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ECrater Good For Sellers
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universalcomputers



Posts: 217

PostPosted: Sat May 09, 2015 5:05 pm    Post subject: ECrater Good For Sellers Reply with quote

Happy to finally state that we're getting a good flow of sales and we're not even 1/3 of the way of bulding our store. It started really slow the first month, but have to admit Ecrater is better than any other "marketplace" type service around.

Dont know what Ecrater is doing for advertising at the 2% but the traffic is good. Compared to their competition "BJ" Ecrater sales are 4x to 8x more here than there from what we hear.

Glad we joined this site!
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elpereles



Posts: 3427

PostPosted: Sat May 09, 2015 10:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Congratutations universalcomputers/ISO. For the sales and the short topic to the point. Wink

Where are you getting the sales? Marketplace or store direct/etc?

As far I can tell. Many of the eCrater items are really trapped fast by bots/crawlers from organic search engines. In my store with Google Analytics as far I can tell the traffic from organic search engines is always from 50% to 70% by month. Really big not matter how much direct traffic I try to get.

About BJ. They never allow or integrated Google Analytics. So traffic sources are a mystery. Difficult to make a strategy. Long time, I don't check items in the organic search engines.
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MaggietheCatsMeows



Posts: 2853

PostPosted: Sat May 09, 2015 11:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Good for you. I assume you use a drop shipper since you are charging sales tax to nine states but not your own.
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universalcomputers



Posts: 217

PostPosted: Sun May 10, 2015 2:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

There's alot of things to consider. The key point is ok, I'm the buyer, I want an item, so were do i find it." Companies have become synonimous with functions. Such as a person wants to find something on the internet, they say ok "I'll Google It". So Google has become synonimoius with internet searches.

So I have an item Im interested in, let me go find it. Well key point is, when people know what they want to buy, they immediately try to find the cheapest person that is going to sell it.

Want to buy something off the internet, well another name comes to mind and thats EBay. So people relate online purchasing with EBay just for the name and whatever reputation that company has.

Taking into consideration that people know what they want to buy and were they are going to find it. The next comes down to price, where can I get it the cheapest without going from site to site, I want it here and now. Thats where Google Shopping comes into play. They search the product by cost find the item, and then look around to see if they are comfortable about buying it on that site.

Someone who found the cheapest price on EBay, might be hesitant to buy it because of the repuation EBay might have with scammers. Like China flooding the market with thumb drives they'd advertise as 128gb and turns out they were only 4gb, or cell phones being sold so cheaply that someone finds out they are loaded with spyware and hacking....So they might be weary about being it off Ebay.

So thats were the secondary markets come into place. People dont want to be forced into signing up to buy something, or create an account, or place their credit card info. So thats where these secondary markets or online stores come into. People want it, pay for it, have it shipped and received. Thats it!

They say ok I have a PayPal account but dont want to use Ebay because im not comfortable in being things off eBay. So they go to a marketplace site or online store 1,2,3 its done, now just have to wait to get it.

So there's alot to be considered were traffic is coming from.

The bigger you are the more maintenace you need, depending on what your selling and who's your competition. But selling is not about throwing a bunch of things into an online store and waiting for sales to happen. You have to take educated guesses on what to sell based on what people want and that always changes periodically. Its all about getting it for one price, making some money on it, and repeating the process over and over again until there's little demand vs the work involved to keep that product from being turned over.

There are tools you can use such as Terrapeak, that you can see what people on Ebay have sold. So you can get an idea of what the "hot" things are, and then if it makes sense to you as a seller, add it to your store and see if you can get a piece of the action.

Either you have a physical store or an online one, the concept is the same, its all about turn around of product for a profit.

Well hope it helps. Good Luck to Everyone. And to Moon and Creater thanks for sticking in there with us.
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thewrightbiz



Posts: 1052

PostPosted: Sun May 10, 2015 12:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Terapeake costs money to join. Not me. I'm not making money as it is Smile
The good thing about your store is that it is one category, so it's easy for you to focus on one thing and sell that one thing.[/img]
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universalcomputers



Posts: 217

PostPosted: Sun May 10, 2015 6:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

But you say that you have no sales, thats because you have nothing in your online store. You have no products and they are random. In our opinion, it looks like you really havent done anything to your store in over a year or so, thats why your not selling. Your products are random from clothes to computer parts and they arent in depend. You cant sit there and expect what you have listed now sells. You didnt bother to add anything to it nor make any efforts, thats why your not selling. You got to keep chopping away at it, you dont work you dont get paid. You cant make a blank statement like that saying you dont have any sales, then someone reads your exert and then goes to your store to find out way, then they say well its obvious. You have to start working at it, do your research and put products on your store that sell.

You start with a specific market category, know that category and based data, put yourself in a direction. We started with computer hardware and then branched out to cellular, it was a change but it was a slight change, now we are in 2 market places. If you want to be successful you have to work at it.

