Ebay is a natural choice for resellers looking for a market place to sell their products, but do not forget that Ebay is a great place for marketing your products as well.  Listing all of your products on Ebay, especially when you sell thousands of products, may not be your best strategy for achieving ecommerce success.  This guide gives you 3 simple approaches to limiting the products that you sell on eBay.  It is also meant to help resellers improve their eBay feedback so that they can sell more products and get their primary e-commerce store in front of my customers.

We often receive questions on how many products should be listed on eBay and how much they should charge on these products from our resellers.

For Drop Ship sellers eBay can be an excellent marketing tool, but it is easy to make mistakes when selling products on eBay.  Some new resellers get excited and want to sell all of their products through as many venues as they can.  This might seem like a great idea, but just because it is drop shipped products it can still cost you to manage inventory.  If you managed a traditional warehouse you would not want to pay to ship and sell your products in every store window.  This would be expensive.  You want to sell your products where they can sell.  However, like traditional product retailers, you might want to take advantage of certain venues to get attention for your products or site.

Think of eBay as a way to create a "buzz" for your main storefront, not just another venue to sell products.  eBay can be both a marketplace and a place to market.  There is no right way to do this, but you can focus your eBay products through a few basic strategies:

• The Early Bird- Even in eCommerce the early bird still catches the worm.  Use eBay to list you're the new products for your suppliers.  When you use Inventory Source you are made aware of new products each day for your suppliers.  Use your Inventory Source Advantage over other resellers and be one of the first people on eBay to list and effectively market the product.  If it is new, the odds that few people sell it and more people want it might increase.
• The Big Bird-  Select your big name products, big ticket items, or big sellers and list these products on eBay.  There is a natural market for these products and the amount of traffic and demand can help your site's sales and visibility.
• The Rare Bird- Some resellers like to sell what the market wants.  Some resellers look for what the market needs.  Free markets, and eBay is a text book example of a real global market place with few things restricting the contact between buyers and sellers, see rapid changes to the supply and demand patterns.  If something is "hot" and lots of people want it, more people will try to sell it.  However, the more people there are selling a product or category, the more the price will be impacted negatively, and the harder it will be to stand out as a seller.  Look at eBay for products and categories where there are fewer sellers or fewer products available and make your mark in those niche products.  Even if you are selling a DVD player, you might list a brand or product that is less popular and you might stand out in the listings as people inquire about your items details. 

You can list lots of products on eBay, but since you have to pay to list items, you need to sell lots of items on eBay.  The "I got rich selling on eBay" guys do not always mention this point.

Inventory Source can also help you to improve your eBay offering with formatted files making it easier to sell your products through the platform.  Also, the update service, either the file download or the automatic updates are very important here.  Out of stock items can quickly hurt your feedback rating, and on eBay, your feedback is rules your performance and success.  You might only want to list products that rarely go out of stock or have a large quantity at the time of your posting so you limit your chances of them becoming unavailable.

"But how can I get my feedback high enough to sell products, and how can I sell products, unless I get high feedback ratings first"  Ah, this is one of the great philosophical questions, such as the Chicken vs. the Egg.  If you use eBay as a marketing tool then you do not need to use eBay for high margins and revenue, at least not as you are getting started.  You want to focus on selling more products and create a brand and following for your own store.  This is where you can get a better margin on all of the products that you sell.  If you are just getting started and are only listing a few of your products on eBay, then start off with low prices.  Very low margins will get your items attention.  The lower the price, then more risk a customer might be willing to take by using an untested reseller.  Just make sure you offer great service and encourage (even beg) your customers to provide feedback during this early period.

As customers look for products on eBay, the might find a few of the products that you list, regardless of your product placement strategy.  However, every time a customer looks at one of your item, you have the ability to reference and bring them to your primary storefront and eCommerce site.  This is how to make eBay your place to market your store and not just a market for your store.