The dangers of making your business to dependent on eBay

eBay presents a great opportunity for small businesses to become very successful, but putting all your eggs in one basket has never been a good idea, even when the basket is eBay.

If you are currently making a living on eBay it may be wise to consider opening up other avenues of income for several good reasons.

One reason is that eBay has the right to cancel all your listings at any time at their discretion. This is not unfair in the sense that eBay has to keep an eye on infringing listings to keep the marketplace safer for all. Only thing is that if you have no other source of income and for some reason you are suspended, your money stops right there.

Another factor to consider is the rise in eBay fees. With many other platforms now offering cheaper ways of getting your product seen it is good to get involved with as many as your time allows. Look towards companies like Yahoo Auctions, Froogle, Overstock and uBid to broaden your exposure and presence online.

It is also essential to consider paying for some web-hosting to setup your own website to sell your products from. The advantages to having your own website are numerous but the main thing is that you have complete control over what you can publish and sell and obviously there are no eBay fees involved.

The grand idea should be a multi-domain business that is inter-connected and sends traffic from your eBay AboutMe page straight to your various websites. There is a wonderful technique taught by Jim Cockrum in his eBook “The Silent Sales Machine Hiding on eBay” to funnel the millions on eBay users to your own website. To learn more about this technique visit http://www.auction-buying-tips.com/ebay-auction-business.html

Use eBay in the right way to make sure you do not lose out on valuable prospects and leads that could be generated from the hundreds or even thousands of visitors that visit your eBay listings but do not bid or buy. This is using eBay the smart way, as part of your business, not your only business. Consider eBay as simply one more (very good) channel of income.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 17th, 2010 at 1:49 pm and is filed under eBay tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.