The first month things are slow, your store needs time to crawl onto the search engines. At first we put up about 150 items and we were just about to give up, the second we pressed the submit button on what we just said, we got our first sale. It took about 4-6 weeks before we started getting sales. We're still in the process of buidling it and we're getting a pretty steady amount of business.

As far as things costing, nothings free, lets get that right out of the way. Thefind.com was the last search engine for product pricing that was free, and those people at Facebook bought them out, killed the site, and started up a paid site for product searches.

If you dont take the time to invest, you dont make money period. Like we said several times already, NEVER get the impression that you throw a bunch of things up and its going to sell. The key word is attract buyers, if their not interested in something then they are not coming to your store.

You said it yourself, your not willing to spend a few dollars a month to give you the tools to start to make money. Terapeake isnt something thats going to tell you ok sell this and that and your guaranteed to make money. Its a program that tells you what the people have bought off eBay during a specific time period.

So Biz you have 3 options (1) just keep doing what your doing and start selling things you think might or might not sell (2) use eBay type research software to give you insites on what sells and what doesnt or (3) go on eBay and other online stores and spend hours upon hours trying to find products that sell.

You said yourself option 1 isnt working. You came into this place with an idea and a hope, its your efforts thats going to make or break it. Keep yourself open to ideas, you were already discouraged without even trying it, remember the word FREE TRIAL!
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thewrightbiz



Posts: 1052

PostPosted: Mon May 11, 2015 2:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
You have no products and they are random

That's because MOST of my stuff is at AMZ. That's where I get most of my sales from.
It's random because that's how I buy. I go to estate sales and look for liquidations and surplus stores, and buy this and that. Clothing, appliances, DVDs, etc. etc.

I don't want to have ONE store that specializes in this; and then another store that specializes in that; because then I would end up with 6-7 stores and only a few items in each.

The only site where I actually sell clothing and accessories is Tradesy. They only allow you to sell clothing type items.

I consider EC, third or fourth on the chain of store sales.
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Mon May 11, 2015 1:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
I consider EC, third or fourth on the chain of store sales.


Well tagging in with what Universal mentioned, you might do better by focusing on selling on less venues and spend more time sourcing products to sell. As we have mentioned on the topic that you started it is hard to get really going with such a small number of items especially when everything is eclectic. If you have one Kewpie doll for sale, it would be a miracle if collectors found you unless you had a super rare, pristine condition doll, that you knew what you had so you listed it with a great title, description and lots of photos. Otherwise, why go to a store with only one of the things that you collect when you can go to a store with 300 varieties?

If you like picking up a mish mash of stuff to resell, that is your prerogative, but it doesn't mean that you are going to find a lot of sellers for it.
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normasbath



Posts: 23

PostPosted: Sat Apr 02, 2016 4:18 pm    Post subject: re: Reply with quote

Nothing on my End. Crying or Very sad
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Sat Apr 02, 2016 4:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Norma, this topic is a year old. We have a monthly topic for how sales are or aren't doing each month.
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dccollectibles



Posts: 2759

PostPosted: Sun Apr 03, 2016 4:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

FYI: Ebay completed search is free. If you keep an eye on it for a couple months, you get the basics of Terapeak, which might be a good idea for those on a closed budget or not in a real hurry.
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NormsPlace



Posts: 104

PostPosted: Sun Nov 06, 2016 2:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Universal Computer guy who was doing so well is gone....
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dccollectibles



Posts: 2759

PostPosted: Sun Nov 06, 2016 3:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Probably got his own website. That seems to be where things are heading. More control. Less limitations. More work but that control is worth its weight in gold.
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Sun Nov 06, 2016 4:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

DC, I'm not really convinced that your own website is really the best way to go unless you are a much larger company with lots of products and employees. To have their wares show up on Google, they would still have to bend over and dance to google's tune. At least, for us small sellers, we are helped along by hanging onto eCRATER's coat tail. Perhaps if we had started our own websites 10 years ago it would be doing well now with a lot of repeat business, but getting that business in the first place is the hard thing and then to get repeat and new buyers all the time could keep you busy 24/7 and that doesn't include sourcing, selling, shipping inventory.
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dccollectibles



Posts: 2759

PostPosted: Sun Nov 06, 2016 4:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The main reason why this is so appealing (at least for me) is there is a ton of flexibility we are not currently getting with our ecrater stores. Attributes being ineligible, links being uneditable, SEO and HTML code not workable. I'm not speaking of gaudy geocities garbage, this is 2016. Slick pretty stuff to be had. We have none of it. Of course along with that comes the learning curve and likely moments of beating your head up against the wall in frustration. For a time, it was worth the trade-off. Not feeling quite the same away anymore. I'm not bemoaning the things ecrater has done for us in the past. I just wish they would take a more active role in providing the tools to secure our future.
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