Selling outside Ebay

Although this website is primarily about how to make money selling on ebay, you will find there are ways to supplement your ebay income. Selling on ebay gets your products in front of millions of people who visit ebay every day. That’s a huge audience. But what happens when you decide to start selling stuff on your own? Why would you want to?

First, as already mentioned, ebay gets your products out there. Once your product is out there, you will develop a following. But can you get your customers to follow you all the way to your own website? Of course you can. With a little foresight and a lot of knowledge. I am not suggesting you leave ebay and start out on your own. It’s a bit daunting to go out on your own. Remember leaving the comfort of your parents home to live in a stark dorm room or small apartment?

So how do you get your customers to visit your new website? Well ebay prohibits posting your website address on your ebay listings. Why? To prevent your customers from going to your website to buy the same product. If you leave ebay, ebay loses it’s cut of the action. And why would you want to redirect your customers from ebay to your own site? For exactly the same reason: to bypass having to give ebay a cut of your profit.

If you do decide to build your own website, there are so many things to consider. That includes, but is not limited to:

1.) Hosting. Where will you host your site? What type of hosting do i need and what requirements do I have?

2.) Domain name. Where will you purchase a domain name?

3.) Website creation. How will your website be created? Will you do it yourself, hire another person, or purchase a ready-made, “out of the box” website?

4.) Accepting payments. How to accept payments from customers for your products/services being offered.

5.) Security. How will you ensure all of the information on your website is protected? Do you need an SSL certificate?

These are the absolute basics to owning your own website. I will not claim to be an expert on the subject. This is all information I learned in the course of the last 2 years that I wish I knew before I started my own ebay business and website. I compiled all of the research and will present it to you here to give something back. So many kind people helped me when I was a newbie, and now I would like to help you. It is a gift from me to you. If you sell on ebay and your own website, you will have a lot more work to do, but you will also make more money. Isn’t that the goal?

I will try to post more about my suggestions soon. But for now, I have to tell you the very best decision I’ve made so far with all of my websites has been using lunarpages for hosting. You can host up to 11 different websites all on one account, for as little as $6.95/month!