Advice for setting up online sales/webpage/blog?

[Radha]

  Hi All,

     So, I love to go thrifting, and collect and sell vintage items, like so many of us do.  I have been cautiously pondering turning this into a small side business/hobby.  I know it won't really make much money- honestly if it would pay for ponies I would be thrilled!

     My question is, what are the ins and outs of having a webpage or Ebay or Etsy store?  I've tried researching this a bit on the internet but so many of the links seem to be sales pitches.  I'm hoping for something a little more official and in depth than my occasional arena and Ebay sales,  perhaps where I can also occasionally blog about thrifting and vintage toys? 

     I thought this would be a good place to get some real advice that wasn't trying to sell me a questionable domain address.    Thanks for any input!

[Haruna]

I only have a little experience selling on Ebay (been selling for about a year, on and off, about seventy auctions), so I can't give much advice, but I'll give it a try. We (my sister and I) don't have an Ebay store; I'm not sure I'd recommend one. We've done fine without it. You have to pay money for it ($17 a month, I think?), and that only makes sense if you're going to sell more than $17 a month and more than fifty listings a month (because with a store you get 150-2,000 listings "free," I think). Currently I believe you can list fifty items "free" without a store. Since you said this is a hobby/small side business (as it is for us), I think you can probably get by without a store.

You said you've sold on Ebay before, so you probably know that with all listings (store or store-less) there are final value fees and PayPal fees when the listing sells. (I think the final value Ebay takes is 10%; then they take a little because of PayPal and a little out of your shipping fees.) That's the downside of Ebay, but I think it's worth it, especially if you take those fees into account when you decide your auction price and shipping fees. Ebay has a huge worldwide market of people, and people will find your items more easily there. And they can bid them up if they're worth more than you think. There's also a degree of protection for sellers and buyers with their feedback system. Selling on a personal website seems difficult to me (though I've never tried it); people will probably only find your items if you actively advertise your website here and on other pony/vintage toy boards.

One of the downsides of Ebay selling is that to get great feedback and eventually gain Top Seller status, you have to ship items quickly. So, especially if you have buy-it-now items, you have to keep on top of things and be ready to ship the next day or even the same day. (You can ship later than that, but buyers like it better if you ship quickly.) I found myself going to the post office once or twice a week. Packaging takes me forever, too, since I like to sign the packing slip, package the pony in pretty paper, carefully tape up the package, double-check the address, etc. (My sister packs them quicker, though, so you might, too.

On a final note, I guess whichever route you decide to take, I'd keep organized. I'm not a financially-minded person, but my sister is (she's getting her accounting degree soon). She made an Excel document keeping track of how much we paid to obtain our ponies/items, how much the Ebay fees were, how much the shipping was, even how much gas and packaging cost(!) and how much we got for them in the end to make sure that we were making a profit. That takes quite a bit of time but is very necessary, so I'd recommend that you keep track of your finances or find someone who can to make sure you're getting the money you're working for.

Hope that helps!     



 

[silverdragon54]

Mind if I join the party? I'm kinda in the same boat.

I want to try selling my handmade items. (I don't even care about profit...I just think it would be nice to make my creative habits self-sustaining. ) It's daunting, though; I don't know how to get started. eBay fees, crazy expensive shipping from Canada, linking PayPal to a bank account, needing to learn accounting?! All of that seems so confusing.

I figure I need to start small. My first goal is working up the nerve to actually link PayPal to a bank account. Linking it to my credit card was one thing. Letting them access a bank account??! I do have a good account to use, though...I think. I rarely use it at all right now, and it's isolated from my debit card. I can only access it from an actual brick and mortar bank. I'd use it exclusively for receiving money from PayPal.

[Radha]

  Thanks Haruna    Yes, the bookkeeping side is something I will need to work on.  Treating it purely like a hobby has let me a little bad in that area    I agree about the ebay store- waaaay too expensive!  A little more research turned up a tutorial on starting a blog, and it seems you can buy domain names from Google for $10/year.  I'm not sure about having a web page for sales, as I don't know a darn thing about creating and managing web pages.  I do have a friend who is a professional web designer, so I might trade him gardening work for web page help!

