Published on June 12, 2008 Own site or auction site?
Setting up an ecommerce site usually comes down to answering a simple question: do you want to keep paying listing and success fees or have your own website and control your content and profits.
If you’re a small business selling a niche product then auction sites are an easy way to get started in business as they have access to sometimes thousands or millions of potential customers on their doorstep. But auction sites have some severe downsides:
- You have to pay a listing fee for every product you showcase for sale
- Every time you make a sale, you have to pay a success fee – often a percentage of your sale price
- Some customers may not view your business as reputable as it does not have its own online store – this could limit your growth potential.
- You miss out on potential customers who do not visit auction sites.
Having your own ecommerce website is easy to get started. For example, at Ozcart, we help businesses get online through developing a professionally designed site based on their logo and business colours, offer a huge range of advanced features like gift vouchers and have an easy-to-use content management system for adding products and updating their prices. We also offer a payment plan to help cash-strapped businesses get online without a significant up-front investment.
Once your site is online, you’ll be in control of the profits you make as it will be your products that are listed in any way you want, and you won’t pay success fees every time you make a sale.
Auction websites are a great way to start if you plan on selling a couple of items at home, but for someone serious about growing and running a successful business, an ecommerce website is far superior.
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