, and modems that used the phone handset to work so I have a lot of random knowledge that might help the learning curve but is it really necessary to re-invent the wheel? Do most people hire someone to do it?? Is it cheaper??Kim

P.S. Shoppal just helped me set up the cc account on my husband's site too because I forgot to check a box. They tested it for me and said I didn't have to return the $1 --just like eBay...