YANS(Yet Another New Store) eBay or not eBay?

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Yup I'm going to put another store online for C= 8bit goodies and probably eventually Amiga stuff too. The scope of this shop won't be as involved as Anachronism Industries, but should have some cool gear.

Here's the debate in my head. Do I bite the bullet with eBay's insane fees, which I in turn pass on to the customer, or do I build a stand alone shop? From experience eBay brings traffic, period. However eBay fees are now insane, really insane. I could build an OSCommerce site and advertise it, but traffic may never come. PayPal is also expensive, but not as expensive as most low volume merchant accounts.

Sigh.. I am probably going to at least start with a eBay store. Any suggestions otherwise? Amiga.org banners help if I have a stand alone shop, but only so much. Google AdWords is a ripoff. Thoughts?

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Krusher wrote:
That's also it's problem. Lot of people wanting to buy classic stuff but lack the deep pockets, I hate bidding on things. And also fraud issues.

That is true to a point, luckily my eBay account as close to perfect as could be expected for a 10 year eBay seller. I also am planing on using an eBay Store, which is fixed price items. I'll still have some auctions, to drive traffic to the eBay store.

The negative of an eBay store is I will have to automatically tack on an extra ~15% to cover eBay/PayPal fees.

eBay knows they have many of us by the balls  :-x

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Sneak Preview!

 :-D

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mendark wrote:
If you are considering a stand-alone store, try OsCommerce. Amigakit is runnig on it.
All you need is a decent hosting package and a catching domain name prefering to hold the words C64/8bit/retro which makes it easier to target (and have cheaper bids on AdWords).

WIth a little SEO (search engine optimization) your store can be found without even using AdWords.

Contact me if you need any help or advise for setting up the shop or wanna rank in the search engines.

That's a heck of a nice offer! :-) I may take you up on that offer eventually.