E-commerce vs. eBay: What is the Best for Your Business

When it deals to online trading many people are confused by what to choose: the good old times eBay store or powerful and risky e-commerce website. So, let’s try to consider both the variants with the advantages and drawbacks.

eBay

eBay shopping website is dedicated to selling made worldwide. Vast array of goods are being sold and bought on eBay 24 hours. This is like a big online market with plenty of shops. You can create yours or come as a buyer.

Pros

• eBay has huge credibility. So, if you decide to create your store on eBay you don’t have to care about the traffic;
• You can easy set up the template and don’t have to worry about the technical aspects regarding the implementation of your trade mission;
• You can use eBay if you want to rid of some stuff or if you have a large-scale turnover;
• Also if you have your own eBay store you can easy create client base for your next e-commerce website. How? For example, you can send e-mails on eBay offering your prospective clients to visit e-commerce website.

Cons 

• Once you create your eBay store, you have to pay fees sharing of your profit with someone else;
• It is very difficult to promote the brand of your company via eBay store. For example, if someone ask you where did you by your item, you say that on eBay site rather than call to mind the name of the brand which sold you this item;
• You can be easy compared with your competitors and give them your prospective clients as you run side by side with them. Such games could lead even to loss;
• Poor support provided by eBay website.

E-commerce

E-commerce websites become more popular as bring good margin to their owners. It is pretty difficult to build e-commerce site from scratch. They usually specialize on the one specific field. Company takes a niche and if cares of it, e-commerce business could become very successful.

Pros

• Relatively low cost. As you work only on yourself you don’t have to pay any additional fees.
• You are free to do with it anything you want. Build your SEO policy and make all your best to rise the ranking of your site, create your own design;
• Brand promotion. Your company will be acknowledged by clients and your items will be branded;

I counted only three advantages, but I guess these three big proses allow e-commerce websites develop rapidly and stay one step ahead of the eBay stores.

Cons

• It is pretty hard to promote e-commerce website from the ground if you don’t have any SEO and web development skills. But if you do, you can grow it up very quick;
• You have to set up e-commerce website and maintain it. All these require your time. But maybe it’s worth it.

Well, why I told that e-commerce could be risky? It could be risky when your communication channels are not established properly or you have any technical problems with the online payments. Anyway, to build high quality e-commerce website you need to be specialist in the common SEO aspects and can fix any errors.

Solution

If somebody will ask me to make a choice I would rather choose e-commerce. It is really great solution. But I won’t turn away the eBay to increase the sales volume of my business. I guess running business both on the eBay store and e-commerce website is a good solution if you are good in web development and SEO. But you can hire experts to help you with technical aspects of maintaining the website. If you have lack of experience in online trading, try to start with eBay and then define whether you really can handle the own e-commerce website.