I have signed up with ProStores, an eBay company, to create my very own online store! This should, in theory, increase my profits by reducing the amount of money I spend on fees. The store costs ~$21 a month to maintain (the first month is free - which you really need because it'll take that long to get the dang thing fully up and running!), and has a fee of 0.5% for finished transactions. That 0.5% is a far cry better than the 10% Final Value Fee an item gets charged at my eBay Store! Also, I'll save the $0.06 per item listing fee every 30 days, which is a big savings when your inventory is over 4000 items! The only question that remains is whether the savings offset the additional $21 per month. We'll see.
Of course, now that I think about it, moving only 350 items over would save me $21 in listing fees per month right there. Wow! This may actually be a much better idea than I originally thought!
So now I am in the process of moving a good deal of inventory over from the eBay store to the new store at http://store02.prostores.com/servlet/donsmagicandsundry/Categories (like how I slipped that plug in?). As an alternate route, you can go there by going to www.donsmagicandsundry.com and clicking on the "Shop" button at the top of any page.
The store has a shopping cart, and I have programmed in my handy shipping tables. So, theoretically, someone should be able to go there and buy already, as I have a few items put into inventory.
In theory, once this is fully up and running, buyers will be able to see my available eBay store items from the ProStores store. And any items that I move from the ProStores store over to the eBay store will send buyers to a shopping cart on the ProStores store when they purchase.
Probably the biggest single decision maker involved in this has been the fact that since ProStores is an eBay company as well, they've integrated things very well with eBay and PayPal. Therefore it's rather simple to import items from eBay over into the ProStores store where I can edit them a bit and make them available.
Of course, this means that I have now a lot more work on my hands - moving and editing inventory over from eBay to ProStores. And I still haven't completely finished processing Lots 5 and 6 yet! I am almost done with Lot 5, though.
AND...as if this weren't enough....I HAVE A NEW JOB!!! Woo-Hoo!!! I am now the project writer for an online science education website (that I don't want to link to from here as they may not appreciate that all that much). I get to work from home, writing lessons on Chemistry, Earth Science, Biology, and more aimed at college undergraduate level students. I set my own schedule, so I can keep the Stores up and running at the same time (and somehow fit in the last two Biotech courses this semester - OI!).
Needless to say (although I will anyway), I am going to be a very busy man over the next couple of months! So don't be too surprised if Blog updates are even fewer and farther between :-(
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