Showing posts with label free shopping cart software. Show all posts
Showing posts with label free shopping cart software. Show all posts

Thursday, 27 September 2012

Why it may be time to branch out from eBay

Having an eBay account to buy and sell products has become a way of life for many people who use the marketplace to purchase their goods, sell items they want to get rid of and even make a living by running an eBay store.

While the site has large traffic, many stores and a variety of different products available for customers, the increasing fees, customer demands and guidelines which people must follow has becoming an increasing problem for many online sellers. 

For this reason, many online stores are now considering branching out from eBay. By this I do not mean leaving eBay altogether as the traffic and sales the site can generate is substantial and something that no business should miss out on. However, businesses shouldn't rely on eBay as their only online selling channel as you are essentially using someone else's place to sell your products rather than having your own independent store. 

Creating your own ecommerce store that is either separate or integrates with your eBay store can be beneficial for a number of reasons:

  • It separates your business from all other eBay sellers, allowing you to not only develop your own brand image, but also increase the number of users that will become aware of you and the products you have for sale. Customers would now come directly to your store rather than carrying out an eBay search and just stumbling to your store through the results. 
  • Provides you with more places for customers to come across your products. This also allows you to take further advantage of both social and mobile commerce by having your store appear correctly on mobile devices. It is expected that in the coming months leading up to Christmas, sales through mobile friendly stores will account for 20% of all online sales. 
  • Allows you to have a place to sell your products where you don't have to pay the added eBay fees and the store owner has much more control than the customer. 
  • Enables you to have a customised layout and design that relates more to your store and the items you sell. Once you have created a custom design for your ecommerce store, you can then apply that design to your eBay store, breaking away from the generic eBay style and improving the professional brand image your store has.

You may think that expanding your business to branch out from eBay would be a lot more work, but the truth is that having your own ecommerce store really is no extra work. Since we at eSellution began offering a free ecommerce store, we have seen a number of eBay store owners branch out and take their first steps into creating their own brand image through developing an ecommerce store, many of these because they have finally grown fed up with eBay. Our software has an easy to use dashboard interface that allows you to monitor and manage all of your products across all of your platforms easily. 

If you run an eBay store but have been thinking about branching out and trying your hand at creating an ecommerce store, you can sign up for a free ecommerce store with eSellution now at: http://www.esellution.co.uk/pricing.html

This gives you the opportunity to have your own store separate from eBay that has a mobile friendly layout and also has a Facebook version of the store for you to take advantage of the growing marketing and selling power of the social media site. 

Even if you have a really successful eBay store that provides you with a number of customers and sales every day, why limit your potential growth by just staying with eBay? Reaching out and developing your own brand identity allows you to further increase your sales and truly see how far your business can go. 

Thursday, 6 September 2012

Develop a brand identity for your business

While the majority of people selling online find they have the most success when selling through their eBay store, they shouldn't overlook the success that branching out to your own ecommerce store could bring. By branching out I don't mean stop selling on eBay. eBay is one of the biggest marketplaces to sell your products online and should always be one of the channels you use to sell. 

Although you may have dedicated customers, a good public image and a very positive seller rating, you are still essentially just one of thousands of other shops all using the eBay marketplace to sell your products. Having your own ecommerce store allows you to break away from the constraints of eBay, create your own individual domain and start creating a totally unique brand identity. 

The more places you have that advertise your products, the more chance you are going to have of attracting customers to your website. However, what puts people off is the cost it requires to set up an ecommerce site as you must first pay for the domain, then pay for an ecommerce company to setup and implement the ecommerce software for you to begin selling through your ecommerce store. As eBay charges much less in terms of fees, many people tend to stick with only their eBay store. 

The key to success for any business comes in developing a brand identity which is done through establishing a presence on social media as well as increasing your sales through channels such as mobile commerce, social commerce, eBay and of course, having your own ecommerce store. It is all of these aspects that will truly allow your business to grow and while you may see great success in selling through just one platform such as eBay, you aren't going to be able to achieve your business's true potential until you begin selling through multiple channels.  While some ecommerce companies do charge substantial fees to use their ecommerce shopping cart software, this isn't the case with all companies. For example, we at eSellution want to try and help every business become successful and understand that some people don't have substantial amounts of money to spend setting up their website. For those people there are a number of free ecommerce platforms, such as ourselves, who can help you set up your ecommerce store and begin branching out across multiple platforms. 

If you are someone looking to expand to an ecommerce store, be sure to check out our free ecommerce software using the link below.