|
 Selling
on eBay has become a popular choice
when building an online business.
But, is this approach the most
effective? Many eBay sellers
complain of the high cost and loss of
independence associated with the eBay
process.
As a result, alternative
e-commerce services are being used to complement or
replace their current eBay listings.
One
effective way to reduce or
eliminate eBay's high selling fees is
to sell using an
independently-hosted web store.
Each week, thousands of eBay sellers
are opening their own independent,
stand-alone web stores on the
Internet. eBay sellers
benefit greatly from web store
services as they can
continuously list all the items they
have for sale, without having to pay
eBay's recurring listing fees. In
addition, each time an order
is processed through a stand-alone
web store, the seller saves eBay's
"final-value fees" - up to
12% of the items' selling price!
Selling
with a stand-alone web store does not mean
reducing how items are
promoted on the
Internet. By using more
sophisticated web store services, such
as "PrestoStore", sellers
are provided with many of the same
online promotion and marketing
techniques as eBay, at a much
lower cost.
And unlike eBay, PrestoStore offers a complete suite of promotion
services as part of its standard
service package. But more important to many, PrestoStore
establishes an
independent selling environment for
merchants, restoring the freedom and individuality
many online businesses lose to eBay.
Do
independent web store services perform
as well as eBay?
Sellers need to weigh many
factors: the desire for independence
and professionalism,
their need for marketing and promotion,
and ultimately cost.
We decided
to challenge
both types
of online selling services to see how well the online
promotion features of PrestoStore
compares to eBay Store.
Does eBay's "network"
approach to selling online work better than
PrestoStore's "independent web
store" approach?
Does the similar marketing and
promotion techniques used by both
services work better in one
environment than the other? In
the end, which service sells more
items online, and at what
cost?
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