Migrating Your Offline Business to eBay
by Veronica Stone on October 12th, 2007
Imagine your business going from a street corner, where it’s possible that hundreds or even thousands of people see it everyday, to eBay, where millions will see it. Imagine going from the potential of a hundred customers a day to a potential of thousands. There are obvious benefits to migrating your offline business to eBay. Besides the potential to make a ton more money, there are also staffing issues. With an offline storefront, you obviously need employees to make things work. They have to be there to handle customers, take orders, ship them out, etc. With eBay, it’s automatic. All you have to do is ship the items.
Getting set up through eBay isn’t that difficult either. eBay offers a great resource called the Seller Onramp . Through telephone consulting, the Seller Onramp provides some pretty valuable information pertaining to selling strategies. The strategies teach a person how to gain many more customers and move items that are slow selling. Best of all, it’s a free service. They also offer great advice on topics like writing your listings, the best time to place an item up for bidding, and many more things you should know. Research has shown that those business owners involved in Seller Onramp move more items, gain more customers, and make more money than other eBay sellers.
You don’t have to worry, even if you’ve never visited eBay before. Their tools, such as the Merchant eCommerce Solutions Center, can help. This program shows business owners how to set up stores on eBay, how to sell efficiently and successfully, and different strategies.
Another benefit of migrating your business to eBay is the protection of PayPal payments. When someone confirms that they are going to purchase an item, the transaction can be completed through PayPal. It is a secure site where customers can feel safe entering their credit card information, and you will be sure that you will get the payment. You can even print custom shipping labels from PayPal for your eBay customers with the click of a button.
Placing your products in the right category on eBay allows your listings to reach a target market of people who are specifically searching for what you are selling. This is valuable to you as a merchant, because only people who are truly interested in purchasing the things that you have for sell will usually visit your site.
Among the many tools available to you through eBay automatic invoices, receipts and statements from eBay. You even have marketing tools – if you want to keep your customers up to date, eBay has a great option where you can send a newsletter to the people that you choose.
The greatest thing about migrating your offline business to eBay is this: with your offline store, you are closed nights, maybe weekends, holidays, etc. You also have to be there in your store to make money. With an eBay store, you are selling constantly, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. You are selling whether you are online or offline, rain or shine. The benefits are just too huge not to be taken advantage of.
