Comments on: Guest Post: Life after eBay

By: Chris Dawson

Chris Dawson — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 13:02:19 +0000

Ohh – can I have a bet too? I could do with some spare bunce for Pimms over the weekend if the weather holds out

By: Dan Wilson

Dan Wilson — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:33:34 +0000

Fiver on Ms Bailey please.

By: Sue Bailey

Sue Bailey — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:31:55 +0000

Pete, I bet I do

By: Pete

Pete — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 11:41:32 +0000

#26 I think there are VERY different views as to what “the” most competitive area on the internet is. I very much doubt you have a website that fits my view of that area…

By: Sue Bailey

Sue Bailey — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:14:35 +0000

Adam, I don’t think it’s about competitiveness. I got a newly launched site in *the* most competitive area of the internet to page one of Google in a month recently: it can be done.

Edited to add: and only white hat too

By: Pete

Pete — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 22:13:06 +0000

To appear on page one for the most important keywords/phrases etc isn’t so much down to time but “matched requests” by searchers.

Everytime someone searches for something using Google, and that person clicks on a link, Google match the search phrase/word with the link clicked on. It then scores the page based against the keyword/phrase and related content and watches for a “bounce back”.

If the visitor simply clicks the back button then Google will attach a negative or neutral score for that phrase and that specific website/webpage.

To try and increase your natural placement within Google, I would suggest the following:

Make sure specific key pages are content heavy, with an immediate and obvious “call to action”. For example if most visits from Google are hitting your index page, make sure that there is something that prompts the visitor to click deeper into your site. This will eliminate the “bounce back” effect.

Use Googles “webmaster tools” to see what keywords/phrases people are using to find your page and make sure that the content matches those requests.

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:14:31 +0000

I think alot depends on your industry…
Our is very competative (health supplements) and closely related to the less scrupulous ‘items’ you probably recieve it your spam folder every day. These sites will use any ‘black hat’ technique going to get good results

By: Sue Bailey

Sue Bailey — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:36:17 +0000

It really shouldn’t take years to get even an ecommerce site to show up in Google. If it does, you are doing something seriously wrong (or more likely, not doing enough right).

By: Dan Wilson

Dan Wilson — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:35:05 +0000

Lol. Beware that string competition. They tie themselves in knots! ;o)

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:32:31 +0000

PS looks like I cant spell tonight!

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:23:35 +0000

Websites can be far better than eBay but you have to be careful not the burn your bidges. It can take years to get a website showing in Google naturally and Googles PPC is great if your competition isnt too string. We spend a hell off alot a month of getting our site ‘out there’…. Then again I’d hate to think how much we spend on eBay! lol

By: Sue Bailey

Sue Bailey — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:03:47 +0000

I used to keep a little chart of “how much I havent paid in FVFs” for website sales. Most satisfying

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 09:49:18 +0000

Websites can take much longer to establish, a much more ‘slow burn’ process, but hang on in there, and it can be well worth your while in the end.

Yep, absolutely!

If you can’t bear the pain in the beginning, you will NEVER know how sweet it is in the end.

By: Sheffy

Sheffy — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 11:15:45 +0000

Great post. Gill. I agree with just about everything you have written. Ebay is a great place to start. You learn so much. You can make contact with other sellers and seek advice, you can pop fliers in your parcels, but a web site is so much easier and more profitable once it is up and running.

By: Dean

Dean — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:34:17 +0000

Suzy & Andy @ MAX-MPH

Nice site! Good luck with it

Dean

By: Stefan

Stefan — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 22:08:11 +0000

Hello Dan,
I just started my german shopify store http://transparente-kleidung.myshopify.com/
(the US one will follow)
You can try it without costs and it is very easy to setup.
It has the advantage of the community. It seems to be more SEO friendly than other big solutions.
Stefan

By: Dan Wilson

Dan Wilson — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 19:36:52 +0000

So, who’s using Shopify then? Just interested.

