Which is better: using eBay or your own online store?
Thu, Oct 18 2007

By Jonathan Oxer, IVT Technical Director

Last Thursday I was asked a very interesting question while delivering an eBusiness workshop. The workshop was "How To Grow Your Ebusiness And Stay Sane", and was aimed at people who already have a website but may not be getting much benefit from it or who just want to take it to the next level.

During the session we'd been talking about issues related to setting up and promoting an online store, and the participant said they had previously been selling items on eBay and wanted to know if it was worth continuing to do that even after setting up a full e-commerce website themselves, and if so would it help give their own site more exposure.

The short answer is yes. If you're regularly selling products on eBay there's no reason to stop doing that just because you also have your own e-commerce website, and in fact you can gain some major benefits by running both in parallel. The fact is that eBay has a huge userbase so putting products up for sale on it will almost certainly get them more exposure than putting them on your own website.

But doesn't the lucky-dip nature of eBay work against you if people just want the reassurance of buying directly from you for a set price? Yes, it does. Not everyone is a bargain-hunter willing to wait a week for an auction to end in the hope of saving a few dollars compared to retail price. The fact is that different people have different purchasing habits, and it varies depending on what they may be buying at the time.

So cater to both! If you're selling products online, try putting them on both eBay and your own website and see what happens. You can set the eBay listings to be a bit cheaper than your regular retail price and include a link in each listing to your own website, and also link from your site to the relevant eBay listings. You'll get the benefit of eBay's enormous traffic and have the opportunity to make sales you may otherwise have missed out on, and some of those people may find your items on eBay and want to skip the whole auction shenannigans for the convenience of simply buying directly from you at retail price.

A perfect example of a company doing exactly that is Kogan, a Melbourne-based business that assembles and sells large-screen TVs direct to the public. Their "where to buy" page is a fantastic example of how to appeal to different types of customers with different needs. The page features two huge buttons: one takes you to their own online store to buy at retail price, and the other takes you to their eBay listings where you can try your luck at scoring a bargain.

Absolute genius. I love it.

So if you started out with eBay listings and graduated to your own online store, don't just walk away from your eBay account without looking back. And if you have an online store already and have never tried to sell using other sites such as eBay why not give it a go and put some of the products on your regular website up for auction.

Leverage every resource you have available in order to appeal to the widest market possible, and use the power of eBay to drive traffic to your own site. It doesn't have to be just one or the other.