eBay Digital Products Ban

Like I said before, I know it’s obvious, but if you’re serious about selling products online you need to have your own website. I’m going to briefly cover one of my favorite solutions for creating your own shopping cart site and move on to reviews of eBay alternative sites that you can use as well.

While there are lots of prefabbed stores out there that even come pre installed with products to sell. As a person who has spent a lot of time designing websites, most of them look like garbage to me. While these seem like turn key solutions, they are usually very limited in terms of configuration and presentation.

My favorite free solution (as I’ve previously mentioned) is to use WordPress with the WP-eCommerce plugin by instinct.co.nz. Here’s an example of a site that I built for a customer in about 8 hours: http://babyshoweraloha.com

Here are some even better examples of custom designs other folks have done:
edenripley.co.nz
orangutan-appeal.org.uk
tabletalk.com
imagecubes.com

Of course this option requires that you have your own domain name and web hosting. If you don’t already have these, then check out my free WordPress Shopping cart site installation service. Basically, just sign up with my hosting partner and I’ll install WordPress, WP-eCommerce, 20 or so of the best plugins for sellers, lot’s of beautiful cross browser friendly themes for you to choose from, search engine optimization configuration, and more for free. (Actually, I’ll have my low hourly rate - super ninja Thai employees do it for ya)

Here are just a few of the benefits of the WordPress and the WP-eCommerce solution:

• WordPress sites get more traffic because it is very search engine friendly. Plus with plugins like the All-in-One SEO pack, most of your onsite search engine optimization automatic!
• You get more done. Wordpress and WP-eCommerce are very easy to learn and use. You can automate the whole sales/delivery process for your digital downloads.
• Increase perceived value. There are thousands of free themes (templates) available for Wordpress that are sleek, professional, and elegant. What’s more, they are a snap to install.
• Social Marketing made easy. Promote through social bookmarking, Facebook, RSS feeds (syndicate your product catalogue), easily drop in videos, automatically get listed in blog searches.
• Easily track and analyze your site statistics to make well informed marketing decisions.

There are tons of other benefits, but these are some of the highlights. I’ll be posting videos on this subject soon so you can see it in action.

Let’s move on now to selling on other websites

If you like the auction format there are several other auction sites you can sell on but none have the volume of traffic that eBay has. You’ll also likely miss some of the automatic listing tools that you used with eBay.

Here are some auction sites that are recommended by salehoo.com:

Ubid

http://www.ubid.com/

Ubid is an online auction site that has managed to gain quite a bit of popularity – some of our members say they actually make more on Ubid than eBay! While it doesn’t get anywhere near the traffic eBay gets, it can still yield quite a few sales. The site promotes itself heavily on TV and the internet which plays a big role in getting the traffic required for sales. Ubid’s most attractive feature is the lack of listing fees – you don’t pay anything until you make a sale. On the downside, all buyers’ payments go through Ubid and it can take up to 15 days before they pay you. For new sellers in particular, this can cause some serious cash flow problems.

Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/

Amazon gets good traffic but the main advantage is a much higher profit margin. Amazon shoppers tend to pay a lot more for their items than eBayers. On the other hand, there are reports that Amazon’s returns policy can be ruthless. If a buyer complains – even if they have no proof of the claim – Amazon has been known to insist the seller refund the money (grrr!). Another count against Amazon is the fact Nigerian spammers seem to particularly enjoy sending their emails to sellers so you do have to be prepared to give you mail box a thorough purge each morning. Still, if you can put up with these difficulties, Amazon is a good place to sell - particularly items such as electronics where the margins are practically non-existent on eBay.

eBid Auctions

http://www.ebid.net/

The second largest auction site in the UK. Also available in Australia, USA, Canada and Ireland. Unfortunately it is also very slooooow…There are no fees, which is great, but we haven’t heard of many people having a rollercoaster success here. On the bright side, it is fraud proof and you can post as many items for sale as you want. It’s worth listing on this site as an additional to your other sales channels.

Oztion

http://www.oztion.com.au/

Oztion is an Australian auction site although you can list from overseas. Again, there are no fees, but unfortunately it also suffers from sleepy-town syndrome and listings take about three times longer to sell than eBay.

Google Product Search

http://www.google.com/base/help/sellongoogle.html

No one can question the almighty power of Google. Their product arm – Google Product Search (used to be Froogle) - gets a lot of attention from avid Google users and it’s free to list there if you have your own website. You can also incorporate Adwords ads to drive more traffic to your Google Product Search listings – although whether that is more convenient for you or for Google remains in question.

I’ve done a quick review of Google Product Search/Google Base in the forums that has been reposted by my friend Tracey:
http://make-me-money.ws/big-brother-ebay-3/
Read it and you’ll see why Google Base is a very attractive option to me because it’s visibility in the marketplace, and it’s easy integration with existing shopping carts.

Here’s some more auctions sites that I’ve seen mentioned several times. Please feel free to share your experience:

http://globalbidstore.com
http://ozauctionsonline.com
http://BooCooBay.com
http://payloadz.com

Here’s are some auctions sites guides:
http://auctionlotwatch.co.uk/auction.html - For UK auction sites
http://auctionlotwatch.co.uk/usauctions.html - For US auction sites

Well, there’s still a lot of sellers that are going to be caught unawares tomorrow when they start getting hit with listing cancellations. So I’m going to get busy trying to get the word out.

Check out my next post in the series: Beat the eBay slap - Advertize in the Classifiedz

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