Ebay Store
 

Does anyone here have one? are they worth the time and effort? I have a whole house full of antiques and collectibles I want to sell. Any advice would be appreciated. :D

To get "stuff" exposed to a national audience this ebay thing is valid in my opinion. For example my friend with the lung cancer reciently did not survive. His son asked me how to dispose of his die cast collection and get reasonable prices for the "stuff".

There is no major demand locally so without ebay I suspect he would be stuck with the items or have to almost give them away. The fly in the ointment in your case may be packaging your type of stuff for shipping.

I have also suggested this to the wife after I go to where you shovel coal into furnaces. I have aquired quite an eclectic collection of this and that over the years. It should not go through a yard sale and realise only pennies on the dollar at best.

Although I also asked her to throw my clothes out as I do not want the next guy to get them. She has informed me that it is not an issue at all as they do not fit him anyways.

How does a ebay store differ from regular ebay auctions? :)

Lower listing costs perhaps. My daughter has a steady ebay store running out of Ottawa, Canada. I believe it has done fairly well.

She actually buys store inventories and moves them. She started out selling sweaters. Still markets to only women and has a good customer base in europe.

Are they hard to set up? :D

CLK Man,

Have you done much selling on eBay? If so, have you done so recently - say, during the past six months or so? They've made a number of substantial changes.

Here's the 2011 Spring Seller Update, which includes some fee charts. Note that in some cases, different fee schedules apply to those who have store subscriptions.

If you're not a store subscriber, then you can list up to 50 auction-style listings in a month without paying any basic insertion fees. The Buy It Now feature is available for those at no additional cost, too.

Of course, you pay a final value fee for any item that sells. That fee is based on the sales price plus shipping & handling costs.

Even with the "free 50", there could be some up-front fees to list, depending on optional features you could use. Look at "optional feature fees" on their regular page of selling fees. For example, some folks pay a lot of money to let eBay host their pictures. However, some categories - Collectibles, Art, Pottery & Glass, and Antiques - get a certain number of eBay-hosted pictures for free. Some sellers (I'm one of them) host their images elsewhere and avoid eBay picture hosting altogether.

See how nice and simple it all is with eBay? :D

You might try working with the "free 50" for a while, and see how it goes before considering a store subscription.

Thanks for the advice man. btw how do I get the 50 free auctions? :)

I have hardly any experience using the "free 50", but I don't think you have to do anything to get them. Any fees you incur - by using non-free "extras", or by listing in a non-free format, or by listing additional items past the free 50 - get added to your eBay invoice.

Before you finally submit an eBay listing, I think you are shown exactly what up-front fees are going to be associated with that listing.

There must be a monthly base fee for having the store-- all the store listings are for 29 days, and feebay is not gonna give sellers that kind of exposure for free-- You pretty much have to run a buy it now with each item, or you could add a note in to perspective buyers make your offer-as long as its not lower that the starting price--and then choose to accept /end the sale in the first week etc.. Thje regular auctions-- starting out low and setting a reserve -I dont do, I just start it at the lowest ill accept , and rerun till people get the picture-my auctions are not craigslist and im not relisting any lower.

Yes, there is a base monthly fee for having a store. I have a "Basic" store, which costs $15.95 per month. The insertion fee I pay for a Fixed Price listing is $0.20. I run them all with a 30 day duration, set to automatically be relisted if unsold (eBay calls it "Good 'Til Cancelled").

Other types of stores have higher monthly fees, but lower insertion fees, and a bunch of other features that aren't of much interest to me. Here's a comparison of different store subscriptions.

The "free 50" I mentioned earlier applies to auction-style listings for sellers who do not have a store subscription. If I want to use the "free 50", I have to use an eBay ID other than the one that has the store.

An Ebay store is for fixed priced listings only. You can accept best offers on your items therein. However, in order to get the best price a regular auction style listing is usually best. People like to fight for things. When they're just offered as a fixed price item, they oftentimes think it's overpriced and/or undesireable. That's because, in their minds, if it weren't, it would have been sold already.

EBay has become very problematic for new and established sellers alike. They have "listing limits" now. That is, a new seller just can't come along and throw 50 items for sale that have, for example, a cumulative value of $10,000. To begin they are only allowed to list a very low quantity of items with a low total value for the first month. You'll have to go to eBay's site and see what the exact limitations are. After 30 days you can ask for an increase in the limits and they will usually do it if you have good ratings.

Those with eBay store subscriptions can list items in the regular auction format, too. Some higher-volume auction sellers prefer to do it that way because store subscribers have a different schedule of final value fees for auction-style listings than non-store-subscribers do.

See fees for eBay stores.

Ive never heard of listing limits and that dosent make sense-The only thing ebay cares about is income--The more -the better. New sellers waste a good chunk of change before they figure out the ins and outs.
I enjoy seeing what some people will pay for certain old "junk", I usually list 15 items a week -and wait a week or two to relist stuff that didn't sell, that gets inquires on stuff and a lot sells outside of ebay that way-but paypal still gets their cut. Out of the 15 usually only 4 "turn green" per week.
Ebay means EbayMotors to me,Sooner or later im gonna run out of valuable scrapmetal and I dont want to have to be a strictly buy wholesale, resale chinese repop car parts-thats the tough way IMO.

