AuctionAddictsAnonymous.com

No, I think not. If you are a small store owner like me, you’ll know that there’s always some of your inventory that just won’t move! You relist it constantly each month to no avail. In the end you have to give up because the listing fees are costing more than you can ever hope to get for your item. Every month, thousands of new sellers decide to try eBay selling, full of dreams of giving up their job and living solely from their eBay sales. Sadly, this is very, VERY unlikely to happen for them. Unless you are selling something which is in high demand, and for which you are one of a very few suppliers, you will need more than just eBay to achieve this. However, eBay is a great way to start out with your business plans, especially for those with little or no experience of internet marketing.

An eBay store can help you to build your business whether you plan to sell solely on the internet, or run a “real-world” operation. You can brand your eBay store, use the same branding on your own website and, by combining the two selling methods, you can increase your profits. eBay is a vast marketplace with millions of transactions every week. It makes great sense therefore to harness the power of eBay to increase your online customer base.

Although you may sell an item to someone on eBay, this customer is regarded by eBay as being one of their customers, and not yours. You can change this with the use of eBay’s Store enhancement features, such as providing your buyers with a newsletter, thereby allowing you to stay in touch with them, giving them exclusive special offers and persuading them to visit your website to buy from you directly. You can also, of course, promote your own website to them, so long as you don’t place a direct link to it from any of your listings. This is a breach of eBay policy. If you can persuade your buyers to return to you time and again, then you’re on a winner.

Branding your eBay Store is an easy undertaking. A logo is a great way to start. For a very small investment you can purchase a logo, customized with your store’s name, and then either use a matching template, or choose colors from the logo to integrate your listings with your store and enhance the overall appeal of your listings.

These methods, while so simple, are a very effective way of expanding your reach beyond eBay and growing your business to it’s full potential.

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The first in our new video series is now ready for you! In this tutorial you will discover how to view your eBay store statistics and find out which of your keywords are working hardest for you. These statistics are very important for anyone with an eBay Store. Having this information will allow you to maximise your efforts in the right direction, seeing which of your pages are the most popular and concentrating your marketing on those areas of your business where most profit is generated.

We hope this video is useful to you. You can view it here, or use the Videos link on the main menu.

If you have suggestions for any other tutorials you would like to see then please let me know and we’ll see what we can do.

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I spotted this very interesting article today by Derek Gehl on Marketingtips.com, outlining the 5 top reasons to open an eBay Store. I have quoted them here for you in full and you can read the original post here

Reason #5: More flexibility = more opportunities to sell in the format your buyers like best

Just because you have an eBay Store, it doesn’t mean you have to stop putting your items up for auction! An eBay store allows you to put your products in front of people in a variety of different ways.

My recommendation is to list 80% of your items in your store and 20% as auctions in order to drive more visitors to your store.

Reason #4: More automation = more free time for you!

With an eBay store, it’s far easier for you to automate daily chores such as relisting unsold items, asking for feedback, and keeping track of your inventory. The more you can automate your business, the more time you can spend growing it — and multiplying your profits!

Reason #3: More communication with buyers = more chances to sell to them in the future

When you have your own Store, eBay makes it easy for you to stay in touch with your bidders and customers, by allowing you to create your own store newsletter that eBay will send out on your behalf.

All you have to do is add a link at the top right corner of your store page that says, “Sign up for store newsletter” — and then eBay will automatically send people notices about your latest specials and products for sale.

It’s a great way to put your products right in front of your best potential customers… and encourage them to buy!

Reason #2: More exposure = more traffic

Unlike your regular auction listings, your eBay Store homepage — as well as your store category pages and any custom pages you create — doesn’t disappear once your seven-day auction is over. It has a constant presence on the Web.

And that means those pages can get indexed by the search engines!

So not only will a store help you get tons more exposure on eBay itself, you’ll also be able to put your products in front of a huge number of off-eBay shoppers, as well.

Reason #1: Lower eBay fees = more profits

As I said at the beginning of this article, when you own an eBay Store, your listing fees are way less expensive.

Just how much will you save? Well, if you run a regular auction for an item that costs $24.99, it’ll cost you 60 cents to insert your listing. But if you have a store, that same item will cost only 5 cents to list! That will add up to huge savings once you start listing a large number of items.

The final value fees are also considerably lower. For example, you have to pay 10% of the total value for every $24.99 item you sell through a regular auction. But when you own a store, you only have to pay 5.25% of the total value.

And money saved = more profits for you!

I think you’ll agree, this is some sound advice. As a store owner myself, I can safely say that it does save a LOT of money on listing fees. You can attract shoppers to your store by listing a few auctions and placing prominent links to your store homepage.

You can also promote your store outside eBay and in our forthcoming video series we’ll show you how you can achieve great results by using FREE resources to promote your store’s homepage.

So, what are you waiting for? Go get a store!

Basic eBay Store monthly subscriptions cost:

UK £6.00
US/Canada $15.95
Australia $14.95

To read this article in full visit: 5 Top Reasons to open an eBay Store

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Currently I’m engaged in the most fantastic online training program ever! The 30 Day Challenge is well underway with Ed Dale and Dan Raine at the helm. This free training is very valuable and highlights tools and methods to send your online business into orbit!

If you have any kind of business or would like to investigate the possibilities, then I highly recommend you take part in this challenge. It is completely free of charge and is jam-packed with high quality audio and video, great forums and so much more. Go on over and sign-up now! Take the 30 Day Challenge

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