Should You Start an eBay Store

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Should you start an eBay store

You may be wondering if you should start an eBay store. I opened my eBay store in 2018. It was time. It was one of the best decisions that I made. I was making a couple of hundred bucks each month without the store, but for my business to grow, I knew that I had to open an eBay store. In today’s post, I share nine reasons you should start an eBay store.

Should You Start an eBay Store

Higher Selling Limits

eBay gives all its sellers up to 250 zero insertion fee (free) listings each month. When I started selling, that was fine, but it wasn’t enough as I began to list more items. At the time, eBay used to give some of their seller’s bonus listings. Some months I’d get emails saying I had an extra 50 or 100. The catch was that I had to use them by a specific date. If I didn’t, they’d expire. The messed up thing is that you don’t know if eBay would send you an email like that each month. Sometimes they did, and other times they didn’t. 

For a few months, I received emails saying I got the extra free listings. In early 2018, I went about six or seven weeks without getting one of those promos. At that point, I was used to having 80 – 90 items listed. I could either pay the $0.30 per item listing fee (since I was already at my monthly limit of 50) or open an eBay store. I was doing well with eBay, and I wanted to continue to do so, so I opened the store. Instead of having 250 free monthly listings, I now have 1000 fixed-price listings and 250 auction-style listings. I also get an additional 10,000 fixed-price listings in select categories. That’s more than enough for me.

A couple of years ago, eBay stopped the extra listing promos. If you know that you will be selling many items, signing up for a store is something you should consider. 

Need help with eBay? Check out my webinar, eBay for Starters

Customization Options

If you have a store, eBay offers you several customization options. You can create a unique store name, a custom header, a logo, a store description, a store video, policies, and more. This will allow you to add your own style to your eBay store. It will help it stand out from the other stores. 

Discounts on Fees

If you start an eBay store, I want you to know it isn’t free. I pay $21.95 per month. It’s worth it. Having an eBay store gives the sellers discounts on some of the fees. I have a basic store. If I listed more than 1000 buy-it-now listings, it would cost me $0.25 instead of the regular $0.30 to list. The listing discount is even more significant if you have a premium, anchor, or enterprise store.

eBay charges a final value fee for every item that you sell. The fees vary depending on the category of the item. In most cases, the fees will be around 10%.

Vacation Mode

A cool thing about having a store is putting it in vacation mode. Vacation mode is a setting you can change your store to if you go out of town. It’s clutch because you don’t have to go through each listing individually and end them or extend the shipping time. You can leave a custom message for buyers to see if they visit your store. You can even put a date there to tell them when you will return to town. Below is a screenshot of how vacation mode looks on your store and a listing.

You can see the top message letting people know I’m on vacation. You can customize that to say whatever you want it to.

The message in the image above lets people know that if they buy the item, there may be a delay in processing the order. This feature is clutch.

Share the Store

Occasionally, people may ask you what you sell in your eBay store. Instead of sharing individual item links, you can share your eBay store link. That will save you so much time when sharing your stuff. If you have a blog as I do, you can occasionally email your audience the link. You can promote your store link on social media as well. Here’s the link to my store Atlanta Mart.

Discount on eBay Supplies

As stated earlier, I pay $21.95 monthly for my eBay store. It’s worth it. Every quarter, eBay sends its sellers who have stores a $25 coupon. That coupon can only be used for eBay-related shipping supplies. They have all types of things you can get, such as tape, mailers, and boxes. Below are some of the items that I’ve ordered.

Pretty cool, isn’t it? eBay is not playing when it comes to its supplies. This is another good reason why you should start an eBay store. They are doing great with branding and ensuring the name is being seen.

Featured Items

Having an eBay store should help to get your items more exposure. There is a setting that will allow you to feature certain items in your store. Featured items are items that will show up at the top of your store page. You can update your featured items by going to your seller’s dashboard. This will allow you to showcase your best items or items you want to sell quickly.

Need help with eBay? Check out my webinar, eBay for Starters

Reporting & Analytics

As an eBay store, you receive access to more reporting and analytics. If you are trying to grow your business, this is huge. You can track trends, review sales, and optimize your listings. You can then use that info to see if you should sell more or fewer items in your inventory.

Marketing Tools

With an eBay store, you can run promos for your items. This feature comes in handy if you have some things you’ve been trying to sell for a while. Also, running some promos during the holiday season helps boost your sales. You can create coupons as well as give shipping discounts. You can review the promotions manager tab and determine what promo works best for your eBay store.

I opened my eBay store after I had been selling for a while. It was one of the best things that I did. I’ve been able to list more items and make more money. I recommend opening an eBay store if you sell a lot.

More eBay-related posts

30 Interesting & Weird Things Sold on eBay

eBay Items Not Selling? 14 Changes to Make ASAP

100 Things to Sell on eBay

How to Sell on eBay For Beginners

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Jason Butler is the owner of My Money Chronicles, a website where he discusses personal finance, side hustles, travel, and more. Jason is from Atlanta, Georgia. He graduated from Savannah State University with his BA in Marketing. Jason has been featured in Forbes, Discover, and Investopedia.