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Preparing to move from an auction site to an online shop

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Published on May 01, 2012 Preparing to move from an auction site to an online shop

Posted at 6:55 pm in Ecommerce by

Last updated on October 30, 2018

If listing fees, final value fees, gallery fees, lack of control over how the site is presented, lack of your own domain name, and the lack of loyalty building behaviour by customers are some of the things frustrating you about listing items for sale on an auction site, you may be thinking of making the move to an online shop. Congratulations on making the decision to move.

But what are the key things you need to consider when moving from an auction site to an online shop, and what are some ways you can go about making the move?

Making the move

When setting up your new site, there are a few things you need to do:

  • Choose a domain name compatible with the name you’ve been known as in your auction listing, re-review your logo – is it professional, classy, memorable and clear? If not you may need to consider a new logo design.
  • Think about the design aspect of your site – how will you differentiate the design from others in the industry – have you chosen a shopping cart provider with web design capability who can deliver you a site that fits with your brand personality? Or will you be stuck with a do-it-yourself design editor and the costs of buying a template (and then modifying it)?
  • Think about the products you are selling on your site – which ones will you feature (you may want to consider the best selling ones on your auction website, and the best selling products of your competitors on the auction website which you can see from viewing their sales history and feedback)
  • Think about getting some testimonials or reviews from some of your best repeat purchases – this will help reassure customers coming to the new site. New sites can leave people feeling wary, so the more reassurance you provide, the more likely you are to get the result you want
  • Choose a provider with good checkout security. Even if your payment provider doesn’t technically require your site’s checkout to be secure, your customers will feel better about buying from you if they know that you take their personal information seriously. Perception is everything, after all.
  • Think about your payment methods that you accept. Do you want to continue with a payment method like Paypal, or go to a merchant/bank/gateway based solution to accept credit cards directly (and have the money paid directly into your account)?

Keep your auction listings (at least to begin with)

Once your site is up and running, your overall plan may be to close your auction listings down and focus all of your effort and money on your new site. This is generally not a good strategy however, unless you are a well established business with regular, repeat buyers or a new business just starting up. The reason for this is that you must invest in marketing your new website with considerable time and effort before you will start to see results. Own sites do not instantly get traffic like an auction listing, because people do not know to go there to look for your products and services. Auction marketplaces spend a large amount of money advertising to bring traffic to their sites to generate more search traffic. You can be very successful and pay less in fees by running your own website, but unless you have a very unique product that is in high demand, it will usually take time to get your buyers buying.

You can use auction listings to entice buyers to view your website by enclosing a flyer in with their items, and potentially a discount code or some other kind of special offer, or even a business card with your website address on it.

Once you have built a steady stream of repeat customers to your new website, and started email marketing to them to keep them interested, you can then reduce the number of auctions you list and eventually stop listing them altogether – saving you money and pain of listing effort.

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