In Australia, eBay is the number one marketplace shoppers hit when they purchase online. Amazon isnt even a distant third according to eBay Consulting Expert Miles Clemans of InDemand. Miles and Nerada Stern cofounded InDemand to meet the rigorous demands of companies in Australia that capture significant sales revenue on eBay AU.
While in the states, Amazon captures mindshare for retailers and distributors who use them for listing products as well as for their logistics services eBay rarely gets a second look. Incorporating eBay into your sales strategy can yield big results and heres why:
1. Reach – – In Australia, retailers and distributors launch an eBay store before they even launch their own corporate web store. Why? Market Reach. eBay is fully optimized to capture rankings on search engines and gives new web stores instant visibility which can yield sales in a matter of minutes vs. weeks compared with a corporate store. Companies can increase sales quickly by utilizing the built-in optimization that eBay stores provide. Youll spend months getting your site and products ranked on Google vs. minutes on eBay.
2. Spend – – eBay does take a small percentage of each sale and there is a store fee of course but eBay doesnt compete with you like Amazon does. Amazon dictates that your pricing cant be set below a specific point yet with access to all buyer information including whats selling and at what price, Amazon competes directly with their sellers. eBay doesnt sell products direct nor do they offer logistics services its all you. Which means you set your own competitive pricing and not have to stave off a formidable competitor the size of Amazon.
3. Ease – – Listing products on eBay is easy but its time consuming. Each product you list must be classified using eBays naming conventions but there are ways to make it easier and faster. nChannels eBay connector can take your products from Microsoft Dynamics for example and send them to eBay in bulk for classification and listing. eBay orders can then be collected and fulfilled in Microsoft Dynamics with status and shipping information sent back to eBay where shoppers are notified and presented with shipping status. Keeping inventory and customer data synchronized between systems is automated, saving hours of manual entry.
4. The Net Effect – Often, customers use eBay to search for sellers that provide a particular product they are looking for. Shoppers are smart, and will often navigate to your web site to see if they can get a better price. Offering better pricing on your web store will incent customers to shop from you directly and youll avoid the charges you wouldve paid to eBay had they purchased your items via your eBay listing.
Now through November 16th nChannel is offering Cyber Monday Mania! You can launch a Magento Go hosted web store and use nChannel to connect Magento Go, eBay and any other connectors you need with no payments until January 2013. Visit our Cyber Monday main page for details.
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