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Many eBay sellers have been debating the new changes to eBay stores that happened a few months ago. I have heard on various boards that there is some confusion about what kind of stores are available and whether you even need to have a store any more.
The first thing I want to point out is that you DO NOT need to have a eBay store to put up either fixed price or auction style listings. If you are a casual seller selling a few items once in a while, there is no need to have a store. However if you get to the point that you want to ramp up your eBay business, having a store is an important key to your success.
There are 3 levels of stores available with 3 different subscription rates.
- Anchor Stores – $299.95/month
- Premium Stores – $49.94/month
- Basic Stores – $15.95/month
There is a store subscription for every type of eBay seller, so you need to figure out what type of seller you are to determine which store you should choose for your business.
All stores offer certain benefits in common, and among many other benefits, the most important to me are:
- track traffic to your eBay listings
- send out promotional emails
- put fixed price items on sale
- access to eBay support
- place listings on vacation
- personalized URL address
- 15 custom pages
Basic Stores:
With a basic store you can put up to 250 items on sale per day, send out up to 5,000 emails through the eBay system per month and have access to Seller Manager, which is a great feature to help manage your listings. Fixed price listings are $.20 each per month. (If you do not have a store, fixed price listings are $1.00 each per month).
Premium Stores:
With Premium stores you can reduce the eBay header on your store to leave more room to display your own branding, put up to 2,500 items on sale per day, have access to Seller Manager Pro with expanded reporting, send out up to 7,500 emails per month and your fixed price listings are $.05 each per month.
Anchor Stores
Anchor stores, at $299.95 per month is best for eBay sellers who carry a large inventory and have a very high volume of traffic. You can put up to 5,000 listings on sale per day, send out 10,000 emails per month and fixed price listings are only $.03 each per month.
What is the Best eBay Store for You?
Look at your past business, and look at your goals. If you only want to use eBay to sell off sports equipment your kids have outgrown, hobby items you have over bought, things that you no longer have a use for but still have a lot of use in them – then there is no reason to pay the extra $$ to have any kind of eBay store.
If your goal is to provide some part-time income and you anticipate carrying a small inventory or listing around 20-100 items per month at fixed price, a basic store is worth subscription fee. If you are interested in making eBay produce a sizable income, maybe even a full-time income and plan on carrying a larger inventory or listing around 200 items or more a month at fixed price, a premium store is really worth the subscription fee – just for the savings in listing fees – the break even point on fixed price listings is right about 200 fixed price listings per month. If you list 200 fixed price items per month in a basic store, it will cost you $40 in listing fees and $15.95 for the store subscription for a total of $56.95. If you list 200 fixed price items per month in a premium store it will cost you $10 in listing fees and $49.95 for the store subscription for a total of $59.95. The extra features you get for the $3 difference are definitely worth the $3, and once you get past 225 fixed price listings per month – you are wasting money sticking with the basic store.
An anchor store is best suited for someone that has already ramped up their eBay business big-time – and for the most part are selling new stock, because you need to be listing about 20,000 fixed price items a month before it makes sense to upgrade to the Anchor store.
Check out this calculator tool created by eBay
to estimate your fees for various levels of listings and store subscriptions.
This is just a short summary, there is lots more information on the eBay Stores site
to help you make your decision. Come back tomorrow for more in depth info on some of my favorite eBay store features and how to use them.