  Silverdragon- Have you thought about online banking? I use CapitalOne 360 and a real life checking account as well.  You could link Paypal to one but not the other, if you have security concerns.  It could also help to keep a seperate pony account- I'm thinking this option over, as it would help me keep better track of pony expenses and occasional profit 

 Thanks for support, guys.  So many people just like to point out that it's unlikely to make money or that it's time consuming, and it gets to be a bummer when everyone discourages you.  I have a Master's degree and teach science, so I have my practical side and know I won't get rich- this is for the personal side of me and my love of old toys! 

[Aadra310]

Cant help you with the blog part but I recommend Etsy all the way for sales!  Their fees are incredibly reasonable (about 3% or so which is worth it for their attractive site and easy to use listing tools) AND buyers can pay with credit card = no paypal fees sometimes!  I've had my etsy store for over a year and I love it!  Like you, I'm not aiming to make much profit, but I make enough to shop for items to put in the store and buy myself the occasional small treat.  I have it all linked up to my bank account and paypal.  You can even pay your etsy fees by automatic withdraw- it's very easy once you get it all set up.  I also have a masters degree and teach science- how crazy is that?!?!  Don't let people discourage you- doing a store is fun, I enjoy looking for stuff to put in it, and it's nice even if you only end up with $20 extra every month.

I do eBay as well (just listings- don't have an ebay store) for items that don't qualify for etsy and you basically have to take factor in about 15-20% to pay for the fees.

Good luck!

[Prismatic]

There's one thing I'd like to note, if you decide to go with something other than etsy or ebay:

It can be a lot harder to get your site seen by others.  Ebay and etsy will show your products to people searching those particular sites for items.  They are well known sites that get a lot of traffic, which in turn helps your sales.  That's basically what ebay's fees are for, you pay them to help drive traffic to see your items for sales, and they take a part of the money made (middle man.)  With your own site, you'll need to do that part yourself, and potentially be competing against etsy or ebay.  Because of this, you'll need to do some marketing, so your potential customers learn of your site, and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is an important part.

To add, I work for a hosting company, so this kind of thing is something I see every day.  A common reason people cancel their hosting is because they opened it to start a business, then didn't have the ability to get enough traffic, so they weren't making money.  Ecommerce sites can be a lot more confusing (ebay/etsy make it easy to lessen frustration, most Ecommerce sites aren't so nice) and many either give up, or pay someone else to manage it, which defeats the purpose of skipping ebay.

I'm by no means saying it's impossible, I know of a lot of others that do really awesome, though it will most likely take you more work to maintain your own site, and you may end up paying more for it than if you went through etsy or ebay.

My recommendation would be to start with ebay or etsy (probably etsy for vintage or handmade stuff, their fees are less, though I sell ponies primarily through ebay, they tend to sell faster) build your customer base and then move if you make enough from sales to justify it.  You will have to pay fees, but it's a trade off for a more streamlined sales process and less hassle, and less time needed to maintain it.

For the blog, I'd recommend something free to start and move up from there if you get enough traffic.  Free sites like tumblr or wordpress, you can actually buy your own domain and use it on either of those instead of the example.tumblr.com or example.wordpress.com.  For domains, you can often get them for really cheap, I'd recommend going with a large registrar, like godaddy, 1 and 1, namecheap, hostgator, etc (I recommend this same thing if you choose to start your own site and need hosting.)  The small or more obscure ones can be very frustrating to work with and often take days to respond to requests, have poor support, no live support, etc.  I have domains from all the registrars I listed, and I got most for $1-2 because they occassionally have sales. Keep in mind domains are also yearly, so you'll have to pay each year to renew it.

I hope that helps clarify some things, I know you wanted honest feedback about it and I agree that many places do sound like sales pitches.  If you have any other questions or anything, let me know too, I definitely don't know everything, but I can answer all I can

[Radha]

  Thanks Aadra310 Prismatic!  Yeah, I don't think I want to deal with my own sales page.  I didn't realize that Etsy might be noticeably better than an Ebay store- I haven't really spent much time on it (Etsy) and I will now be sure to check that out.

   I'm leaning toward a blog with an Etsy/Ebay/Arena link attached.  I guess mostly because I would like to write a bit about old toys, thrifting, etc, but also sell and have control over when I do.  I am a full time teacher and have a child, so it needs to be ok for me to be active at my own pace. 

   What about google's blog service- does anyone have any experience with using it?