Thank you for the comment and a Happy Thanksgiving to you.

Most of the info over here is pretty old and I’m afraid quite a bit of it is dated, but I’m still using eBay, Inkfrog and Ecwid. Gave up on Amazon, never seemed to get much but aggravation from them.

I’m on a PC so I couldn’t speak to what’s best for a Mac user.

I do use auctions on eBay for a variety of reasons though most of my goods are listed as Fixed Price items. I’ll use auctions: 1) Can’t prove this one, but feels like it juices my listings overall to run as many different formats as I can, so along with standard FP I always try to have some auctions going along with a Markdown Manager sale and some Best Offer items. 2) Some of the recent free and penny auction sales have been hard to resist, I’ve used them to update old listings and then attempt to blow them out at low opening bids. Haven’t made a lot on the format, but I’m cleaning things up and at a penny any sale made is extra cash.. 3) I use them to debut the best of my new items, especially those I think could go for more than I am asking. Not as effective as it used to be, but it still works sometimes. 4) I also use auctions for bulk lots of old goods.

Not sure about an Inkfrog forum. They used to have one themselves but closed it up in favor of a Help Desk type set-up that’s more one-sided and doesn’t allow for communication between users.

Still like Ecwid a lot. Of all the solutions I find it best for my situation, which fits some sellers: Unique items, a high number of items, low average selling price of said items. It and Highwire are the only solutions I found where I could list 10-20 thousand items at the same price most solutions allow you to have only 100 or 1,000. I’m happy with both (though not using Highwire at the moment, just Ecwid) so I haven’t shopped for new store solutions in the 18 months or so since I’ve found them–that means there are probably some other good ones out there. For Ecwid the final selling point here is that it integrates so seeminlessly with WordPress and as I have sites with as much original writing and content on them as sales offerings it’s a good fit!

Regarding eBay, I forget the plan name but I’m signed up on the level that comes with a 5¢ listing fee for each Fixed Price item. It’s the best for my number of items on the site (currently over 6,000) and to pay any higher rate would force me to have to end 4-5 thousand of those listings. Over the years at various listing fees that’s what I’ve done–my eBay store has had as many as 8,000 items in the old, old days to as few as 500 back when they were charging, I think, a dime. A nickel is perfect for me.

It’s been okay recently but this summer on eBay was the worst I’ve had in my 11 years on the site. It’s given me serious thought to closing the eBay Store come next June 1, selectively list Auction and FP items instead, and re-open the shop September 1. The listing fees ate a lot of money this past summer (still get more eyeballs for my buck than anywhere else though). I’m not sure I’m going to do that, but hope that the results I see on the site in the Spring will lead me to the proper decision.

My Amazon situation seems somewhat unique. I’ve had nothing but technical difficulties and poor service in my couple of years selling there. In fact over the last year I pretty much avoided it and only finally escaped when they offered free return of FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) goods. Of course they damaged 80-90% of what I requested back so I’m not too sure how good that deal was. That’s where many say the buyers are now, and great, but I must be honest as someone who frequently shops the site, I find the integration of third party sellers on the platform confusing as a buyer. I’ve bought several items I expected to be delivered from Amazon itself that came from third party sellers and not all of them always in new condition. I’ve definitely lost a long cherished fan-boy status with them.

I hope some of that helps out. Again, we’re all kind of unique as sellers, so while all of what I just typed out relates to me, maybe there are some bits in there of use to you.

Thanks, Cliff

Questions:
- I gather that working both your own store AND eBay and that you work both of them very hard. Kind of a dumb question, but just wondered if u had any further thoughts on that or if you’ve already blogged about it and cd point me to your links?
- I gather you’re not using the auction side of eBay? Any thoughts on that?
- Have you found any good and ACTIVE forums or chatrooms for Inkfroggers?

I just ran across your blog while trying to figure out how to do something in Inkfrog. I sell on eBay and Amazon (Quickdrawartist) and my partner and I both use Macs, and after much trial and error finally settled on Inkfrog as the best app for Apple users.

I’m still developing my customer base in eBay, and plan to get serious about an outside store in a few more months. I just took a look at Ecwid, which you mentioned and it looks very good indeed.

I see that you’re a WordPress enthusiast, as am I and I’m just getting my feet wet moving my various websites over to WP as webdev tool.

I’ve been selling on eBay for years, but only got serious recently. I’m glad I ran across you, you’re an inspiration.

Happy Thanksgiving,
Frank

Currently I use a solution called Ecwid for my online store. I also recommend Highwire. Both are simple to use, feature loaded and most importantly for me not priced based on number of items in your store.

We plan to run an online store from 1 June 2011 and are currently running a trial of Prostores and InstantEstore. We have more or less choosen Prostores in advance due to the Ebay integration. We run the InstantEstore trial as a benchmark, a backup solution and too learn from. It seems smooth and fast but does not have Ebay integration.

Prostore’s admin panel / store management functionality does not impress me so far. It is slow and has an ugly and sub-optimal interface… it takes cumbersomely many steps to perform simple functions. There are basic functions (like integration with PayPal’s Website Payment Standard) which I haven’t managed to get to work yet (emailed Prostore’s technical support and will se what they come back with).

I begin to worry if the software overall is cumbersome and glitch-prone. When googling ‘experiences with Prostores’, articles about downtime in 2010 and 2011 dominates the first 4+ search result pages.

Prostores’ discussion forum has a red WOT rating, although I don’t understand why. (Dissatisfied customers?). I find the forum strangely lean with relatively few topic threads, given that Prostores has existed since 2005, right? Many obvious topics/questions are not covered at all, or maybe the thread search function is not good? Or maybe most Prostores users don’t use the discussion forum… it does have an outdated and cumbersome feel. So where are they?

I also tried Prostore’s Facebook Community Page for merchants to see if it had a better discussion forum. The wall was dominated by blunt merchant self-promotion and the group was also quite small (25 persons), not much use.

So I am looking for serious forums for discussing Prostores issues. I want to hear about user experiences and compile a list of common issues and solutions before we go ahead.

Which is soon…

My business partner (the importer who owns the products and the offline shop but is hands-off with ecommerce) is keen on Prostores due to the Ebay integration.

I would love if anyone can un-worry me and assure that the Prostores software works like a charm? And where to find a comprehensive, dynamic discussion forum where user discuss Prostores tips, issues and solutions … That would be so great.

Thanks again for a great post. I will probably read all your posts about Prostores and Ebay

Kind regards
Anna, e-commerce newbie.

Ps. Does your blog have a search function? (can’t find it). And what about a ‘subscribe to comments’ function?

My advice, for happiness selling on any venue, stick to selling. Use the boards when you need info, but unless you love drama leave the conversation to the others.