Auction Power Guide

Ebay has provided some amazing opportunities for many people to earn online. This widely popular auction site has become the primary destination for users who wish to purchase anything ranging from tangible products to digital items hence making eBay a website visited by millions of people every day. Because of the volume of transactions happening in its pages, eBay has also become a virtual market place where thousands, if not millions, of dollars exchange hands on a daily basis as well. Do you want a piece of that big, big pie? Then you must first have to establish an eBay store.

Now, this is not a strong recommendation. This article is not meant as a sales pitch for a membership with them, rather, it seeks to present the advantages and disadvantages of building your own store front. You must remember that this auction isnt the only place where you could peddle your goods. It is a good place where you could sell your items, but there are other alternatives you could consider. Should you settle with eBay? Or should you explore the alternative options? Lets study the matter more closely.

There are most certainly a lot of benefits that could be gained from establishing your own auction store. Lets take a look at them.

You would be able to sell in a hotly visited environment. You will be able to expose your products to a wide array of prospects.

Once you have upgraded to a Featured Store, you would be given $30 worth of PPC keywords per month. This means that your store would appear prominently in the results for the particular keywords that users will search for. Such would most certainly drive more traffic to your auctions.

A Featured Store would also deliver some advanced reports for your auctions. You could use the statistics delineated therein to improve the way you construct your sales pages, and the way you present your items for better efficiency in your future offers.

A Featured Store will also allow you more auction pages, which would mean more exposure for your products. Its still a numbers game. The more auctions you have running, the more earning opportunities you could capitalize on.

A Featured Store would allow you to reduce the size of the auction sites banner appearing in your every auction. This would give you the chance to work on your page and bring the focus of your visitors to the items you will be selling.

This site provides a certain level of seller protection and dispute resolution for potential problems you might encounter with your buyers.

Though these are great advantages for your online business, please bear in mind that they do not come without cost. There are also other disadvantages that are attached to having your own store.

These stores don`t come free. A basic store setup would cost $15.95 per month. A Store status would cost an even higher $49.95 per month. And the king of all kings, an Anchor Store, would require you to spend an onerous $499.95 per month.

Having your own store front would pressure you to perform well when it comes to your sales. Though some may consider this as a benefit since such will motivate the seller to plan his course of action, the dangers will be experienced when you fail to earn enough profit to cover the cost of your subscription.

People go to this auction site expecting the best deals in the online market. You have to compete at this level, otherwise, the moment people would see the going rate for your auction, they`d immediately hop to the next item up for sale.

You will be bound by their selling policies. You cannot go around some of these restrictive policies, otherwise, you account can get suspended, or worse, terminated.

Establishing an store is a solid choice for a business model. But you have to determine your goals as well as your marketing plan. Would an store front help you accomplish them? Or would selling your own goods in your own website, or through some affiliate automation program like clickbank , pay dot com or commission junction be better for your online business?

The choice is yours.

Chris Peterson
http://www.articlesbase.com/ecommerce-articles/ebay-stores-good-and-bad-points-92979.html