eBay VS Amazon Pt1
eBay and Amazon is the world largest online marketplace that allows internet entrepreneurs to make serious income from selling on their platforms and marketplace with or without their own website. Both of them are successful platform and marketplace but one or both of them my not go well with your product or business strategies.
They both came into existence right around the same time (1995-98). Over the years they both involved their product and service offering from eBay selling antique goods to back yard junk, nock off and brand new name brand item while Amazon evolved from only selling books and CDs to everything under the sun.
I will break my review of eBay and Amazon into two parts, my eyes are taking a toll on me so I will keep it to the point. I will start out by giving you a background of my experience on selling on both marketplace. I have sold on eBay since 1998 and also was a power seller selling over $35,000 per month in merchandise consistently one eBay for years. With this said, my review is not a business strategy set in stone to guarantee the creation of wealth on eBay, it is merely an outline with some simple stuff for entrepreneur who are looking to gain a new stream of income or expand their business brand or try something new if you are already selling one eBay.
EBay - Lets look at eBay service offering. lets see what eBay can do for your business, even if you are just selling a few junk laying around the house. Lets see what they offer and how it can beneficial to your product and business.
First I should point out that eBay provides a store front that’s reasonable in price and effective on publicizing your product and business. If you have a large inventory I would recommend opening a store front on eBay mainly to save on fee’s and create a brand within eBay community.
If you are a small time seller with a small amount of inconsistent inventory which product type keeps changing, I wouldn’t recommend a store front. I would recommend that you just only sell on regular auction and Buy It Now option.
One thing we can’t denies about eBay is their powerful global market reach and strong present within search engine and branding among many other things. We also have to keep in mind that eBay marketing strength stretch across the four corners of the internet, from comparison shopping, marketing platform to online classified among many other things.
Not to stray from my previous thought, but I have to point out the main difference between eBay and Amazon is fee’s. Fee’s will kill your bottom line and business if you are on a small profit margin and worst if you are a small seller on eBay. I will give you an example of how fee’s will kill your business. Say you have 50,000 books to sell. it will cost you a minimum of $5,000 in listing fee alone while on Amazon it will cost you $0.00. (zer0) to list until sold.
Big company like Buy.com and Sharper Image among many other companies can list half a million item on eBay with little fee’s if any at all while small seller have to pay full listing fee’s, this kind of unbalance marketplace are designed to weed out poor people and small sellers. In the beginning eBay loves you, in the end you are just too insignificant to pay any attention to.
I could keep going on with pros and cons about EBay, but I’m going to keep it short and straight to the point and let you know how your business could do well on eBay and not die on one of the world largest online marketplace.
Used eBay: First you have to used eBay like a rag, just the same way they will used you. You have to used eBay mainly for a marketing platform to get your brand , product and business notice and gives your business a kick start and get a few product sell while you at it.
The kind of free business exposure you received on eBay will cost you a fortune if you were to advertise directly to potential customers off eBay. eBay is more like a marketing worm hole for your business because it lets your brand, product and businesses readily available across the internet within days rather than waiting weeks if not months for search engine to organically index your site and product.
If you are a small business with the intention of expanding and getting larger, then I would highly recommend establishing your own website, not a store front or market place but your very own website. This is highly recommend for all small and growing eBay sellers. Keep in mind that selling on eBay or any other marketplace is not a rights and you can be kicked off for any reason at anytime. If you are a established business on eBay and eBay is your only source of income, then you are in for a reckoning if you received a substantial amount of orders and something went wrong and you couldn’t fill those order on time. Then you will have a substantial amount of pissed of customer leaving negative feedback which will look bloody on your feedback profile on eBay. Then you get banned, so established your very own website and build your eBay customer base. In short, build your eBay and any other marketplace business around your website.
So, to summarize everything above, these are the things you should do and need to do so your business can used and benefit from eBay…
- Get your own Website
- Open a eBay store if you have a substantial amount of inventory, say 50 plus item.
- Brand your business within the eBay community
- Build your eBay customer base off eBay, it is yours you paid for it.
- eBay is not your site and its not a rights to sell on eBay, you can be banned for any reasons forever.
- If it becomes clear that you cant make a profit one eBay, don’t give up. List a few item and keep a business present on eBay so you can drive customer to your website.
- eBay is not for everyone and its sure not for every product, you could list an item on eBay a 100 times and it wont sell, then you list on Amazon and it sells on your first try. Then gain, you wont have to re-list on Amazon because it will stay listed till it sells.
- Get involved in eBay forum, blog and other communities. This will leave a bread crumbs of your business, product and brand back to your website.
- If you decided to open a eBay store, remember to grab and supply your eBay store feed to search engine and other comparison shopping site. This way you can get additional exposure and eBay even give you a break and refund or credit some of your finally value fee if your directed customers to your eBay listing.
- Keep your business professionally and simple, just like Craigslist and Google home page.
- You are not on eBay to build feed back so don’t get emotionally with they feedback system.
- Educate yourself by going to your local library and check out books about selling on eBay or you can just buy from RealBigbuy.com.
Loading ...I will have eBay VS Amazon Pt2 which I will give you my review on Amazon.com
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