HONEST HELP, PLEASE! I want to create my own site w/o being taken for a ride

[regic]

I'd like to hear from some folks with eBay stores out there who also have stores using eCrater and Shoppal.

I had to search for this.  The pls quoted in the post uses Shoppal.

[quote author=DecorativeDishes link=topic=4456.msg18319#msg18319 date=1153535708]
Shooting star who has helped me a TON posts on store's board. YAY Mike! Kim:

pls  (27279 ) View Listings | Report  Jul-21-06 19:18 PDT  5 of 6
Hi

There is life after eBay. I was a powerseller listing 100's of items everyday on eBay. The increases in February of 2005 were the final straw for me. I sold off most of my inventory, closed my eBay stores, opened a web site and concentrated on one small part of what I was doing. I am much more successful now than when I was just doing eBay.

I still use eBay under another user name, but it compliments my web store. My ebay fees used to be $2K to $3K a month, now they are less than $200. I do spend a lot more with Google, but it's a very efficient and cost effective way to bring customers to my store.

The best advice I can give anyone is find your niche and open your own web store. It takes a while to get it up and running, so if eBay is a major part of your income, you're going to need to tread carefully. There is a learning curve about how to promote your own site and get sales rolling in, but there is so much information available to help you now on the internet. I search Google a lot and have found some really helpful things for free.

Good Luck. I know this is a tough time for many of you.

From his "me" page:

I BROKE THE EBAY HABIT!


I was an eBay seller spending over $2000 a month on eBay fees.
NO MORE!
I still sell online, but now the money goes in my pocket, not eBays, and I have higher sales (and PROFIT) every month than I had on eBay.

[/quote]

[DecorativeDishes]

The eBay shooting star quoted above takes breaks from his busy site by posting on the Shoppal board and is extremely helpful. He was even my first customer. 

Like the people here he gets a lot of satisfaction out of helping sellers make the transition from eBay to independence. Kim

[bargainbloodhound]

[quote author=regic link=topic=5485.msg27875#msg27875 date=1161034542]

I know very little HTML, and I don't really want to know. This is not to say I couldn't learn, but I simply don't have time

Hosted then.  The hosted carts aren't much harder to use than an eBay Store.  Look over the demos at their sites and the features they offer.  ShopPal and PrestoStore are the cheapest.  Volusion, 3DCart, Make-A-Store and MonsterCommerce have the most features[/quote]

Ditto to that advice.  I wouldn't use a hosted cart, but for many people (especially eBay sellers) they are a good choice (or a good first website) due to limited time bla bla bla.

I'd like to hear from some folks with eBay stores out there who also have stores using eCrater and Shoppal.

A ShopPal store is an individual website, while an eCrater webstore is part of the eCrater "mall".

I know many people who are doing better on their websites (whether it is ShopPal, Monster, or a cart on their own site like ZenCart) than they did on eBay.

I know people who are getting sales on eCrater but I don't know anyone who is doing better than they did on eBay.  I'm not a big fan of off-ebay venue type stores (whether its an ecrater mall store or a wagglepoop/hibidder auction site store) because I've never seen anyone make any real money at them...I'm also not a fan of eBay Stores despite having had two for 5 years before closing them this Spring.

Like the people here he gets a lot of satisfaction out of helping sellers make the transition from eBay to independence

Personal satisfaction...although since I referred 90% of eBayers who asked me about websites after the fee hike to 3rd party hosted solutions like ShopPal, Monster, and Volusion based on their individual business needs , it probably means I'm a realllly crappy business person for not lieing and saying pick me, pick me, host with me, its easy to build an osCommerce/Zen site (I actually called my mother about this during the summer and she reassured me that I wasn't a complete loser for sending potential customers elsewhere ;D )

[xppman]

OK I'll chime back in here.
If the Shoppal thing is 15.95 a month for hosted easy set up and NO
FVF on your sales it may be a good first option for you OP.
Remember you still need to purchase your domain name too..
So what is that 4.99 a year or so? Not too bad.

But (plug for BBH and company here)

If you go with a web hosting plan here at TT.  4.99 a month
pay up front for year is: 59.99 plus your domain name registration 
8.99 or as low as 4.99 a year?
and an SSL (If you use a cart program) 19.99 a year? Maybe?
You can just use Goggle buttons or PP button and not use the cart function at all.

Once you have set up your site your good to go and as you
will find out some of us will help you for FREE.

So here you are.

Shoppal: 191.40 a year
Domain name 8.99 a year?
200.39 min.

TT
Web hosting: 59.88
Domain name 8.99
SSL 19.99
88.86 a year.

No FVF's total control and features out the wazzo.
100 e mails 3 sub domaines mysql, lots of stuff I have no idea
what you do with but cool stuff I imagine.

