Alternatives For eBay Store Sellers
Since eBay announced the eBay Store fee increase, many eBay Store owners have emailed me looking for alternative online marketing channels. While I always say the first step for these sellers is to set up a website (and companies like HomeStead should be taking advantage of the eBay backlash), there’s an intermediary step that at least gets eBay Store owners acclimated to the shopping comparison engines…
Test out Amazon’s Marketplace, NexTag’s Store Program (NexTag, please think about putting up a page about this program – as is, merchants have to get to the second step of the sign up process before they see a very small link describing the program), and PriceGrabber Storefronts. These services do NOT require the merchant to have a website.
Amazon, NexTag, and Pricegrabber should aggressively be pitching these services to eBay users and offering special 3 month trial periods (in other words, get these sellers on board before the holiday rush!)
The fees for these ’store’ solutions will throw eBay sellers for a loop as Amazon has variable pricing by type of product and NexTag charges a click fee (which means the merchant has to think about conversion rate). PriceGrabber is arguably the simplest to grok, charging a flat $1 + 4.75% commission for each product sold through Storefronts.
eBay Store sellers need to set up a website and test other online marketing channels, but if you’re freaking out about the fee increases, these ’stores’ offer a quick and easy ways to get up and running off eBay without setting up a website.
