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

[cranky_hippie]

Excuse the rant, but it appears I'm just going to have to put up with eBay for now. I don't know what the hell else to do and it makes me want to 

Are you still making money on Ebay? If you are, then just keep doing it...at least for now.

Here is what I would advise: shoppal is free for 30 days. Sign up and take just one day at most to set it up. Don't worry about a domain name right now. Just check it out and see if it seems doable for you. If it does, go with it and make sure that every one of your Ebay customers knows that you have a website and try to offer them some incentive to use the website for more purchases or for their next purchase. If it doesn't seem doable, then just walk away from it; live with Ebay for now; and revisit the whole website thing later on.

This is what I would do and, believe me, I understand the stress of it all. I am dealing with some things at the moment in Real Life that are slowing down my website plans but I am just having to live with it. I don't like it but that's life. For you, putting up with Ebay may have to be the way you go for now. It doesn't have to mean that you can't change that at a later time.

[stardust]

A couple of Margueritas might help... 

[cranky_hippie]

[quote author=stardust link=topic=5485.msg28103#msg28103 date=1161187695]
A couple of Margueritas might help...   
[/quote]

Sounds good to me! 

[Alskling]

I swear, if an angel with wings were to descend upon me right now with a pitcher of salty margaritas, I'd think I'd died and gone to heaven. Maybe I should start a Mobile Margarita business -- call it Margarita deVille, so something. Maybe not -- If I didn't get sued by GM, I'd probably get sued by Jimmy Buffett, or both. 

Yes, I do make money on eBay, but just barely. I figure about 25% of my gross goes into eBay and PayPal fees. I make do-do on auctions -- the only thing I make any money on is store inventory, and, as we all know, eBay couldn't care a rat's ass about stores any more. 

Thanks for the help.
DB

[xppman]

Sorry Alskling
I was just rattling your chain
I didn't know / realize you were spending every waking hour doing eBay.

I hope it's making $$ for you and yea...
maybe a couple of margaritas are in order so here you go.

 

If you are still making a livable income on eBay, by all means,
stay there and do like Cranky said.
I just don't know what else to tell you but sip those frozen concoctions
slow or you will get a head freeze.  ;D

Peace... nothing personal meant but sometimes some of you people do need
a shove to get you going.

Good luck what ever you decide, we all know how it is.

Been there done that.
Well OK I never did put all my eggs in ebay's little basket but that does not matter.
What matters to me is another fellow online seller wants to break the chains
and I and others here, will help you to be FREE.

[bargainbloodhound]

changing the topic to eBay for a moment:

I don't do Turbo Lister. I tried it once, but it seems too much trouble, since every item I have is unique.

TurboLister, Vendio, MarketWorks, eBay's Blackthorne etc. work for unique items (this I know because we used to sell unique items on eBay).  With 660+ items listed you should use either a listing program like TurboLister or an auction management service like Vendio etc. because it would save you lots of time everyday.  It takes a fraction of the time to create a listing in a program like TurboLister that it takes if you use eBay's Sell Your Item form.  With an auction management program like Vendio or Marketworks you could also automate much of your work: invoicing, emails, payments, etc, etc and save a few hours every day.

back to websites:

Here is what I would advise: shoppal is free for 30 days. Sign up and take just one day at most to set it up. Don't worry about a domain name right now. Just check it out and see if it seems doable for you. If it does, go with it and make sure that every one of your Ebay customers knows that you have a website and try to offer them some incentive to use the website for more purchases or for their next purchase. If it doesn't seem doable, then just walk away from it; live with Ebay for now; and revisit the whole website thing later on.

Yes to opening a ShopPal or PrestoStore instead of going the osCommerce/ZenCart route at the moment.  No to walking away from it   Since you're still making money on eBay you don't need to rush and you can gradually move your customers to your website.  A website will also lessen the impact of future eBay fee increases/policy changes/glitches... It is much better to start a website while you're still making money on eBay than it is to wait until disaster strikes or you're bleeding red ink.

I don't have the money, time or patience to hire anybody to help me work through it

There's enough free help available on the web that you don't need to hire anyone...especially the overpriced board spamming "designers" (term used very loosely) that frequent eBay's stores board.
(yes, I just read a thread on the Stores board with the "designer" vultures quoting hundreds/thousands to setup a website...grrr  )

[xppman]

You guys just keep saying all the things I want to say but just
can't seem to find the right words.

Maybe I need to get me a sock puppet to get my head on straight.

Very well said BBH, Crank and the others. 

[Alskling]

OK. I have a listing quota to meet for today on eBay, and after that, maybe I'll do some more research on the Shoppal thing. For you people with the Shoppal sites -- are you REALLY making a living? How long did it take before you were able to say you could rely on it as you steady source of income? You know, like to eat and pay rent and all that good stuff? How much, and what, did you do in terms of promotion? Keep in mind, I know nothing about RSS and SEO (never paid any attention to those terms until about a week ago) and I'm still trying to figure the frickin' clickable siggie thing (I hate my embarrassing cyber retardism ). What kind of items do you sell? Do you think my inventory fits on a Shoppal site? How many Shoppal site owners (percentage-wise) are REALLY making money, as in making a living with their Shoppal site as sole source of income -- be honest. I gotta ask this stuff because I'd never heard of Shoppal until a couple days ago, and when I originally got this notion in my head and googled for web hosting, it didn't come up.
Thanks, DB 

[bargainbloodhound]

the frickin' clickable siggie thing

HTML with graphic
[code=html4strict][/code]
BBCode with graphic (used by some forums including this one)
[code=html4strict][/code]

HTML text link
[code=html4strict]My Link[/code]
BBCode text link (used by some forums including this one)
[code=html4strict]My Link[/code]

[bargainbloodhound]

Do you think my inventory fits on a Shoppal site?

ShopPal (or Monster, etc) is just a website.  The only difference between it and a regular website is that they have done most of the grunt work for you.

You can successfully sell anything on a website that you can sell on eBay...well, almost anything, Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese sandwiches are strictly for eBay.