Opening an eBay Shop

eBay has three levels of shop, Basic, Featured and Anchor. This post considers the benefits of an eBay shop and compares the different packages.Reasons to get an eBay ShopAn eBay shop is a very cost effective way of having an online store with an integrated payment solution (PayPal) and (semi) guaranteed traffic. It is your foothold on the internet and a place where your customers can see all the items you have for sale and make additional purchases. The benefits of a shop (all subscription levels) are as follows:One place (unique URL) where all your items can be viewed and searchedCustom pages where you can tell your customers more about your productsCustomised web address. e.g.http://stores.eBay.co.uk/auctioning4u Promotion boxes for advertising products and special offersShop categories - organise your products into up to 300 categoriesCustomisation - brand the store with your logo and look and feelAccess to eBay store inventory format - cheap, long duration listingsPicture hostingPromotion when eBayers search for items in the related shop's linkCross-promotion boxes on your listingsEmail marketingPromotional materials (leaflets, business cards etc)Search engine keyword specification - specify the keywords for your shop to enable your shop to be found by the search enginesListing feeds - the shop inventory items are automatically submitted to Froogle - Google's shopping comparison engineTraffic reports. Track where how your customers find your itemsBasic eBay Shop - 6 per monthThis level is sufficient for most sellers, I would recommend it for all serious eBay sellers as it give you a foothold on eBay and the internet in general and allows you to list in shop inventory format - a great way to upsell to customers. The basic shop has all the benefits discussed above, with the following salient features:5 Custom pagesFree email marketing (100/month)Basic Omniture traffic reports1MB picture hostingFeatured eBay Shop - 30 per monthIf you are a high volume eBay seller then the extras available at this level make it worth considering. Furthermore if you add up all the extras you get with the subscription, it does not cost that much more.Free Sales Manager ProFree Sales Reports PlusBetter Placement in the Shops DirectoryMore in Depth Omniture Statistics (Traffic Reports)1000 emails per month10 Custom Shop pagesOption of Minimal eBay Header StyleIf you make use of Seller manager Pro (4.99/mth) and Sales Reports plus (3.00/mth) along with the 6.00 youd pay anyway for a basic shop then a Featured shop will only cost you an additional 16.01/mth and that is after VAT.Anchor eBay Shop - 300 per monthIf you are top eBay seller, you could consider an eBay anchor shop. The additional benefits are:-15 Custom Shop PagesShowcase Placement of your logo in Shops Directory Pages (http://stores.ebay.co.uk )More Free eMail Marketing (4000/mth)50MB picture hostingPretty expensive for what you get in my opinion. I once talked to someone from eBay who could not give me a decent answer for why anyone would want one.Full details of the subscription levels can be found herehttp://pages.ebay.co.uk/storefronts/subscriptions.html Choosing Your levelWhich ever level of shop you choose budget it against your sales and the number of listings you have on the site.If you make 30 sales a month then a Basic shop will cost you 6.00/30 = 20p per saleIf you make 200 sales a month then a Featured shop will cost you 30.00/200 = 15p per saleIf you make 5000 sales a month then an Anchor shop will cost you 300.00/5000 = 6p per saleCheck your margins, work out the cost of your shop averaged across your sales, and decide whats an affordable cost for your business. Whilst the a featured shop is pretty cheap and therefore not really worth analysing in terms of sales, an anchor shop is a servious invesment by comparision. I would recommend trialing one for a month and seeing if it makes a difference to your eBay vital statistics.Do not make the mistake of thinking that paying for the most expensive shop will increase your sales significantly. If you have the money you can analyse you sales to see if changing to an anchor shop makes any difference, but the decision should be simply on performance and not based on an assumption that more expensive is better.If you found this guide useful please vote YES below to show your appreciation. Thanks!This Guide was written by Hello Baby - Please visit theHello Baby eBay Store