The eBay market may be increasingly crowded, but industry figures argue that it is much like any other sector \u2013 find a niche, offer a great service in an attractive way and you can prosper.<\/p>\n
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Internet entrepreneur Michael Fox says you should treat eBay no differently to other online channels \u2013 test it, measure the results, and review and adjust your strategy.<\/p>\n
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\u201ceBay is a great place for a new online retailer to test their products, and if it\u2019s working for you then you should stick with it, even if you end up opening your own store,\u201d Fox, founder of online retailer Shoes of Prey, says.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIf you\u2019re not getting the return on investment you\u2019re looking for, then you either need to change your strategy on eBay or look to other platforms.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201ceBay has built a network of buyers and sellers. For a competitor to come in, they need to build up that same network of buyers and sellers.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cToo many buyers and no sellers won\u2019t work [and] neither will too many sellers and not enough buyers. Building this network is hard to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cFor us at Shoes of Prey, we can\u2019t use eBay because we can\u2019t integrate our online shoe designer with it,\u201d says Fox.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThis lack of control can also be challenging for brands wanting to pitch at the high end of the market because their products are mixed in search result listings, with eBay stores selling at the bottom end of the market.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/strong><\/p>\n The trust factor<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Building trust is key for an eBay business. Former Bunnings manager Shaun O\u2019Brien found this out when he started selling home theatre accessories in 2003 after researching eBay for six months.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He says one of the hardest parts of the process was building up trust with customers, many of whom assumed eBay operators had a tendency to be dishonest.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cFrom day one, I told myself I would have nothing but 100% positive feedback, and it was over a year before I got negative feedback,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n O\u2019Brien\u2019s retail background certainly helped him focus on customer service, but he says he was also careful to choose a category in which there weren\u2019t a lot of other competitors.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He also juggled his eBay business with a full-time job, which meant working before and after work and on weekends. He estimates he spent around 40 hours a week working on his eBay business.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAfter 18 months, I had enough income that I could replace my full-time job with eBay. Six months later, I hired my first employee and six months after that, my wife took on a full-time position,\u201d O\u2019Brien says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The business, which was forced to move its increasing stock into a warehouse, now hosts its own website and two offline stores in addition to its eBay channel.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n O\u2019Brien, who has only ever spent $100 of his own money on the business, says his company raked in over $5 million last year and is looking to increase that figure this year.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not a free ride though \u2013 you can set up a business for nothing but it\u2019s very time consuming,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Linking to the offline world<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n O\u2019Brien says consumers also tend to have tunnel vision when they shop online, in that they search for a specific item and are less inclined to buy other products in the process, so having offline stores enables the business to cross merchandise.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Phil Leahy, founder of the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance,<\/span> <\/b>says sales growth and data suggest that growth is stronger than ever with people starting up on eBay. <\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAustralia is about four to five years behind the US in terms of eCommerce. Australia is now playing catch-up, with 2011 a signpost year\u201d Leahy says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n According to Leahy, eBay is the best place to learn about transacting online.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt is the best place to get your feet wet and has fostered some of Australia\u2019s best examples of standalone online retailers like DealsDirect and Daily Deals,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cBy starting on eBay you can acquire a customer profitability, learn the nuances of customer service, the importance of page design, tools required for scaling your business, branding and cross-promotion, trust and safety, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe drawbacks are that it can be expensive, especially when starting out. Typically the cost of sales, excluding postage and handling, ranges between 9% and 15%, and can be as high as 25% when you start out.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMy advice is to start with eBay, then open your own website and look towards Google, comparison sites, SEO, affiliates, social media, Amazon, etc and find your market.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Leahy says in addition to the above, eBay newcomers must ensure they set up an \u2018About Me\u2019 page providing essential information about the business.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Is eBay really for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Paul Greenberg is the co-founder of online retailer DealsDirect, which began as an eBay business back in 2000 under the name Auctionbrokers Australia.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMy business partner Michael Rosenbaum and I started a full-time eBay business selling items on behalf of big businesses \u2013 Michael handled the IT aspect and I went out and talked to suppliers,\u201d Greenberg says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Their first client was Acer Computer Australia, so the business initially made its money selling computers and computing equipment before branching out into all key consumer categories.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But according to Greenberg, the novelty of bidding eventually wore off for customers, which prompted the business to leave eBay in 2004.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe made the right commercial decision \u2013 we wanted to be in a fixed price model so that we could build on the brand equity,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n However, DealsDirect has recently returned to eBay as it seeks to spread itself across as many channels as possible.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cLast year, I was speaking about multichannel retail and how retailers need to find as many good channels as they can,\u201d Greenberg says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cCustomers want more choice, more variety and quicker delivery times. Online retail is just warming up \u2013 it kind of feels a bit like day one.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The eBay market may be increasingly crowded, but industry figures argue that it is much like any other sector \u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9,23,1,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47382"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}