By: andy

andy — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 14:28:33 +0000

GREAT POST Jill we have just opened our webshop and your post gives us great hope for the future

holding onto ebay amazon as well to spread our sales about, good post good food for thought

suzy & andy MAX-MPH

By: Dean

Dean — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:27:21 +0000

Great post Jill, we’re in the same boat as you and are seriously considering what ebay does for us.
Our website has been running since December and it has already paid for the development costs (That was the christmas rush though!)
Since then it has slowly been increasing week on week.

I think the only thing to be careful of when choosing a webhost is to think what facilities you may want in the future and plan ahead a bit. Theres nothing worse than having a development plan and then finding the things you wanted to add at later stages cant be added!

By: Eddie

Eddie — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:04:49 +0000

I always say to eBay sellers who wish for their own ecommerce site is to ‘google’ for the products they are selling, using keywords a buyer would use, then look at the ecommerce sites on page 1 of the results, as those will be your competitors!

Don’t be put off by the slickness of some of the competitive sites, but use them for ideas to develop your own site around – and they didn’t get to page 1 overnight!

By: Richard Legg

Richard Legg — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:27:39 +0000

If you want an all in one solution for Website/ebay/amazon/play/ (unlimited different portals you ) then there is a company called Giant systems in Leeds who can supply this for you, its not cheap to set up but It was the best investment I ever made:

The Garden Centre

TheGardenCentre.co.uk provides a quick and easy way of buying garden furniture online. We built Garden Centre a bespoke website using our Cascade platform, allowing the display of their products in a stylish and accessible way. The site is attractive and simple to use, with large pictures of the products on offer throughout.

In addition, Casade’s back office system allows a hundreds of products to be published on Amazon Seller Central and eBay. All listings, including those published on the Garden Centre website are pulled from a single inventory in Cascade automatically, generating bulk listings at the touch of a button. This saves time, which in turn keeps the profits margins up!

Also, listings on Amazon are subject to a sophisticated re-pricing feature (according to personally defined rules). Consequently, this gives The Garden Centre a competitive edge over competition, which together with the new site will encourage customers to buy furniture in a trouble free fashion. In return this will promote customer satisfaction, brand awareness and customer loyalty.

By: DBL

DBL — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 09:42:07 +0000

I’m a bit like Kat & Jen, I don’t spend as much time on my website as I should, but there are many things that can fall into that category for me. But the £75 per year it costs for mine it sure does rake in the sales for me even without the time spent.

I takes about 1 minute to list a new item on my website and ebay takes an age for a new listing that is way too much longer than I would like.

All the best Gill

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 06:19:32 +0000

Thanks Gill
Much apreciated

By: Gill

Gill — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:05:05 +0000

Thanks for the kind comments, folks

Andrew – one of the things that I found so daunting before I set up my website was the vast array of choice available. In the end my head was spinning – then I looked at the site of someone else I knew via the PS board and her site was so simple and straightforward, which I found refreshing. So I asked her to put me in touch with her web designer & he built a similar site for me (for around the same initial amount that I was then paying for a month’s eBay fees).

When choosing what’s best for you, I think it’s important to weigh up how much control you need to have over the process vs how much time in practice you would have to implement stuff if doing it yourself. If I had decided to build my site myself, I may have got there eventually, but more likely it would still be a twinkle in my eye now! I’ve heard people recommend Firepages and Whirly’s mate Tidy, who build websites, I’ve also heard plenty of people recommend EKM for their off the shelf type websites too.

Probably the most important thing though is to make a start and get something up and running – I would say that it is far better to have a slightly ‘rough and ready’ site that is live and starting to earn you money than to take forever to launch a much more polished site.

By: Kate & Jen

Kate & Jen — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 21:53:14 +0000

our website has been slow, but we know its because we struggle to find enough hours in the day to give it the attention it deserves. ebay and amazon are doing well for us and take up all our time, you have given me some inspiration not to throw in the towel on the website quite yet!