Why an ECommerce Website for eBay Sellers Is a MUST!
By Mark Alan Davies

For anyone who sells online and doesn't have an online eCommerce website then you need to read this because I'm going to tell you exactly why you MUST have one.

The first reason is if you sell on eBay or Amazon alone you are at their mercy. They constantly change their guidelines for sellers. Not only their guidelines of what you can and can not do and how you sell but they can and do change the costs involved in selling.

A recent example of this is the discount they allowed Top Rated Sellers. I used to get 20% discount on my eBay monthly invoice for being a Top Rated Seller but not long back that changed to 10%. What could I do about that? Nothing.

Another more widely known change that eBay enforced was that if you sold digital information products you could no longer offer these by download, you had to send them as a physical product (ie on disc). Not a problem for some, but for others it ended their businesses practically overnight.

I could go on and on about the changes made but the point I'm trying to make is that you have no control over your business. They say jump. You have to jump.

Now, in complete contrast to this, if you have your own eCommerce website you are in complete control. You make the rules. You decide the prices. You decide on how your products will be delivered. You decide on your own postage charges.You decide what you can and what you can't sell. A marked difference I'm sure you'll agree.

Now, another HUGE reason why you need your own eCommerce platform (and there are many to choose from) is that you will not pay any selling fees. Obviously you'll need to have a payment gateway in place but you won't have to pay a 'Final Value Fee'. In fact you'll wonder what one of those was!

Once you have an eCommerce website set up, and it really isn't that difficult (even for beginners) there are hardly any associated running costs. Infact I use Open Cart because I have my hosting,my domain and that is all I need, no ongoing payments to anybody else. It's also FREE to use and well supported. I Still use PayPal for my payment transactions but that's all and that's only because I already had a PayPal account and this is very very easy to integrate into Open Cart. I'd highly recommend Open Cart by the way, best one I've tried and it's easily the simplest to use and set up. You can be up and running in minutes.

What you need to do is have your eCommerce website running alongside your eBay shop. Once you receive an eBay sale, that's it, you have a customer and their associated details. It is at this point that it is so so important to collect customer information and use it by creating an e-mail list (I'll talk more about e-mail lists in more depth later).

Add each customers e-mail address to your customer list (this can be automated). Now you've got your list created you can call on these previous customers whenever you have a new product for sale by e-mailing them ALL with one simple e-mail you can easily create. They know your reliable and trustworthy because they've already purchased from you on eBay, plus you'll keep in touch with your 'list' regularly anyway (very important again).

But what's the point to it all? Simple. You use eBay to grow your customer list, then you use your eCommerce store and 'list' to make sales. You then have no need for eBay (except to grow your customer base) neither do you pay their fees. You can sell to YOUR customers at lower cost than eBay AND you will still make MORE profit per sale.

Now tell me why you wouldn't want to do this and why you don't need an eCommerce store.

Feel free to comment and thanks for reading,

Mark Davies

For more tips,advice and useful information view my blog here -

http://www.mark-davies-blog.com

See you there!

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