| The simple answer is don't sell on eBay or Amazon! | | | | solutions that are not only affordable but which look |
| Rather self defeating really but I am serious, there are | | | | excellent and are easy to edit. You can buy your own |
| ways of eliminating eBay and Amazon fees quite | | | | domain name, find an e-commerce package to suit |
| legitimately when selling you products. Sell outside of | | | | you (always start with the basic package). Using the |
| eBay and Amazon and avoid the huge fees | | | | control panel it is very easy to add your complete |
| associated with putting your products before your | | | | inventory in just a few hours. This is a very cost |
| prospective customers and yet another set of fees | | | | effective solution and the first one I setup costs me |
| when you actually sell something. | | | | only $15 a month, so you can shop around for the |
| Consider when you list a product on eBay, you pay a | | | | package and deal that suits you best. |
| fee to list the item on the site; this is on a sliding scale | | | | PayPal, World Pay and often many other payment |
| depending on your starting price for an auction or the | | | | options are included with the site so it's only a matter |
| price of a fixed price listing. When your product sells | | | | of entering the relevant details when you setup the |
| you pay a final value fee depending on your closing | | | | website. The next step is to drive traffic to your |
| price and a PayPal fee to process your payment. If | | | | website, just hoping someone will find it will never work. |
| your item does not sell you can list it again for another | | | | There are several ways of doing this, lets start with |
| fee, (if it sells the second time around you will get a | | | | eBay itself, use the "About Me" section to include a link |
| credit to you account for the listing fee). | | | | to your website, this is the only place you are allowed |
| For Amazon it costs nothing to list an item but | | | | to do this. Setup an auto responder such as aweber |
| Amazon take up to 171/2 % of the selling price which | | | | and link it to your PayPal account so that customers |
| you set when you list the product for sale. The actual | | | | get an "order received" e-mail when they buy through |
| amount will vary from product to product. Check out | | | | eBay. In that include a link as part of you signature |
| the scale of charges by logging into your Amazon | | | | NOT as part of the message body. |
| account. | | | | On dispatch include a compliments slip which gives you |
| By investing a little time and effort we can eliminate | | | | web address and some further information. Get some |
| most of these charges and re-occurring fees. The | | | | sticky return labels printed with your name address |
| answer is to have your own e-commerce website(s) | | | | and website details on it. This will pay for itself after |
| now if this scares you half to death as it once did me I | | | | only two products have been returned undelivered. |
| completely understand! I thought of doing this a few | | | | On your website you can offer lower prices than |
| years ago but with no technical knowledge I knew I | | | | eBay, there are no listing or final value fees to pay. Set |
| could not do it myself. I approached several web | | | | the site up so that customers need to register their |
| developers who quotes me fees form $1000 to $3000 | | | | e-mail address before they make a purchase, you can |
| this was far more than I could afford so I just thought I | | | | then mail them out your latest offers every 2-3 weeks. |
| would stick to eBay and Amazon. | | | | There is another method of selling of eBay which is |
| About a year ago I set my mind to it once again and | | | | the single page or single product websites but that will |
| having done some research found that many hosting | | | | be the subject of another article. |
| companies offer template driven e-commerce | | | | |