Standalone websites

[clubesquire]

Good afternoon everyone, 'tis a beautiful Autumn day here in BrisVegas - lovely. I hope all is well in your world.

With full understanding that I need to drive my own traffic, I'm quite seriously interested in setting up a standalone. I won't be leaving eBay, but I would like to compliment our sales on another site and I think diversified selling platforms might be a wise move, especially considering that we'll be around for a long time yet.

I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who has done this. Although, I'm not sure just how much can be discussed here. I trust I'm not doing the wrong thing. My particular interest so far, is Wix.

Any info or advice from someone with experience in this would be gratefully appreciated.

Many thanks,

Melina.

[jellybirddesigns]

Hi Melina, 

I set up a website with Wix about 2 years ago, but closed it after 12 months as I had no sales.

You'll definitely need a good advertising budget to drive traffic to your website as you mentioned.

The other thing with Wix is that the eCommerce plug in has to be added on at additional cost (from memory)

Having said that, I am considering opening a Shopify store as the whole eCommerce thing is built in so it's probably more cost effective.

You should also check if a buyer can purchase more than 1 item at a time. Some ecommerce platforms can be limited.

[lyndal1838]

Don't expect too many replies Melina.   You are not really supposed to discuss anything that might take trade from ebay.

Hopefully a few posters may PM you if they can help.

[countessalmirena]

Hi, Melina,

It would be lovely to chat with you and give a few pointers that might be of help.

[chameleon54]

I have considered it, but the reports from other regulars who have given it a good shot have not been encouraging. Clarry who sells baby bows might be able to offer some advice as he has spent a lot of time and research on setting up a site, but again I gather it has had very limited success. The biggest problem is consistently driving traffic and appearing on the first page or two of google searches.

Love them or loathe them, ebay still ranks quite well in google searches. They had some major problems a couple of years ago when Panda was introduced, but seem to have gone some way to fixing these and again featuring reasonably well in general searches.

[clubesquire]

@ Everyone 🙂

Thank you all.

And thanks Lyndal. The last I want to do is infringe any rules, or worse, get anyone else into strife with me, so best left I think. But thank you all,  most sincerely.

Countess, thanks too. I will be in touch 🙂

Melina.

[mountainherbs-123]

Either you want a standalone website for telling your story or more about your products then I would recommend weebly. Apparently the code is neat (but I am by no means an expert) and it is easy to use. For a shop I would recommend either shopify because it  is easy to setup a neat looking website or in Aus I would as well have a look at ecorner, you won't have the currency risk. The postage module in shopify is **bleep** but you can work around. Sales with your own website is hard yakka. I set up my website myself without any coding knowledge: https://mountainherbs.net/

[clubesquire]

Very very nice MH. Love all the rich colours 🙂

And thanks for the advice. Much appreciated.

And for the advice of anyone else thinking on this issue, we've spent a lot of time now and have received some wonderful and helpful advice, So I'd suggest we're now reasonably well informed. Spend the appropriate time on due diligence, especially number crunching, directly and indirectly, with a particular thought always at the forefront of your mind - traffic and the cost of it and site management.

Our views have changed and whilst still undecided they are now weighted very much in favour of an eBay store - not for our current items though. I'm talking about a fairly diverse range of other collectibles, vintage and otherwise, and just 'stuff' generally. eBay, for all it's shortcomings, doesn't really stack up too badly, particularly if your store is set up and presented correctly and well.

I guess what I'm saying is, it would be lovely if we could all have our own sites. That sort of autonomy is soooo very attractive. But, do your homework and do it well. Don't ignore the seemingly 'small incidental costs' because they soon add up, and that's before you've made yourself visible enough to be even moderately successful.

I'd like to see this one get buried now, because I'm Leary of unintentionally inviting trouble for us, and more importantly for others who have been kind enough to participate in this topic.

Thank you all. I'll keep you advised, somehow 🙂

Melina.