eBay advice please

[Rusty Nuts]

Thinking of setting up a eBay shop, would appreciate any do's and dont's. Thinking of selling small jewellery items through a basic package.

Thanks in advance.

Shindha

[slippy]

My missus is looking at this so I will be tracking this topic if you don't mind

[neilb]

Plus points are you get some included subscriptions and listings are cheaper, down sides listing are not as visible as normal listings (if you are selling items that have a lot of competition you will be way down the list) , your FVF are higher and it can be quite hard to keep your stock up to date if you are selling it else where as well eg if you list an item and say you have 10 available once 1 is bought you can not change the quantity available so if you only have 5 available because you have sold some by other means you have to cancel your listing and re-list with the revised quantity.

Probably as clear as mud...but hope it helps

Ask yourself the question - how many times have I bought from an ebay shop or visited an ebay shop?

[gee_fin]

Bear in mind the fees. Calculate how much the listing costs, then calculate the likely end sale fee, and then budget in PayPal costs (another 3.5%). Basically, for items sold through eBay, they cost me about 10% more than items outside of eBay

Upsides to shop are purely cheaper listings. As mentioned above though, they're less visible than normal listings.

Also, download eBay's Turbo Lister program (it's free) as it will make your life a lot easier.

Personally, eBay for me is just a means for advertising essentially, their system is annoying, their fees are ridiculous, their help/support is non-existant but, to counter this, they have millions upon millions of users