Which is the better choice for a small business Yahoo Store or Ebay?

Question

I want to start my own business selling a few items at first then go bigger, but I don't know which is the best for a small business, any serious thoughts on that?

Answer 1

Below is a list of some pros and cons of each course of action to help you decide which path is best for you:

Creating Your Own Website (through Yahoo Store)

Pros

- Allows you to establish your own "real estate" on the Web;
- Allows you to attract a bigger audience; not limited to eBay buyers (not everyone buys on eBay)
- Scaleable as it allows your business to grow;
- Allows you to give more information about your business to your visitors and give them reasons to trust you
- Allows you to give more information about the product, play around with factors that can increase conversion
- Gives you a more professional look
- Makes you look like a "big" business (an e-commerce seller that also sells on ebay "looks" so much bigger than a purely ebay seller)
- You can put in as many items you want without paying listing fees
- You can sell as many items as you can without paying value added fees
- Less restrictions than eBay (you are more free to write your sales copy)
- Easier to market on the Web
- Measurement and tracking of sales is easier to do because of greater flexibility in installing statistical software

Cons:

- Requires technical know how to create a website (or money to pay someone to do it for you)
- Expensive especially if your website requires special programming
- You have to think how your site will look or hire a web designer to create your website
- Fixed price (price you set is what you get)
- You're basically a "nobody" and you have to build your reputation, brand and traffic from scratch.
- Harder to market and you may need to spend more on advertising.

Selling on eBay

Pros

- Auction format; prices can go up higher than you originally set it for
- eBay's brand and size of its market
- Gives instant access to millions of buyers
- Offers a level playing field between small sellers and bigger, better branded sellers

Cons

- Listing and final value fees - you pay every time you put a product up for sale, and when it is sold
- There are more restrictions and limitations in terms of how you can write your copy and present your product
- Harder to get onto search engines
- Link exchanges are more difficult
- Increasing competition (it is not as easy to sell now on eBay with increased number of people selling on eBay)
- Does not allow you to have metrics that can help you improve your product presentation and increase sales, such as conversion, shopping cart abandonment, unique visitors and pageviews, among others.

Answer 2

I have no experience in Yahoo Stores so I cannot compare. I can tell you that Ebay Stores offers a free 30 day trial so go for it. Also, Ebay now owns prostores.com, also a free trial. Try them all for a month as see what gives you the most hits and sales. Neither Ebay Stores nor ProStores will do much by themselves so definately get some auction items to drive people to your store listings. Once set up, get some business cards with your store(s) addresses on them or flyers to pass out in your neighborhood. You really only need $20-30 or so a month in profits to break even. If you make that, great... you're even. If you don't, kill the store(s) and move to Plan B.

Answer 3

Business Success Without the Blindfold
By: Kalinda Stevenson

Here is a good article for a content rich web site!

Choose Ebay...I tired both and never sold a thing on Yahoo auction.

Good Luck!

Answer 4

i would say ebay, i have a ebay business myself selling phones and mp3 players, and im only 17!! hehe
ebay has 168 million shoppers, so thats 168 million reasons to do ebay, and it's very easy to do.

Answer 5

Ebay offers much larger exposure...but why not both? That would get any products out to the most possible buers.

Answer 6

ebay is more popular, but has listing fees.... i also find it disorganized....

i didnt even know there was a yahoo store

Answer 7

please allow my to answer your question with a question...
which has more traffic? which gives more benefits for your investment? and last, why not do both?

also consider listing with search engines such as http://www.botseeker.com/addlisting.php , or http://www.inyahoo.org/addlisting.php ,or http://www.ingoogle.com/addlisting.php ... please note this is NOT a commercial, the person asked a valid question, and i provided an honest answer. Lord Kent