I've never bumped into listing limits in person, but from some of what I've read on the eBay community message boards, I am inclined to believe that they exist.

Thanks for all of the advice guys, I guess I will stick with the auction style. :D

Just because yu've never heard of them doesn't mean they don't exist. Have you ever heard the saying "just because the masses agree that doesn't make it correct"?

Here's a wonderful letter that eBay sends sellers advising them of their selling limits:
"Hello XXXX,

This message is to notify you that in order to assist you in building a
strong foundation for future transactions on eBay, we have placed a
selling limit for your listing activity. These limits are not in place
as a consequence, rather as a preventative measure to help our seller's
keep from becoming overwhelmed with large increases in account activity.


Many members already have limits placed on their account. Account limits
allow us to learn about your selling activity and make sure you're
adhering to our selling practices policy and performance standards.
Limits vary by seller and can change over time.

During this time, we want to confirm you are continuing your positive
history by ensuring you are keeping focused on creating great
transactions for your customers. Doing so will greatly increase the
chances of an ongoing successful eBay business and help to avoid any
future account issues that may arise. These limits will allow you to
continue selling while also allowing us to monitor your incoming
Feedback, Detailed Seller Ratings, and any customer complaints. Please
understand that the actions we have taken do not mean your account
performance is not good, but we do this to help all eBay sellers further
improve their selling history and account performance.

Because you are doing well at selling at these volumes, you should not
hit your selling limit unless you dramatically increase your sales.
However, if you do wish to grow your business, we will gradually
increase your limit as you show that you are able to successfully handle
the higher sales volume. The selling limit on your account is based on
the number and dollar amount of open (active) items and successfully
sold items per calendar month.

You can now sell up to X items monthly or up to $Y monthly.
(Keep in mind that this includes multiple quantity listings which can
greatly influence this number.)

If you do reach one of these amounts during the course of a month you
will be unable to list additional items or increase the price or
quantity of your active items until some of your items end without a
winning bidder or until the 1st of the next calendar month, (If you are
still exceeding the selling limit at the first of the next calendar
month your selling activity will continue to be blocked.)

We believe that your limit is flexible enough to allow you to sell any
current items and is in accordance with the volume you may have listed
in the past. If you do reach the selling limit on your account and want
to increase your sales, please work within the amount for at least 30
days. Once that time frame has expired on XX/XX/2011, please reply to
this message and we will conduct a review to see if adjustments are
appropriate.

We hope that you will use this selling limit to your advantage and focus
on succeeding with your current sales. We value you as a seller and hope
to work with you in order to continue to establish a strong selling
history and successful business relationship. It is in our best interest
to help our sellers succeed so that we can have a positive trading
environment and eliminate bad buying experiences on the site.

If you need further assistance, please don't hesitate to reply to this
email and let us know.

Sincerely,

Chris
eBay
Customer Support"

Yes, but a store is just that, a fixed price venue. You can have a store subscription and list items any way you choose. However, the advantage of putting items in your "store" is the low upfront cost which is just 5 cents per listing that's good until you cancel it. If you're just going to list auctions and not have fixed price listings then there's really no advantage to an eBay store.

The details of what an eBay store subscription means have changed substantially over the recent few years. A number of changes have been made at different times, and I don't have a detailed chronology of it, but...

At one point in time, a seller without a store subscription had access to two "formats" - (1) Auction and (2) Fixed Price. Each format could have a duration as long as 10 days. For the purposes of exposure in eBay search, those were considered to be "core" items, and could be found using the regular default search. Both of those formats had insertion fees that were based on the minimum price for which the item could be sold; the higher that price, the higher the cost to "go fishing".

A seller with a store subscription had access to an additional format - Store Inventory Format. The insertion fee was a flat $0.05 per item per 30 days. Items listed as Store Inventory Format were not considered to be "core" items, and could not be found using the regular default search. In order to see store items in a search, a prospective buyer had to specify that option in the search. As a matter of strategy, store operators often included some Auction and/or Fixed Price items in their mix of listings in the hope of having prospective buyers "find" their store through the search exposure those formats received.

Today, many things are different than they were at the point in time described above.

Auction format - aside from the "free 50" - still has insertion fees that depend upon the minimum price for which the item can be sold.

Fixed Price format now has a flat insertion fee, and can have a duration as long as 30 days. For those without a store subscription, the basic insertion fee is $0.50, regardless of item price.

Store Inventory Format no longer exists. Yes, listings will show up "in a store" if one looks at that store, but they are all regular Fixed Price listings, available through the regular default search. For Fixed Price items, sellers with store subscriptions have discounted insertion fees compared to those without - either $0.20, $0.05, or $0.03 per item per 30 days, depending on the type of store subscription.

That's true for many sellers. The exception to that would be a seller who does so much business in auctions that he wants the different final value fee schedule (for auctions) that comes with a store subscription.