Image by liewcf via Flickr
At the eBay On Location in Orlando, FL, I submitted a question for Griff Seller’s Panel that actually ended up being the one they ended on. I asked of the sellers on the panel:
“With so many e-commerce platforms and tools out there, why is eBay your marketplace of choice?”
The sellers mostly used this as an opportunity to gush about eBay and while it probably made for a great ending for the panel from eBay’s standpoint, I was disappointed. See… I wanted a real answer. Because as we cover pretty frequently on this there are a lot of different selling options out there and all of the sellers on the panel had (mostly) all their eggs in the eBay basket. One of the sellers was cross platform selling but he seemed to be the only one.
Yes, there are some great things about eBay. But it’s obviously not perfect and those sellers were using it as their primary platform. That’s a huge vote of confidence and I want more insight into this. Those sellers all believe in eBay very strongly or they wouldn’t be at that event, up on stage in that panel and, most importantly, building their business around it. What do they know that the rest of us don’t?
My biggest question is… why? Did you try other platforms and decide that the benefits of eBay outweigh the disadvantages? Did you just get started on eBay and your business was doing well so it wasn’t worth it to move to another platform? Were you burned on another platform and eBay was the better experience? Have you even tried another platform or are you just sticking with what’s familiar? If you’re doing such a large sales volume, why haven’t you moved your business to your own website?
I really wanted to know the answer to this and I was left hanging. So I’m posing it to you instead because I think it’s a really interesting topic. If you are a seller that still does any worthwhile percentage of your business on eBay, why? Why haven’t you moved beyond eBay to another platform, marketplace or even a shopping cart on your own website? In short, why eBay?
Let’s get this discussion started…
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We own a small, family owned company that manufactures a niche product in the home and garden category. We began selling on eBay in 2002 and have sold thousands of our products on the platform.
Why are we still on the platform? Because it’s profitable, and makes absolutely no sense to walk away from it. When it’s no longer profitable to sell on the platform, we’ll close our account.
We began to sell on Amazon in 2008, and within a year had sales that exceeded eBay.
We take phone orders that also exceed sales on eBay.
We’ve had a website since the beginning, but it wasn’t ecommerce enabled. We finally made to investment and added an online storefront last year. Without any heroic efforts, it’s currently our # 2 channel. Amazon is # 1.
We put a booth up on Bonanza in 2008 with about 600 items, but it hardly gets orders, averaging less than 1 per month. If there were any costs to keep it, we’d close it.
Our year to date channel rankings are: #1 Our 800#, #2 Amazon, #3 Our Online Store, #4 eBay, and #5 Bonanzle. From all indications, our online store will be #1 or #2 within the 12 months.
Do we like all the rules that eBay dreams up? absolutely not. We’re currently a TRS, but we’ve lost it in the past for about 6 months, while waiting for 1 low mark to fall off. The funny part is that it didn’t seem to make a difference in sales whether we were a TRS or not.
Traffic to our items on eBay have been declining over the years, even though demand for our products hasn’t declined.
Something does appear to be happening on eBay though. Google is sending us significantly more traffic lately. Sales are up about 25% on the plaform the past few months. Our products aren’t seasonal or a necessity. Would we suggest putting all of your eggs in their basket? NO!!!
We’re in the biggest channels and are focused on our online store. Sometimes that’s hard when sales come in from Amazon or eBay, but the goal has to be to build your brand.
Our company is different than most, but we’ll continue to sell on eBay until it is no longer profitable.
DB
Thank you very much for taking the time to write all that out, DB! It is very much appreciated!
I agree with DB.
We sell on our own online shop
Audible.com
Amazon
Ebay
Traditional Sales on site at conventions.
Our largest sales on our Branded Shop
then this order
Audible
Traditional In Person Sales
Amazon
Ebay
Ebay is very labor intensive, but we work hard to convert Ebay shoppers to our online shop. Its a form of “advertising” we get paid to do. If at any point Ebay no longer generates revenue we would close the Ebay shop. They change the rules so often, I am happy it’s not our only revenue source.
Buzzy