Ebay Shops

[russbeer]

Does anyone on DF have or run a 'shop' on Ebay?

I'm interested in setting one up to sell some bits and pieces as an ongoing little venture. Do they cost more than selling on ebay in general, and how easy are they to set up?

[Cooleo]

I'm coming up to the end of my first year on eBay and for me, It's been a great success.

They do cost more than selling on eBay then usual but I've seen my profits double if not from having one. I pay £14.99 a month for the shop front which isn't really that hard to cover. Setting them up is an absolute breeze, all very user friendly using the eBay selling pages. I would say, If you have a steady stream of a fair bit of items to sell, Go for it! As long as you keep your eyes on the fees, it should be a walk in the park.

When it comes to selling items, Be sure to keep your description as near to the item as possible as buyers will now judge you on how many stars you have for each category. Be sure to answer messages and other forms of contact as soon as possible as buyers grade you on this too. Be sure to keep your feedback at 100%, Positive is always good, Neutral is no worries but Negative hurts your rep. If you feel the Negative is undeserved, There is a manor of ways of getting it removed. The best way is to message the buyer and find out why. Otherwise, There is always calling up eBay support or writing a swift letter to them asking them to remove it.

When it comes to posting items, Always send them where you can get a signature. This helps alot for when people try to scam you out of items, and believe me, It will happen! Also, It always helps to keep all the receipts you get from the post office, so when items go missing, You can mash it into royal mails site and see if the buyer is BSing to you or it actually has gone missing, at which point you need to fill in a lost parcel form to get your cash back. If the value is over say £25, use a courier service such as parcel2go or interparcel which start from £4.99

For the business side of things, I would suggest a separate PayPal account to that of your personal one, It makes it alot easier to keep tabs on it that way. Also, from PayPal you can download your month by month data, so saves you having to record each time you make a sale. The best thing to do at the end of each month, is grab a copy of that data and put it in Excel/Open Office/Whatever. From there, You can work out how much you've made, but don't forget to factor in refunds/postage/fees.


Hope this helps, If you need anymore advice, Just ask

[russbeer]

thanks cooleo, a big help.

So you pay £14.99 a month on top of the regular ebay seller fees? That sounds a bit steep for what I was intending to sell.

[ant3b]

I think the fees are slightly cheaper the better you get etc .. could be wrong

[tombott]

The seller fees are less with a shop, plus if you become a powerseller you get further discounts.

[Cooleo]

The fees are somewhat cheaper when running the shop. You pay the £14.99, but then all your fees drop. You can see them here:

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/sell/storefees.html

[Thrush]

I've been thinking about creating a store and selling bits and pieces from Japan.

I will have to look into this!

Cheers!

[lloydi]

I've been thinking about creating a store and selling bits and pieces from Japan.

I will have to look into this!

Cheers!

what like glow in the dark fruit and veg?

[Thrush]

yea plus lots more.

[russbeer]

Gadgetty stuff? posting to the UK?

[Thrush]

Well I'm unsure. The last time I looked into it some guy was doing a nice bit of business on Blu-ray disks.

But there is loads of stuff that sells well...... sweets is a big seller. If you've never had cherry blossom kit-kats you have never lived good man!

[Thrush]

Luckly, creating an account outside of the uk I should be able to avoid british taxes! (which is always nice)

[Cooleo]

I had Aloe Vera and Wasabi KitKats from Japan a few weeks back. Needless to say I wont be eating them again.

[{{909}}]

i should have probably looked at doing this before I sold off all my CDs and Vinyl, they have had almost £200 quid off me in fees already.

[russbeer]

But there is loads of stuff that sells well...... sweets is a big seller. If you've never had cherry blossom kit-kats you have never lived good man!

Cool, let us know your ebay name or give us a link to some of your adverts so i can keep an eye out, I love trying weird flavoured shit!

[Thrush]

Will do (if I ever get around to it)

[Thrush]

Pushing this up again.

Would it be better to go with ebay America or Ebay UK? I remember reading a few years back that UK listings are not very prominent on the US website.

[russbeer]

i wouldn't know, but can imagine the US site gets more traffic than the UK and the US ads also appear at the end of the local ones on ebay uk? so the US one sounds better but i'm sure other know better

[Cooleo]

Just do US but make sure your listings say international so then it will appear on every eBay site. I even got a few people who buy regularly from me, from singapore.