Section 160. About eBay Businesses

160. About eBay Businesses

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

124 About Selling on eBay

SEE ALSO

152 About Advanced Seller's Tools

161 Set Up an eBay Store

If you're serious about selling and frequently sell many different items, you'd do well to set up your own online storefront on eBay, called an eBay store . An eBay store is your own private area on eBay, where you can sell your goods and customize the way your store looks. eBay stores offer a variety of benefits for serious sellers:

KEY TERM

eBay store An online storefront on eBay where you can sell your goods and customize the way the store looks and how the items are displayed and organized.

• Lower listing fees When you set up your own store, you pay less for each auction listing.

• Less time building auction listings You don't have a time limit for each item you auctionyou can list them for 30, 60, 90, or 120 days or permanently until you take the listing down from your store.

• More promotional opportunities eBay will help you promote your store in a variety of ways, and you can use a cross-promotional tool for even more promotion.

• Potentially more profits eBay claims that those who sell using eBay stores have a 25% average increase in sales the first three months after opening an eBay store.

• Free monthly reports You'll get reports on vital information such as monthly gross sales, conversion rates, and number of buyers .

• More professional-looking auctions When you have a storefront, you're trusted more by buyers. In fact, some buyers specifically look for eBay stores from which to buy.

You have to pay a monthly fee to open a store. A basic store costs $9.95 per month. If you build it into a thriving business, you can spend $49.95 to be a featured store and $499.95 per month to be an anchor store. These higher-priced options come primarily with a great deal more promotion efforts on the part of eBay.

When you open an eBay store, eBay helps promote your business with special listings and links.

To open your eBay store, you must be a registered eBay seller and have your credit card on file with eBay. You also must have a minimum feedback rating of 20 or pay a $5 fee to get an ID Verified listing. And you must be able to accept credit card payments from an Internet payment service such as PayPal or through a credit card merchant account.

TIP

To accept PayPal payments, you must have an email address and register at www.paypal.com.