Using an auction management listing program for websites

I keep getting calls from clients, potential clients, and of course my mother. With the exception of mom, many clients want to use a particular system to run both auctions on eBay and their website. This is all well and good. I’ve analyzed various huge powersellers for traffic, linking, and PR Rank with Google and made some discoveries that are important if you really want a website venue that sells on it’s own, without regard to eBay traffic.

First and foremost, realize that when you are talking to auction managers that they are selling a bundle of products and services, some better than others. Go look at the #1 seller on eBay and the #1 seller in your category. Are they running a website from an auction management tool? The time you save using these systems will be the cost and time you’ll spend later in Pay Per Click on Google, or the lost revenues that you’ll deal with if you go this route. I’m not saying that those services are not valid or good, but figure out if you are #1 or #500 and make a decision. The listing manager company is there to make money, and to sell you their products. They are not independant consultants. They are not going to tell you where to go, except to go with them. Now on some of them, I concur. Some of them have an excellent package. But you have to do the homework to find out for sure.

Auction management listing tools offer you an advantage in inventory management, but don’t get lazy. The time that is spent daily or weekly on updating inventories is only a few minutes. Integrating the sales into your back office system is a one time deal. After that you get the sales, and you fill the orders. If you work on Amazon, you’ve already had the opportunity to merge two channels, now merge three.

The issue comes in when you try to get independant traffic from your eBay buyers. Sure you’ve got plenty of traffic there, so why bother with a website? Most store owners will say they want more traffic, the abundance of traffic out there. So don’t shoot yourself in the foot. Using an auction management companies standard website offering will have some issues when it comes to PR rank on Google. Most of the rank acutally goes to your auction manager, and not to your website.

How can you tell if your auction management tool is good for your website too?

When analyzing traffic rank, get the google toolbar.Go to your favorite “huge eBay seller” and take a look at his PR rank. Is it over 4, or better yet, over 5? If not, this is not good. Nearly anyone can,with a bit of trying get a PR rank that is a 4, especially on a product site. Get the Alexa toolbar, is his rank lower than 200,000? If not, it’s a sure bet that his is not going to be reaping the benefit of a stand alone website. Although you may admire him because he looks great, his wonderful marketing has worked on you! That is what sets him apart from the other sellers that you compete with. But take a look at the inside workings and analyze his traffic rank. If his rank is nearly the same as yours, then likely you have bought the goods from his beautiful templates and branding and not based upon reality in sales and conversions.