The discussion of whether to pay for a listing service or not that was started here and here brought up an interesting question: is a paid service always the “better” or more professional choice?
I have been running a successful eBay business for many years. Other than two brief months of eBay’s Selling Manager Pro (spread a year apart, one a free trial, the other a month of extra help at the holidays) I have never used a paid listing tool. In the same way, other than a painful 6 months with the demon spawn that is Stamps.com, I have also never had a postage meter or similar. I don’t have a contract with any company that handles the bookeeping. I list with Turbo Lister, print postage through PayPal and export my finances with the free eBay Account Assistant. To those of you running huge operations, in comparison, I sound like I am running a Mickey Mouse business over here, I am sure. But there has yet to be anything a paid service can offer me that the free services don’t also give me so, no matter how many times I run the numbers, it isn’t worth it to change for us. If I can pull in PowerSeller money using the free newbie tools, why shouldn’t I continue using them?
This doesn’t make paying for a service wrong. Remember, selling online isn’t one size fits all, no matter where you sell. I always suspected the day would come when I would need to pay for a listing tool or postage meter but, so far, it has yet to come to the point where I feel like I need extra services beyond what I have always been doing. Maybe I will never hit the point where I need an outside paid service. Maybe you hit that point the first week in. We are all running very different businesses and have very different needs so you the question of what is worth the money or not is never going to be the same answer for you as it is for me.
I believe that if it isn’t broke, don’t fit it. That said, does there come a point where being thrifty gives way to just plain being stubborn or stupid?
I resisted buying my own domain for many years before I realized how stupid I was being. I didn’t want to spent the extra money a year but, obviously, the money was nothing compared to how the domain improved branding, business and a million other things that helped me to sell more. I was being stupid under the excuse of being thrifty for a long time before I realized.
No matter which site you sell on, what role do paid services play in your business? Did you hit a point when you realized you were being silly by not paying for extra help or do you still rely on free services for all or part of your business?
I don’t use any paid listing service, either. Turbolister is just fine for my purposes. I automate by generating listing pages with an HTML template and a script I wrote (I’m a software engineer in my “day job”). The only thing I pay for right now is Endicia.
Nearly 40% of my orders have been international and the ability to print stealth international first class postage is worth what it costs. If Paypal offered that, I wouldn’t bother with Endicia. Because I still have to work a day job to pay the bills, I can’t afford the time to stand in line at the post office for those kind of packages. Int’l Priority is too expensive for the lower cost items I sell, so this is my solution.
I agree with you, but will point out you do need to exploit a lot of social network sites and free ad space to get your name out. What I hate about eBay is you have to pay more to get one’s name out. This isn’t a big deal if your selling high end items, but the majority of us are small time sellers starting out. Honestly, some of us have been screwed with online software not living up to promises. Be weary of these start-up auction companies. A lot of them suck. Although, I have not paid, the sites are poorly promoted, listing things is hard, and third, some of them actually cost more that ebay after one does the math. eBay wants you to buy into extra services. I give a the bird to what they want to. I also note eBya is a bunch of hypocrites and state I can’t post a link to myb website. In 2009, I did this and don’t see anything being pulled. Gee, wonder if it’s the economy! I also have told eBay where to go with their stores. Look at whoose cutting into that market. If it costs less to do business, pass the savings on to the consumer is my motto! Corporate greed continues to ruin this country and the world as well!