s Store Tips For New Store Owners

There seems to be a number of new or semi-new sellers opening stores lately. The all seem to gee to the okay Stores board and ask the same questions we answer over and over. Here is a "cheat sheet" to get you started.Before you list, do your research! Check gepleted listings to see what other items you are wishing to list have sold for. Many new sellers can have an unrealistic view on what they think the item should sell for. Don't feel alone since many veteran sellers can have the same issue! The less you purchase it for the greater profit margin.1. What should I sell? It is always best to sell what you know and have knowledge in. Starting out, some sellers suggest to newbies to just grab the nice stuff out of the house that you no longer need or want as a training ground for auctions. Unless you are familiar with sales and marketing trends it would not be wise to run out to a wholesaler and purchase thousands of dollars worth of inventory. If however you have that type of ingee, go for it.2. Where do you guys get the stuff you sell? There is NO seller that will give you that information so do not waste time asking for it. The government does not have secrets that well guarded. It is akin to asking a celebrity for their home address and phone number. One thing you can do is a search for wholesalers but you need a wholesale license to purchase from them.3. Should I open a store or not? That depends on why you are selling, what you are selling, how much you plan on selling and if you have the ingee and time to support it. There are generally two types of okay sellers, the hobby seller and the person who does this as a full time job to pay their bills. The hobby seller who only does this to supplement ingee does not have as much stress and worry about all the fees associated with selling on okay and the cost of the store that a person who does this as a real job. If you only plan on selling part-time, only about 30 items in your store, it might not be worthwhile.If you plan on ding this as a full time job as many do, there is a lot more to it than people might think. Where hobby sellers can afford mistakes in purchasing judgment and market trends, full time sellers do not have that luxury.Most importantly, if you have 0 to low feedback it can hurt your chances for sales. Most veteran buyers do not feel gefortable with new sellers for many reasons. IT is always suggested on the boards to buy a few things first, gather some positive feedback before investing time, money and effort in opening a store.4. Is there a benefit to a store? Yes and no. Since okay changed the way stores gee up in search, there is not much exposure. You need to run core auctions in many cases to drive traffic to your store. There are many suggestions tacked at the top of the okay Stores board that can help show you how to do that. If you have many items to sell, it will cost you less in fees. Some sellers have found that when their store has less than 200 items, sales tend to go down. The more items in the store, the more core auctions, the higher the odds of sales if you take the steps to drive the traffic to that store.5. How should I design my store? Take a look around other seller's stores and get an idea of what attracts your attention, what you like, don't like. There are as many store designs as there are store owners and no two have the same look. Make use of the promotional boxes, custom pages, keywords and RSS feed. Make certain that you have a logo for your store header. You can purchase them from some very talented designers here on okay. A logo is akin to your signature. It helps define what you are selling. Always make use of your ME page. You can put either additional information about your shipping/payment/insurance/return policies. You can also tell people how you get your items. You will always notice under the store name on the right side a description of the store. Those are additional keywords that describe what you sell which is very important to include.6. Where do I get those nice templates you all have? Some people use the okay templates when listing but they cost you more money. You can either make your own or just like logo designs purchase them here from sellers who specialize in making auction templates. There are also many free templates you can get or hosting auction services that for a small monthly fee supply them.One of the most helpful to all of us is the Photo/HTML board. There are two links locked at the top written by two fellow okayers. 7. Where do I host my pictures? The Photo/HTML board has many links and suggestions. Also some ISP's will give free image hosting up to a certain amount, others you can pay for additional hosting. If you already have a web site and it is a reasonable price, find out how much space you are allowed before you are bumped up into the next6 price range. 8. Spelling, Auction Titles, Terms