eBay Business All-in-One For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Chapter 4: Deciding When You Need an eBay Store

In This Chapter

• Understanding the lure of online stores
• Counting the costs
• Setting up a store
• Marketing and making a sale

If you're doing well selling your items on eBay, are you itching to open an eBay Store? Have you used the eBay Buy It Now feature in one of your listings? Have you sold via Fixed Price listings? Did either work for you? An eBay Store is a giant collection of your listings. If you're a highly active seller, having an eBay Store may help your business (plus you get more free listings a month and other benefits).

Opening an eBay Store can expand a successful business. An eBay Store provides you with your own little corner of eBay where you can leverage your good relationships with your customers and sell directly to them. But the eBay Stores platform is not a total solution, and having an eBay Store is no one-way ticket to Easy Street. (There's no such ticket anyway. But you knew that.)

I get e-mails all the time from people who open their own eBay Stores and are still not successful in moving merchandise. Why? Because running an eBay Store is not an instant key to online success. And because you can sell on eBay without having a designated eBay Store. No matter how many money-back guarantees you receive from online gurus promising magical success on eBay, the only magic is putting your shoulder, nose, and whatever else to the grindstone — and exerting the effort necessary to bring customers to your store.

If you're ...