Just a quick note to say I've launched my new Delectably Yours Home Interiors & Decor website and have completed the first two sales. The new site, www.delectably-yours.com was created rather quickly on an AbleCommerce platform due to the problems I was experiencing with www.delectablyyours.com which was built on a ProStores platform. ProStores, an eBay company has been having many serious issues with availability ever since May 2008 which is noted in other blogs I've done on the Selling Beyond eBay forum. You can read them here.
In preperation of going live I installed Google analytics on Aug.4th and submitted the site map at the same time. Product feeds were FTP uploaded to Google on Thursday evening, Aug. 14th. My first sale was for $133 on Saturday Aug. 16th. The second for $430 came in Monday, Aug. 18th. I am thrilled with how fast the SEO is helping the site be found. It's proof for me that optimizing keywords, keyword phrases and their placement pays off.
The site has a long way to go, a lot more product to be added and the design hasn't really been touched other than a few photos. This all will come in time. My main objective was to insure I had a functional live site approaching the Holidays. With the instability of the ProStores site I had to take the summer to work on this one day into night, sometimes working almost around the clock to insure my financial stability. This is why I haven't added very much content to the Selling Beyond eBay network. Once in a while we all do what we must to earn a living. I just wasn't ready to throw in the towel and get a "real job". hmmmm After months of research on shopping carts, SEO, payment gateways, merchant accounts I knew it would all pay off. I am very excited to see what transpires within the next few months. Even more so to see how the ProStores site compares to the AbleCommerce site. Initially I had all intentions of pulling the ProStores site down then reconsidered. The average monthly gross is 7K so it more than pays for itself. I've decided to test the two against each other to see how they perform. It will be close to an even test, same name, same products (ProStores has quite few more products) same keywords and phrases, same photos and product descriptions. I have to add the sitemap to Yahoo as well as the feeds to keep all even.
I'll update this blog and let all know how the race is going.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Delectably Yours Home Interiors & Decor Stops Selling on eBay To Offer Shoppers Greater Sales & Discounts
You, our valued customers have a tremendous impact on the home decor product lines, styles and themes we offer. We started out test marketing items on eBay just two short years ago to see what was the most popular. As time went on we started to grow a large base of repeat customers. Many of you would email and ask if we had a particular line of bedding, different sizes of area rugs, a wall tapestry that was seen elsewhere or requests for more items in particular theme or style. We listened and added over 1500 products to our eBay store.
Business was booming, customers were happy, more and more requests were coming in so we opened a sister website to offer even more coordinating decor. Customers purchasing off our eBay store were re-directed to our website to check out. Often you would find additional items that matched your purchase there. This in turn increased our business which enabled us to offer you even more. Unfortunately, we could not offer the same discounts on eBay as we do on our website partially due to cost of which we were willing to forgo if it kept our customers happy. The main reason was eBay's markdown sale manager stopped working in August 2007. We called eBay constantly asking when it would be corrected only to hear that they knew there was a problem but didn't know when it would be fixed. It was not physically possible to manually adjust 1000's of items prices that were to be offered in conjunction with our online web sales. Our customers were getting upset and rightly so. eBay was to be a cheaper way to purchase and now they were finding out it wasn't. What most of you didn't realize was it wasn't our fault but that of a faulty system eBay refused to correct. We manually corrected invoices so that the pricing and free shipping offers were the same no matter where you purchased from us.
We waited patiently for months and hoped after the busy holiday season eBay would correct the problem. Instead of correcting this and other failing aspects they rolled out a new pricing structure. I certainly understand most everything has had a price increase and it's part of business. On the other hand would you and our other customers accept price and shipping charge increases where we had offered free shipping prior for the sole purpose of paying for eBay's fee increase? Our monthly eBay fees at that time were $1300 to $1500 a month and were increasing by whopping 67%. Our profit margins were already as low as we could have them and still stay in business. With this historical increase in fees, eBay and its subsidiary PayPal would make more off a $200 sale than we would.
The answer to our dilemma was clear; we can no longer offer on eBay the same items we do in our store at the same prices. This is one of the many reasons we no longer carry our full line on eBay.
