Not selling online, why not?
There is a typical attitude amongst bricks and mortar sellers that they don’t have the time to use the internet. I would feel that as a business owner how can you not afford the time. There are 7 billion people out there, many with access to the internet and can you afford to ignore them?
A scene in The big bang theory I feel highlights this point. The guys are playing D&D and Stewart from the comic store is with them, he studies miniatures they are using and asks where they got them from. Leonard tells him amazon.
Stewart moans a bit about the said giant crushing his store. Well Stewart there is no real excuse for you not to carry that stock yourself online, and giving access to more than the geekery of Pasadena to your stock.
And for a web savvy group as the gang are supposed to be not one of them says they’ll get him online. I know it’s fiction, but it relates to a lot of small business owners that they are bricks and mortar and that is it.
Whenever you talk about the internet to store owners (those who are not online), the automatic go to point is eBay, or they think the odd tweet and having a Facebook page is enough, but they also do virtually no promotion through it either.
The last post ended on using ebid with eBay for those online sellers sick of paying the high fees of eBay, this one will hopefully push bricks and mortar sellers towards using the site. It is a wonderful starting point for a newbie or experienced seller.
The Bricks and mortar owner
As a small business owner, you have done all the work getting it started. You have your business plan, financing in place, shop outfitted and have hopefully gotten a decent local customer base. But these days are tough, not only do you have the large internet companies undercutting you (I know I have adds here but hell I want to make a living as well), you also have an economy that has been messed up and money has all been squeezed to the top. You need advertising and to enlarge your customer base, not only for your bottom line but for the bank manager who looks at your forecasts. How much better do you think you will be by having proof of 5 online shops, and all your items advertised and available out to the world. The potential is huge.
The one thing the website adds have right is in this day and age having your business online is a must. But you don’t have to go the expensive route of using web hosting sites for this. Ebid does this for you, also it has SEO links with Google, so your business name and items all get backlinks and family links so that you will get higher in the ranking. Your items also appear in google shopping links as well. In addition your store page gets a ranking on google so can appear to searches as well.
Each item also has a social media promotion button on them. Setting up your account to those of your online ones is easy and not very technical, and if struggling Ebid does have tutorials for this.
I will focus on social media in later posts.
A good thing as well is Ebid’s Ninja Lister works quite well with eBay’s Turbo lister. For ease of use Turbo lister is very simple, you can build your selling list on it and then export as a CSV document those items. You can then Import that document onto Ninja lister and the items built will be on there. Unfortunately neither work with Mac’s so one draw back. You do have to make some adjustments but there is a way to make files up and organise it all so with minimal changes you can copy to all things like postage to different areas of the world. Trial and error works well with Ninja lister.
Setting up a store on Ebid is easy, through your ‘my Ebid' links they have the store button, what you will need is a banner to upload, you can design these at Canva or Banner Jewel or just a quick search will reveal a number of free ebid banner makers. Once this has been done you just need to decide on colour scheme, what to call your shop and categories, but don’t worry even when online all these can be changed if you feel like. No coding, no HTML knowledge no PC skills apart from the basics needed.
I do suggest that you build how you want your auctions to look using word, pages etc then in the description box simply copy and paste under WYSIWYG option. However all this can be exported from Turbo lister if going down that route. The rest is simple box filling in.
All this is a start for you, listing your items can be done whenever you like and you can schedule start times if you wish (also free). As much or as little as you want, however your work schedule does for you.
You will need to be patient as Ebid takes work, it takes your promotion and effort, but the fees saved justify that work and also at this time competition is not huge on there. So you can be a big fish instead of a minnow battling upstream. Sellers and buyers across the globe are starting to find it, but you will need to nudge them as well, put the links on your promotional emails, offer the discounts because of the fee structure you can afford to. I generally put my items a bit cheaper on there and offer discounts for multi buys. Also think, there are no recurring fees for non sales, no having to repost the item every 7 days (unless you want to) and pay for it. You can leave your stock online until it’s sold or you change it, and editing is easy. Time saving is huge, which to you as a small entrepreneur is vital.
One of my own examples of promoting Ebid is I have saved invoices with the links embedded into the invoice so when a customer buys off eBay, I send them a printed invoice but also email the invoice with any specific promotion direct. You will know your customer base better than I, push people towards being regular visitors to your items, and lets face it it can be 24/7 for viewing without the costs of opening your premises all day or employing more people to do this. You will know how your customers will react best and this all added to your business plan, and can be factored in to any future plans for your enterprise.
I also use google translate on the invoice for a customers own language as have sold not only to the EU and US, but to places like India, Costa Rica and Brazil. That personal touch can go a long way.
No one can tell you how much of an Impact going online will have, and a guru telling you they know they can boost your business by X amount is only after increasing their own cash. Not saying don’t do the courses, there are some good ones out there, but get yourself started. Get confident in using the equipment as you would in any other side of the business. Ebid provides that start you need to enter the online world of retail, and it is fairly cheap to get going. You will then have the ammunition to find the genuine help from the buzz word PR people. When reading blogs about business, they put a lot in about their failures, however using Ebid eliminates a lot of that failure, you are using an established brand, all the work in the background has been done for you, no wordpress experiments, no template buying. You may alter your listing but Ebid has a multi edit function which can shorten time for those must have alterations.
I have been doing this for almost 20 years, and have explored many different options and ways to sell. In the past you could weigh the bad of eBay against the fact that you sold, this has changed. Also using social media to sell through such as Facebook sites has some advantage, but it relies upon honesty amongst strangers, and I don’t think i would feel comfortable giving private financial information like paypal address to someone on there. However you can use Facebook to link to ebid stores, without using apps like Shopify.
Ebid is growing, and fast. It has millions of registered users across the globe. In all the time I have been doing this, now is the time I have really seen a growth in sales on Ebid. Now is a good time to get in, because they are a business like everyone else and once they become the viable replacement for other sites then that may lead to price rises etc, especially if the money men get involved.
Ebid is growing, and fast. It has millions of registered users across the globe. In all the time I have been doing this, now is the time I have really seen a growth in sales on Ebid. Now is a good time to get in, because they are a business like everyone else and once they become the viable replacement for other sites then that may lead to price rises etc, especially if the money men get involved.
Why am I wanting competition?
To be frank, the more people on there the more sales will happen, leading to a better bottom line for myself as well as others. And instead of people talking about a certain other place, the TV shows etc might start using Ebid in their on air sketches and people will know what they mean.
One thing as a seller on there, I do take part in Ebid first, any packaging, tape, comic bags etc I check there first, even if there is a small difference in price sellers on Ebid generally offer discounts for repeat purchases as well. The community is quite healthy and helpful and not obsessed with telling you how wonderful things are on the site, and how dare you say anything bad. They take suggestions and criticism well and listen. So if you want a category put it on the forums and they have obliged every time I have asked. Also help is always given freely there, people feel a genuine loyalty to the site, something very rare.
If you wish to join Ebid just click here. This is my buddy link I get no money (yet!!!!) from it but I can use the points to bid on promotional items. You can join completely for free and it is just registering your name and email, no obligation.
My Ebid stores
My eBay links
No comments:
Post a Comment