To store or not to store

[van_werkhoven]

So, I've decided to set up some new accounts to seperate my sales.I want to have separate accounts for womens clothes and childrens clothes, and then use this account for general sales, books, household items etc. On each of the two clothing accounts I would be looking at having around 300 active items at this point.

The big pull, for me, to use a store was the 30-day listings. But these days, with free relisting available, standard users getting free listings constantly, and stores receiving few, is it really worth making the accounts store accounts? I wonder if I might be better off using free relisting and listing offers and get just about as far with the items I am selling. Either I use my stores 200 free listings for 30 days each, and with free relisting run those items 4 times, or I use one of the, at this point seemingly bi-monthly, standard seller freebies, giving me 300 listings a month but those listings only lasting 10 days plus 3 free relists... I don't know.

Are there any other major advantages to having a store? There's a light reduction in fees but since I'm selling in clothes and accessories the reduction isn't all that great anyway. Does it help search results much? (and on that note, does TRS really effect search results much?) To test out the search and best match stuff I went looking for some items this morning, and in the top pages were people with 3-word titles, no store, no TRS, under 50 feedback with 10-day BINs, while my TRS store account wasn't even in the top 200, making me think the search results are basically completely random because they don't seem to make much sense to me.

Is a store worth it for sellers with less than 500 items? Do the free 10 day listings for standard sellers occur often enough to balance out with a basic store with 200 30 day listings? Will I suddenly become invisible without a store?

Thanks for any advice guys

[harley_babes_hoard]

you might be best to search the help files for all the information. click on customer support and type in stores

[van_werkhoven]

I know the rules and help files, but they don't tell me how search results are formulated. I know they claim store and TRS status help search but I have seen people on these forums disagree. And they won't tell me the general opinion on the reliability of free listings for standard sellers, or give me experiences from people with both store and non store IDs. So, yeah

[thecatspjs]

Stores worth it for me to run around 100 listings.

Depends on the $$$ value of your goods I suppose. 

One good sale on this ID per month more than covers my store costs.   

For featured store the clothing fvf is 8.5% - compared to no store fvf 9.9% - so the saving can signficantly cover your store cost if you selling around $1,000 per week. 

I still fork out for featured on this ID cause I am always "gunna, gunna, gunna" ramp the listings back up, and this year each time I have some time spare to do so, another signficant eBay change is announced that makes it an even less attractive place for me to put energy into.

All of that being said the free auctions that non-stores get are attractive, and I use non-store IDs to take advantage of these, but they just don't get the same interest as my stores do, I have swapped stock between them, but my stores just get quicker sales at a better price.

[digital*ghost]

A couple of years ago, it would have been a simple matter of weighing up costs and turnover target(s), in that one would cost more than the other, and one may be better suited in terms of sales volume (eg one off items, available for a limited time at auction has a higher sense of urgency if someone wants to secure it than a 30-day BIN, even if there's only one available), but these days auctions don't quite have that same sense - I know you're not speaking specifically about using auctions, but it would probably be the major benefit of not subscribing to a store, because clothing auctions would then cost you $1.50 a pop.

Visibility.... well, new listings get a temporary boost, so 3 x 10-day listings vs 1 perpetual listing might work out if you can't build a listing's standings in other ways (i.e. sales history being the main way, which you can't do if you only have one). 

On the flip side, I suspect there's differing impressions from the buyer's perspective to see a listing end and relist continually as opposed to an always-available listing (a subconscious thought of, didn't sell, didn't sell again, and again... vs it's still available, if you know what I mean?). That's presuming a buyer sees this, anyway, most of the time they're probably not going to look at the number of times an item has been listed etc, but it may be something to think about. 

Personally, with 300 items, I'd probably go for the store, since it would be impossible to offer them all month after month without one. 40 free listings, with free relists = 40 items for up to 40 days, leaving 260. Most offers are for 150 items, 10 day max (not sure if they get free relists, but if not, you'll need another 600+ listings each month to make them always available, the cost of which would be $900 without a store, $120 with, and a 0.04% saving on FVF to boot (lucky you!), but no auctions... and also no hoping for free bonuses, less admin in working out what does and doesn't need to be relisted, and so on. Especially if it were going to be over a total of 3 accounts.

