Ebay shops

As we were researching this feature, news broke that Ebay is no longer allowing the sale of downloadable goods either on the auction site or in its shops; these will only be allowed as classified ads. This highlights one of the problems of using someone else's service to run a core part of your business: lack of control.

If, however, your products are made of molecules and not electrons, Ebay could be an option. While you're at the mercy of someone else's trading terms you benefit from having your shop visible to the millions of Ebay visitors. Being listed with your competitors can also be of benefit, as visitors can easily compare prices.

Building an Ebay shop is easy enough, but you're somewhat limited to its supplied templates. Although you can customise them, the colours and font sizes are generally restrictive. Having said that, the process is very quick and on the "Featured Shop" level you get a couple of marketing tools to help your shop appear near the top of the listings.

The basic shop costs £6 per month, for which you get five pages (although each page can have several items). By paying £30 a month you get ten pages plus Selling Manager Pro and better traffic data reports. For £300 a month you can have an Anchor shop, which gives you more marketing tools, a better placement on Ebay and more ability to customise, but still only 15 pages.

You'll also have to pay per item. Ebay's standard insertion rates apply on top of this monthly fee, so things can get expensive compared to other e-commerce solutions - though there are no extra hosting costs.

Ebay shops provide a quick way of selling online and bring a slew of potential buyers to your store. But the limitations and relatively high cost means they're more suited to promoting a selection of items rather than providing a complete inventory.

Author: Mark Newton