2nd eBay Store

[pickapresent13]

How many people here have more than 1 eBay Store (or selling account) and use both ?

Do you sell the same things on both or use them for selling different types of products ?

I`m thinking about opening a 2nd Store, but only to sell one line of product, as I`m looking to invest heavily in this product and have a few hundred variations of the one item, and thought a stand alone store for that item might be the best option

Interested in peoples thoughts

[phorum_junkie*]

I sell on three ids, one is a store which has 200 free listings then I have 2 non store ids one of which is used for auction items and the other for BIN with best offer.

If you are going to be listing one product where variations are available then I doubt if a store would be cost effective, if you listed using a non store id you could list for 10 days and then just relist every 10 days adjusting the number of stock you have left. As you get up to 40 listings free you could sell a few as 5 day auctions which would keep your items near the top when people search by newly listed or ending soonest.

[clarry100]

We have two store IDs both selling the same products.

One sells more in low qty's and the other tends to sell more in bulk qty's. Seems to work OK.

But I do like the idea put fwd by PJ of a non-store ID to take advantage of the 40-free listings each month and use that for doing auction style listings only.

We never list auctions (only when ebay hand out freebies) because the success rate is very low and lots of non-payers and we find we cannot recover the loss of insertion fees. $1.50 is too high for us when the average price of our items is around $10.

So perhaps a third ID as non-store for auctions might be a good idea.

If we had this PJ could we embed links into the decriptions to the other two stores? Would doing so be a breach of any rule?

[chameleon54]

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@pickapresent13 wrote:

How many people here have more than 1 eBay Store (or selling account) and use both ?

Do you sell the same things on both or use them for selling different types of products ?

I`m thinking about opening a 2nd Store, but only to sell one line of product, as I`m looking to invest heavily in this product and have a few hundred variations of the one item, and thought a stand alone store for that item might be the best option

Interested in peoples thoughts

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I have two stores selling slightly different items to similar but slightly different target market,  plus a semi private selling account that I mainly use for the ebay freeby auctions, selling a different product again .I personally think it may be worth trying the second store ( with a couple of BUTS ) if you are going to have several hundred variations of the one product line. The more targeted you can make your store, the more proffesional it is going to look to your customers. If they have found your store, they are searching for your specific product and can search the variations you offer for exactly what they want, without wading through a whole lot of un-related items. ( now for the BUT ) If your other existing product lines are similar and likely to interest your new customers, you would lose the window shopping effect or cross product promotion from visiters to your new store, so this is worth thinking about. It all depends on wether your existing products are a good fit for new product lines. If you keep all products in one store you can use ebays catagories to help your customers fine tune thier search. BUT this assumes most casual ebayers know how to use the store catagory facility. ( next BUT ) I mainly have two seperate stores and the auction account for online security and tax purposes. If one account is experiencing problems I can work on the other accounts. ( cheap online business insurance ). Also I can sell up to $225,000 without having to charge GST. ( $75,000 per account )  and use the different ID,s for income splitting for tax purposes. ( each seperate ID has a different ownership structure for ATO tax purposes ) These tax issues are only really of interest to mid sized online owner operators. They would not have a lot of merit for existing B & M operators who are starting an online adjunct to existing business or to larger corporate style businesses selling more than $250,000 per year.

[chameleon54]

One more thought. Multiple accounts do mean multiple  book-keeping chores. If seperate ownership structures are used, they each need seperate bank and paypal accounts and seperate tax lodgements. You could have seperate ebay id,s but combine accounts under the same ownership structure, with the same paypal account & bank account to try to keep things simple. You would only need to lodge one tax return under this model.

[pickapresent13]

Thanks Chameleon and everyone else, some helpful information there.

The product kind of works in with other stuff I sell, but can also work as a stand alone store. Think the extra business I pick up from being a stand alone will outweigh what I miss from cross promotion in my current store.

Its easy enough for people to click on my account and see what I sell, so need to be coy about the product I suppose. Looking at a store that exclusively sells posters. There are 1000`s (more like millions) of different posters out there I can get, and thinking a stand alone store, with categories and sub-categories, once people go into it, they will have a bit of a look at what other ones I have (particularly when looking at their fav sport or sporting team) without going through all the other product.

Yes, I may miss the odd opportunity when someone buys for instance a Star Wars poster, that they won`t see that I also sell Star Wars mugs, keychain etc, so will miss the odd add on sale there, but confident I will pick it up in other areas.

Thanks again for your info

P.S. As for the tax/book keeping, I`m actually studying accountancy, so I have that part of it covered 🙂

[chameleon54]

Sounds like you have a covered most of the basis.. My school age daughter sells a similar product as a small business / pocket money thing, buying in bulk overseas and selling individual items. I have thought a stand alone store would be the ideal answer for her.  All the best with the new venture. ( I think you are on a winner )