Selling your products and/or services can take many forms, i.e.; to wholesalers, retailers, franchisees, overseas representatives, telesales, through a frontline sales force, direct to customers, mail order, social media Marketing, viral marketing and/or on-line through your own website – or any combination of these.

Let’s face it, in the current economic climate you either stick to the tried and true formula … or try whatever you can to stay in business.  It doesn’t matter whether you are a manufacturer, wholesaler, on-seller, service provider, etc. – it’s about how much profit you are making, the return on your investment, and the brand you own and are building. If you are not making profit (or a reasonable amount), then you may as well have left the investment in a bank term deposit.

Most businesses have started to become much more professional and sophisticated with on-line selling.  However, despite the progress it is amazing how many get the basics wrong – it’s no good having a great looking website if you don’t have other basics right like; having enough stock, quick and efficient despatch methods, follow-up mechanisms, payment processing, etc.

Depending on your type of business, and any relevant legislation, you may have one price point per product/service or a number of different price points depending on customer type and volume purchased, such as (from high to low):

• Normal retail price.
• Special mail order or on-line retail price.
• Special marketing campaign retail price.
• Run out retail price.
• Wholesale price (small resellers)
• Wholesale price (medium resellers)
• Wholesale price (large resellers)
• Wholesale price (franchisees)
• Wholesale price (national accounts)

Generally you would have calculated your various price points based on volume, worth of the account, ease of sale, entry to a market otherwise too difficult to service, etc.

Have you ever considered a second on-line sales stream – in addition to your website on-line sales?

This is a trend that we are seeing more and more – where a business also sets up an e-Bay store.  This allows a second sales stream, operational 24/7 where all the sales are done on-line –reducing the need for field sales staff. It also allows you to be trading in many different markets – for example, Ebay currently (Oct 2011) has operational sites in 30 countries.

In terms of pricing, you would need to calculate the worth of this additional stream to your business. However, our experience shows that many businesses select a price point similar to or slightly below that of their website on-line price and close to, but above the wholesale price (small resellers).  You do of course allow customers to purchase straight away or have the option of accepting the highest price bid through the on-line eBay store.  This is a particularly good way of selling off excess stock, end-of-line stock, or even seconds and gives you total control of the price point.  So while you may be competing against your own on-line website sales stream – that’s better than losing a sale to a competitor, or having an existing reseller mass discounting stock and poaching significant sales away from you.

What exactly is an eBay store?

eBay Stores are part of eBay where individual sellers can display all of the items they have for sale and tell you more about their business through their own customized pages. A red door icon  next to a seller's user ID indicates that the seller has an eBay Store. Click the red door to go directly to the seller's eBay Store and access all of their items.

An eBay Store can help sellers maximize their business on eBay. Store subscribers get access to tools that enable help them grow their own brand and encourage buyers to buy more.

To be able to customize your eBay Store means that you can have a consistent marketing image to your other marketing methods, have products/services displayed by categories, and have all your eBay items in one place. eBay suggests that sellers, on average see a 25% increase in sales in the 3-months after opening an eBay shop.

eBay both in Australia and around the world is a highly competitive market with Auctions, Buy it Now sales and Buy it Now Best Offers, you need a professional image to convert potential buyers into definite buyers. Statistics show that eBay is dominated by just 10% of the stores established within it. These stores have a significant advantage by having a professional store front design with detailed and properly designed product listings.


How do you set up an eBay Store?

Mindiam can deliver a brand new eBay Store design, tailored to your companies brand and image, to give you a high profile image on eBay and increase your eBay sales.

We have worked with numerous businesses to set up and develop their eBay stores – and offer a package specifically designed for our customers:

• Professional business custom ebay design
• Advanced ebay (3 column layout) storefront and dynamic catalogue pages
• Advanced item inventory (3 column layout) storefront / catalogue gallery
• ebay header reduction
• Professional ebay store pages to display important business information
• Fluid CSS (no tables) driven design for search engine optimisation
• Free 3 months help and support from our development team
• 3 months secure file hosting and software licensing

Find out more at the Mindiam website
http://mindiam.com/web-design/ebay-store-design.html