To me anyway it is worth the learning curve which can be substantially
reduced by us TT heads if you
go with a plan that saves you money.
After all it's business and keeping overhead low can mean the difference of surviving or not.

Some of these numbers are a bit close but may not be actual but as
you can see just the basics are a great savings.

I can tell you I'm happy with the service here and I saveed somewhere close to 200.00 or more a year by coming over to TT this summer from a Yahoo websites plan
I was on for many years.
The CS is second to none here abd the uptime has been 99.
something and it's just been a great and
smooth transition for me.

Uh I've been selling full time online since 1999 and NEVER had
an ebay store nor relied on ebay for my income.

Now SEO is another trick and these other off shoots
can help eCrater can be used as a tool and other venues as well.
But that's a whole other area we can talk about.

If I'm not mistaken with TT and the FREE oscmax cart or FREE Zen cart.
One really does not need much HTML experience either.
It's just when you like to tinker and change a lot of stuff is where it gets tricky.
But again, we here can and will help those who want to try.

[DecorativeDishes]

Personal satisfaction...although since I referred 90% of eBayers who asked me about websites after the fee hike to 3rd party hosted solutions like ShopPal, Monster, and Volusion based on their individual business needs , it probably means I'm a realllly crappy business person for not lieing and saying pick me, pick me, host with me, its easy to build an osCommerce/Zen site (I actually called my mother about this during the summer and she reassured me that I wasn't a complete loser for sending potential customers elsewhere Grin )

Yay for Mom  .

I have faced this type of situation in various businesses I have had. Customers who aren't "right" for you only give you headaches  .

If I had tried Zen or the like right off the bat I would probably have gotten frustrated and failed. (Is there any kind of overlay program you could use to capture the novice market?)

I will say that you are probably too subtle about promoting your business. I didn't realize for quite some time that you offered this service (o.k. maybe I am slow...  ). Since this is your board I think you could be more direct about touting the benefits you have to offer without anyone feeling like they were being sold or ruining the ambiance you have created.

Heck I think you should add a donation button. This board is fantastic!  Kim

P.S. Oh, I see PP just did an excellent job of being your new marketing rep. BBH - Maybe your Mom is paying him on the sly...

[stardust]

Heck I think you should add a donation button. This board is fantastic!  :-* Kim

Keep your *thinks* to yourself, please, Kim...  >  Before you know it, we'd have to donate before we could sign on!

*********************
I agree with most folks above.  If you want to get up and running fast for the fall/winter season, and want to get your name out there for SEO (which takes time), go for the easiest method NOW.  If you were spending $10 at WP and getting nothing, the extra $5 is pennies for the chance to get your name out there and make some sales.  Ebay stores cost THAT much...

eCrater is nice and simple, but you cannot see where your traffic is coming from.  I don't know about shoppal, if you have that information or not.  As a business person, it would eventually behoove you (and me and others) to have your own site and have all that information so you can know where to direct advertising dollars.  But you can certainly take your time with that in the background if you're already up and running with something like Shoppal.  It sounds like a reasonable and promising solution when you can get testimony directly from successful sellers who use them.

My suggestion for you, just as another person, would be to step back and take a few deep breaths and regroup with a positive attitude for the future.  It's a lot easier to think clearly when the anger and disgust albatrossi (rr and wp) are off your back and tossed behind you.  And even better if you can eventually get rid of the ebay leech within a reasonable period of time.

[Alskling]

Being the deliberate person I am, I normally weigh all options before doing anything. Until a few months ago, I just did my eBay thing, 'cause I was familiar with it and good at it, and never seriously considered much of anything else because I didn't want the associated headaches and I simply didn't have the time to do what I knew I'd need to do to get it all together. WP seemed like a simple alternative -- it looked a lot like what I knew and I only set up shop there because I thought I could do business and didn't want to make a major project out of creating something from scratch. It was only recently that I discovered the mind-boggling plethera of options within the mall and auction arena, let alone options for individual websites. It was just me working my butt off on my little business, keeping customers happy and hoping I could eat at the same time.

Shoppal has a lot of advantages, and I'm thinking it might be a good intermediate step between eBay and full-blown, out-there-on-my-own with no life-line web site. Would you people recommend registering a domain name prior to setting up a shop? Or is it possible to set up shop first, and then register? Or does it really matter? Do you think having a registered domain is a big deal? Maybe I'm making more out of it than I should.

[xppman]

Yes you want your domain name first.
Make it a name that you can live with for a long time for BRANDING reasons.

Good luck with Shoppal... that probably is not a bad first step.

[stardust]

what xpp said. 

[Alskling]

OK. One other question. Should I keep my Designers Bargains name that I've had since about 2002, or come up with something entirely new? Most of my customers know me by Designers Bargains, and that's how they find me. On the other hand, it must get lost in a Google search. What do you thinnk?