[lawnbowler46]

Hi,

I sell adults and children's clothing too and I often find if the adult buys something for themselves they will often buy something for there child as well while shopping and save money on combined postage and I get the added bonus of that extra sale that I may have missed.

Perhaps just make the catorgories very clear in one store for the clothing and see how that works for you first.

Something else for you to think about before doing it, as only you know what the advantages it could be for you personally by having seperate stores.

Good luck in which ever way you decide to go 🙂

[van_werkhoven]

---

@digital*ghost wrote:

A couple of years ago, it would have been a simple matter of weighing up costs and turnover target(s), in that one would cost more than the other, and one may be better suited in terms of sales volume (eg one off items, available for a limited time at auction has a higher sense of urgency if someone wants to secure it than a 30-day BIN, even if there's only one available), but these days auctions don't quite have that same sense - I know you're not speaking specifically about using auctions, but it would probably be the major benefit of not subscribing to a store, because clothing auctions would then cost you $1.50 a pop.

Visibility.... well, new listings get a temporary boost, so 3 x 10-day listings vs 1 perpetual listing might work out if you can't build a listing's standings in other ways (i.e. sales history being the main way, which you can't do if you only have one). 

On the flip side, I suspect there's differing impressions from the buyer's perspective to see a listing end and relist continually as opposed to an always-available listing (a subconscious thought of, didn't sell, didn't sell again, and again... vs it's still available, if you know what I mean?). That's presuming a buyer sees this, anyway, most of the time they're probably not going to look at the number of times an item has been listed etc, but it may be something to think about. 

Personally, with 300 items, I'd probably go for the store, since it would be impossible to offer them all month after month without one. 40 free listings, with free relists = 40 items for up to 40 days, leaving 260. Most offers are for 150 items, 10 day max (not sure if they get free relists, but if not, you'll need another 600+ listings each month to make them always available, the cost of which would be $900 without a store, $120 with, and a 0.04% saving on FVF to boot (lucky you!), but no auctions... and also no hoping for free bonuses, less admin in working out what does and doesn't need to be relisted, and so on. Especially if it were going to be over a total of 3 accounts.

---

I'm pretty sure you can free-relist on free listings, I have been able to as a store, so I would only need two 150 listing offers a month, which, for awhile there, non-store IDs seemed to be getting. And almost all my items are single sale items, which means no building up in search results. Given me some things to think about, thanks!

[van_werkhoven]

---

@lawnbowler46 wrote:

Hi,

I sell adults and children's clothing too and I often find if the adult buys something for themselves they will often buy something for there child as well while shopping and save money on combined postage and I get the added bonus of that extra sale that I may have missed.

Perhaps just make the catorgories very clear in one store for the clothing and see how that works for you first.

Something else for you to think about before doing it, as only you know what the advantages it could be for you personally by having seperate stores.

Good luck in which ever way you decide to go 🙂

---

I've been selling with catagories in store for awhile now, and actually get suprisingly few combined post sales, and even those are always the same sized items, I have never had an adult and child combined post sale yet. However, I sell second hand, I can see how it may well be the case for people selling brand new.

Part of my reason for splitting them is to give me more breathing room regarding defects, which are unfortunately pretty bad in the used clothing catagory. I only sell good quality and higher clothes, but I have been given a defect for a single pulled thread before, or the defect I got for the lace on a vintage dress being a little tatty after it was described as having some general wear and being vintage used. So it's something I'm trying to find a way to manage. Splitting womens and childrens clothes would also split my buyer-didnt-read-description defects across two accounts.

[thecatspjs]

---

@van_werkhoven wrote:

I'm pretty sure you can free-relist on free listings, I have been able to as a store, so I would only need two 150 listing offers a month, which, for awhile there, non-store IDs seemed to be getting. And almost all my items are single sale items, which means no building up in search results. Given me some things to think about, thanks!

---

Just needed to add, I don't get any free relists on any ID as I am registered as a business seller

thanks for that eBay

[harley_babes_hoard]

Nobody knows your circumstances, how much you list how much you sell etc etc. so it's pretty hard to give an opinion on weather you should open a store. No one really knows what the search algorithm is either. Free listings are not a given if you are a casual seller.