You get a selection of resources and benefits when you choose to open an eBay store, which a standard eBay user does not have access to. You need to pay a monthly subscription for your store to take advantage of this. The price of subscription varies, depending how many pages you have on your online catalog. The most economical is about $15 a month. eBay will also charge you associated selling and buying fees in addition to your monthly payment.



An eBay store can offer you more credibility. People tend to trust eBay stores. You also get access to eBay's business resource library when you have a store. You can list your items for longer, create monthly sales reports, send newsletters to your customers and you get your own URL to drive traffic to.

If you have ever bought or sold something through eBay, you know it can be a very easy process. Opening up an eBay store is also simple and easy, and it can expose your business to customers who may not have otherwise found you.

Before opening an eBay store, you need to know what you are going to sell! If you only plan to list a couple of products a month, it is not worth having a store because of the monthly fees. You can research products online or make your own.

eBay store items are not listed in the main listings. Someone needs to search the eBay stores link to find you so you will want to market and advertise your store. If you just open a store and list a few things, this does not guarantee success. You might want to have a couple of regular eBay listings (outside of your store) and say something like I have many more products in my store with a link to your eBay store so they can find you that way. Once they are inside your store, they can view all your products at once, by category, price or whatever they choose, which is obviously better than searching through a list of possible purchases and ending up buying from someone else.

You might want to register a domain name and make your own website, even though eBay gives you a URL. If you plan to offer a niche product like pet toys, you could have a website that has content relating to pets, pet care tips and links to your eBay store throughout the website.

If someone searched online for pet information, they might come across your website and then from there go to your eBay store. The person otherwise might not have considered eBay. This will allow you to sell more and establish yourself as an expert in pet care.

If you already use eBay, it might be worthwhile deciding to open your own store.