Most of you have heard many eBay sellers are complaining and striking due to eBay’s new rules. eBay executives are selling these changes as a benefit to buyers and sellers. What they fail to tell you is that you are paying more for most purchases on eBay than you would on another auction site or the sellers own website. With online website security certificates and credit card fraud systems in place there is less buyer protection and security on eBay than a stand alone website. Website owners have time, sweat equity and money invested in building their business. Like us, they are not going to risk all they have worked long and hard for the quick sale like a once in a while transient eBay seller will. This is the type of seller that will be remaining on eBay as they have no reputation to protect and nothing to loose. eBay thought they had the look of a flea market before, what will it be now? Why would any shopper feel more secure buying on eBay with this grim outlook? This is why eBay enacted the 21 day hold on funds for new sellers and sold to the buyers as added protection. They already know these risky sellers are the only ones besides the large department stores that will be still selling on their failing venue in the not so near future. Neither of which is what you were looking for or you wouldn't have been on eBay shopping to begin with.
Business was booming, customers were happy, more and more requests were coming in so we opened a sister website to offer even more coordinating decor. Customers purchasing off our eBay store were re-directed to our website to check out. Often you would find additional items that matched your purchase there. This in turn increased our business which enabled us to offer you even more. Unfortunately, we could not offer the same discounts on eBay as we do on our website partially due to cost of which we were willing to forgo if it kept our customers happy. The main reason was eBay's markdown sale manager stopped working in August 2007. We called eBay constantly asking when it would be corrected only to hear that they knew there was a problem but didn't know when it would be fixed. It was not physically possible to manually adjust 1000's of items prices that were to be offered in conjunction with our online web sales. Our customers were getting upset and rightly so. eBay was to be a cheaper way to purchase and now they were finding out it wasn't. What most of you didn't realize was it wasn't our fault but that of a faulty system eBay refused to correct. We manually corrected invoices so that the pricing and free shipping offers were the same no matter where you purchased from us.
We waited patiently for months and hoped after the busy holiday season eBay would correct the problem. Instead of correcting this and other failing aspects they rolled out a new pricing structure. I certainly understand most everything has had a price increase and it's part of business. On the other hand would you and our other customers accept price and shipping charge increases where we had offered free shipping prior for the sole purpose of paying for eBay's fee increase? Our monthly eBay fees at that time were $1300 to $1500 a month and were increasing by whopping 67%. Our profit margins were already as low as we could have them and still stay in business. With this historical increase in fees, eBay and its subsidiary PayPal would make more off a $200 sale than we would.
The answer to our dilemma was clear; we can no longer offer on eBay the same items we do in our store at the same prices. This is one of the many reasons we no longer carry our full line on eBay.
Most of you have heard many eBay sellers are complaining and striking due to eBay’s new rules. eBay executives are selling these changes as a benefit to buyers and sellers. What they fail to tell you is that you are paying more for most purchases on eBay than you would on another auction site or the sellers own website. With online website security certificates and credit card fraud systems in place there is less buyer protection and security on eBay than a stand alone website. Website owners have time, sweat equity and money invested in building their business. Like us, they are not going to risk all they have worked long and hard for the quick sale like a once in a while transient eBay seller will. This is the type of seller that will be remaining on eBay as they have no reputation to protect and nothing to loose. eBay thought they had the look of a flea market before, what will it be now? Why would any shopper feel more secure buying on eBay with this grim outlook? This is why eBay enacted the 21 day hold on funds for new sellers and sold to the buyers as added protection. They already know these risky sellers are the only ones besides the large department stores that will be still selling on their failing venue in the not so near future. Neither of which is what you were looking for or you wouldn't have been on eBay shopping to begin with.
The best real deals on the Internet besides one of a kind closeouts are on the smaller mom and pop websites. They are knowledgeable in their products, give personalized customer service, have lower overhead costs, can offer you discounts and package deals without approval from a higher up. A customer service rep from a major chain department store can't do that nor do they care about you or your purchase. Family owned businesses offer back to basics trading one on one. Isn't this what you, as a buyer really want? I certainly do and insist my customers have it too!
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