eBay Store vs. Custom E-Commerce Website Site
EBay is an online auction where everyday people can sell an item or two with small upfront charges. People who have an ebay account can bid on these items until the sellers close, just like an in-person auction. Or, the seller can choose the ‘Buy it Now’ option, which lists an item at a fixed price and there is no bidding process. Payment can be done with a credit/debit card or the most popular method – PayPal, which keeps personal information confidential and also acts to prevent against fraudulent transactions. Once payment is confirmed, eBay deducts their fees, which is usually a percentage of the final sale. The fee schedule depends on the bidding price of the item. If a person has more than a few items to sell or wants sell on an ongoing basis, then the best option is to open an eBay store. These come with pre-designed templates, set-up is fairly easy as far as having a choice of shipping options, pricing and the type of customer a seller wants to do business with.
For example, a seller can make their shop invisible from buyers who have had negative feedback from other sellers in recent or have had problems getting their payments cleared on items they bought on ebay. Monthly fees for stores vary and other options are available. The disadvantages are that customization is limited and regardless of whether or not a sale is made; a flat, monthly fee must be paid in order to remain open. Some people start off by selling a few items and gradually move into opening up a store just to test the waters.
For some, opening an ecommerce store is a better solution. If skilled at desktop publishing, HTML or basic web design then this would give a person opportunity to show off their creative side. Even if a person has no artistic ability but has a vision or theme in mind, they would be more likely to get positive results from a customized ecommerce store as opposed to a pre-formatted template offered as part of an online auction package. At the time of set-up, payment preferences and other filters can be established with the webmaster or company running the site. Companies that offer e-commerce websites have other essentials such as email, weblogs, search engine optimization and marketing packages are usually included in the price. Fees for e-commerce set up are yearly and in most cases, less than that of online auctions when calculated on a monthly basis. This eliminates the hassles of dealing with a monthly bill, post-sale percentages to be paid to a third party and most online consignments would rather have a partnership with a separate store as opposed to an auction site.
The down side is that if a seller wants to cancel their store after, say, six months of operation – they will not get a refund of upfront fees that have been paid. Another possibility is that the seller is entirely responsible for the transaction – from beginning to end. This means providing efficient customer service to make sure those items were received in a timely fashion and unless the seller is a PayPal customer, taking responsibility for losses such as fraud and other non-payments.
All in all if you are starting out in the e-commerce world go for an ebay store. However if you are looking to start a business and make a living open a customized e-commerce store on your own domain and hosting.
Here is a list of what you will need to do.
- - Get a domain name and hosting package from a website host (around $150 per year).
- - Either buy a ecommerce package pre-setup (around $500 once off) or get a free package such as os-commerce and have it modified by a website designer and coder.
- - Have a webmaster (someone who knows about FTP uploading) to upload your site
- - Add your products and customize your store
- - Higher and SEO expert to get your website ranked higher in Google yahoo and other search engines. As with the real world its all about location location location. Being at the top of Google for your keyword is paramount for a profitable business. (Make note SEO will take 6 to 12 months to work, there are a lot of SEO scammers out there so make sure it’s a large company or a trusted company. And no one can guaranty a top position is Google walk away if they do).
- - Make sure to have as many payment options available, from pay pal to credit card Google checkout.