An I missing the boat here? Wondering if certain product lines just don't move on ebay like,.....clothing.

I am coming out w/ a line of wake baits that I think could do fine there but was wondering about my apparel too.

What is the cost? How much traffic is needed to cost justify? Should I wait till the stuff is out in the public and has some chatter going on or should I open a store asap and get it "ready" for a launch? (or not bother at all)

Thanks in advance

Ebay had a special deal a couple years ago where you could try a storefront for a month for free. I tried it.

At the time, listing fees were much higher than they are now. A storefront let you pay X amount of dollars and then you listed your items for next to nothing and the time of the listing was 30 days. Your back end commission fees weren't any different.

Here's where the rub was. If someone does a search, Storefronts end up at the very bottom of the search in their own category. If a search on say "swim baits" turns up 2 or 3 pages, the storefronts don't show up till the end of the 3rd page. As often happens, the searcher rarely gets to the 3rd page before they find something they want.

Anyway, I'm glad it was free. It hurt my sales vs. helping but I'm sure product line has a lot to do with that.

Now a days, Ebay has really dropped their front end listing fees and loaded up the back end commissions. The advantage to that is if an item fails to sell in the first 7 or 10 days you can relist again and still be spending less than the old days if you did the same.

But it's all about the merchandise too. If it's something hot and in demand, throwing it up for a shorter term duration is the way to go. You'll get more hits because it winds up farther up in the search function. If it's something like clothing that takes a little more time to attract interest, the storefront would probably be the way to go. I will say I've noticed there are fewer storefronts selling fishing equipment these days than in the past.

BTW, one of the reasons why a storefront operation will periodically throw a few pieces of merchandise up for auction is to get themselves into the mainstream on the search function.  If a buyer pulls up your item for auction he'll probably wind up browsing your storefront.  Something that may never happen if you didn't do that.

A couple other things I forgot to mention.

An Ebay storefront is also a cheaper way of putting yourself into a mainstream location on the web vs buying a domain from somebody like GoDaddy, designing your own site and then waiting for sales.

The storefront gets your merchandise onto a site that has millions of visitors a day.  That will also show up in popular search functions like Google and can be used in link form at sites like this place.

Basically, it gives you the potential to get yourself out there faster than standard web E commerce methods.

As for costs?  IIRC, the charge was about $15 a month.  Listing fees were like 15 cents for 30 days.  There were various levels of storefronts, I don't remember the particulars and I'm sure they've changed in the 2 + years since I was involved.

Lots of info, thanks Cart!

My roomate's parents run a jewelry store in downtown Atlanta. I remember him saying one time that they didn't have much success selling on eBay, so they use Overstock.com.

My roomate's parents run a jewelry store in downtown Atlanta. I remember him saying one time that they didn't have much success selling on eBay, so they use Overstock.com.

Most E-Commerce 101 classes will teach you that some merchandise just won't sell well on the internet. That people just aren't comfortable buying something sight unseen. Jewelry, stamps and coins, antiques are just a few.

It's the reason those E-grocery stores never took off. Folks just don't want a bag of groceries, usually with perishables like meat and produce showing up, delivered to their doorstep, that they had no involvement in choosing the actual product that wound up in the bag, despite how fresh or good the product might be.

My roomate's parents run a jewelry store in downtown Atlanta. I remember him saying one time that they didn't have much success selling on eBay, so they use Overstock.com.

Most E-Commerce 101 classes will teach you that some merchandise just won't sell well on the internet. That people just aren't comfortable buying something sight unseen. Jewelry, stamps and coins, antiques are just a few.

It's the reason those E-grocery stores never took off. Folks just don't want a bag of groceries, usually with perishables like meat and produce showing up, delivered to their doorstep, that they had no involvement in choosing the actual product that wound up in the bag, despite how fresh or good the product might be.

I see. That makes sense.