EBay Shop ?

[Graham Walters]

Is there anyone on here using a dedicated E Bay shop,

I am already selling things from Test Valley Models on EBay but the fees I'm encountering are eating into profits.
The basic plan looks Ok, but realistically how many products do you need to sell per month to make it work out cheaper ?

I've tried doing the math, but to be honest it's doing my head in trying to make the comparison

[dannyboy]

Graham, this does not actually answer your question, but I have bought lots of stuff via ebay. Quite often when an item arrives, there is some sort of note stating "buy direct from me at www.whatever.co where my prices are x% cheaper than my ebay listings" or words to that effect. Presumably the vendor has the same problems with fees. Maybe something you could do .

[Graham Walters]

Graham, this does not actually answer your question, but I have bought lots of stuff via ebay. Quite often when an item arrives, there is some sort of note stating "buy direct from me at www.whatever.co where my prices are x% cheaper than my ebay listings" or words to that effect. Presumably the vendor has the same problems with fees. Maybe something you could do .

We do that as well, and even though we have had return buyers via EBay, they either don't look at the online shop, or don't sign up to email alerts.

The worrying thing is that sales from the shop have stopped completely, even though visits are up ?

[daveg]

Sadly too far for me to visit but hopefully the footfall will turn into sales over the coming weekend.

I'm on your email list and your website bookmarked.

Best wishes.

Dave G

[Ian Morton]

Yes, I use an eBay shop as well as a dedicated website.

Some observations - all are generalisations and there are exceptions:

eBay buyers are not 'loyal' they may be repeat customers but they tend to search by item rather than by vendor.

eBay customers do not tend to swap to your on-line shop even if you tell them that they will get the same service and a better price.

You need your eBay sales to update your POS stock levels or have separate eBay stocks so that you don't sell the same item to two different people.

Regard your base eBay fee as part of your advertising budget - provide lots of information about where you are and when you are open on your listings and they will bring in people who "saw you on eBay".

[Graham Walters]

Yes, I use an eBay shop as well as a dedicated website.

Some observations - all are generalisations and there are exceptions:

eBay buyers are not 'loyal' they may be repeat customers but they tend to search by item rather than by vendor.

eBay customers do not tend to swap to your on-line shop even if you tell them that they will get the same service and a better price.

You need your eBay sales to update your POS stock levels or have separate eBay stocks so that you don't sell the same item to two different people.

Regard your base eBay fee as part of your advertising budget - provide lots of information about where you are and when you are open on your listings and they will bring in people who "saw you on eBay".

Thanks for the reply,

I am assuming that you are suggesting the monthly cost should be "written off" and that expecting to make a profit (or lack of it) from the sales has to be balanced against the increased exposure of the business as a whole.
If that is the case then it is a cheaper form of advertising, providing the charges are reasonable, which I suppose you have control over via the amount of items you sell, and therefore pay commission on to EBay and Paypal.

I can see I need to do more thinking about this.

[Jimmy77]

Hi Graham,

If the sales from the online shop have stopped completely it may be down to people not feeling confident enough with the site to place orders. It may be worth spending time going through every single item/page to correct things where necessary, and to give it a little more uniformity. Without trying to nit pick there are a couple of things I've noticed:

Not all the items for sale have a product code. Some people like myself will search by product code, and if its not listed I won't see the item in order to make a purchase.

Some items are listed in the incorrect scale. If you check your diecast section you will see you have OO scale items listed under N scale (the Royal Tiger Coach & Fordson Bluebird for example), and vice versa you have N scale items listed under OO scale (the Fordson tractor making another appearance!). That may explain why your customer the other day needed to confirm what scale an item was.

I noticed on one of the items (the Peco ST-90) you have a picture with another model shops logo on it, which doesn't look very good. This item is also described as OO gauge, when it should be N.

I know these are only small things, but to a prospective customer it may put them off using the website. I hope you take the above in the constructive manner in which it was meant 

Cheers,

Jimmy

[Graham Walters]

Hi Graham,

If the sales from the online shop have stopped completely it may be down to people not feeling confident enough with the site to place orders. It may be worth spending time going through every single item/page to correct things where necessary, and to give it a little more uniformity. Without trying to nit pick there are a couple of things I've noticed:

Not all the items for sale have a product code. Some people like myself will search by product code, and if its not listed I won't see the item in order to make a purchase.

Some items are listed in the incorrect scale. If you check your diecast section you will see you have OO scale items listed under N scale (the Royal Tiger Coach & Fordson Bluebird for example), and vice versa you have N scale items listed under OO scale (the Fordson tractor making another appearance!). That may explain why your customer the other day needed to confirm what scale an item was.

I noticed on one of the items (the Peco ST-90) you have a picture with another model shops logo on it, which doesn't look very good. This item is also described as OO gauge, when it should be N.

I know these are only small things, but to a prospective customer it may put them off using the website. I hope you take the above in the constructive manner in which it was meant 

Cheers,

Jimmy

Thanks for that, mistakes happen when you entrust work to a third party, I shall check out the items you mention.
I have now taken over entering the stock again, so things should improve on that front.

I am slowly working my way through all of the items in the physical shop and the online one to make sure they match.

The Tractor is not a mistake though, it is available in both scales.
I am also adding manufacturer product codes to the descriptions and tags, so searches should start to reveal them to you.

Edit
Apologies noticed description didn't match the collection with the tractors!