Webstore by Amazon: Competition for Ebay?

jskirwin · June 3, 2008 5:43AM

I just received an invite from Amazon to setup a webstore. Cost is $60/month + 7% commission.
Anyone see this?

Think it will offer competition to Ebay?

Here are some of the details lifted from the site:

<< <i>WebStore by Amazon an Amazon Services Product, includes your own branded, custom online store powered by Amazon technology, support, and transaction processing all for only $59.99 per month and a referral fee of 7% on items that sell. This price includes:

All credit card processing and transaction fees. There are no other hidden fees such as hosting, payment gateways or merchant accounts.

Payment Fraud Protection for you. WebStore by Amazon uses sophisticated fraud detection tools in use on Amazon.com. This allows you to benefit from Amazon’s world-class fraud protection services and experience.

Purchase protection for your customers. Customers who shop on your WebStore will feel more confident buying from your site knowing they are protected by the same A-to-z Guarantee that protects shoppers on Amazon.com.

Creating multiple WebStores within your account. Each WebStore can be a customized and independent Web presence for no additional monthly fee.

The option of adding Amazon products to your WebStore. Offer items from Amazon.com through your WebStore and the Amazon Associates Program allows you to collect a referral fee when such items are sold! >>

mtcards · June 3, 2008 9:05AM

Too high of fees in my opinion. I'd rather pay a lower monthly fee and a little higher percentage. High volume sellers will probably enjoy it, but not weekend store owners for sure

envoy98 · June 3, 2008 9:50AM

I pay $15/mo and 10% fees... I sell about $1200/mo...

so, that works out to about $144/mo on amazon and $135/ mo on ebay.

storm888 · June 3, 2008 10:06AM

Collectible sellers are not reporting great success.

At this time, folks do not think "collectibles" when they go to AMZN.

The price is defintely right at AMZN, but the traffic is not what you'll get
at the beleaguered EBAY.

You can set-up MANY stores for the $60. One for each category that appeals to you.
That same game costs much more at EBAY. But, EBAY has "our kind" of traffic.

The payment system is different at AMZN. But, nothing wrong with it.

They also want sellers to offer returns/refunds; even of graded items.

I think AMZN has some "free trial" promo either out or coming.

Until/unless EBAY totally collapses, I am not going to experiment anymore.
The amount of work required to set-up experiments, is better spent on the
devil I know.

Used sports books will sell fast on AMZN.

NOTE: I have been on every venue. I sold a few items on AMZN, before they
got rid of toys/collectibles in 2006. (You can list on AMZN without buying their
store; you just have to stay in the cats that they already have indexed.)

The most exciting new venue is WalMart classifieds. They want to take on CL,
but you can do mail-order, too. No stores yet, but maybe soon. It will be like
renting boothes in the world's largest store!

hofautos · June 3, 2008 10:25AM

<< <i>Collectible sellers are not reporting great success.

At this time, folks do not think "collectibles" when they go to AMZN.

The price is defintely right at AMZN, but the traffic is not what you'll get... >>

Exactly, which is why EBAY will remain dominant.

That is also why FREE YAHOO auctions are retired...even when it was free they couldn't compete because sellers will realize more profit gain with the ebay traffic, even when listings were FREE at Yahoo....

earlycalguy · June 3, 2008 4:14PM

pro stores - an ebay company - offers websites for about $20 per month with only a 1% selling fee plus paypal fee if you choose to offer paypal. has shopping cart, check out feature etc.

storm888 · June 3, 2008 4:50PM

Best to read the EBAY Stores board about ProStores.

Some folks have done OK with it. It is cheap, and they have a freebie running now.

Some folks hated it, could not do the tech stuff, and lost money.

Some folks knew tech, but still got no customers.

I personally think they are worth a try, but cards is not the best category.

The best bet is a stand alone site. You need to know BOTH HTML and SEO;
otherwise, you will get frustrated and quit.

Here is a recent rogers place blog on PS............

Sunday, April 27, 2008
Prostores Review

Prostores, an eBay company, will not give you the level of success you can achieve.

First you are continually haunted by fact the eBay greed demons own and manage it.

The sales pitch states you can use your own domain name. Well yes you can. They neglect to tell you your domain name will be forwarded via a meta refresh to yourdomain.com/servlet/storefront. Not good for search optimization and also your domain doesn't actually exist. Your own domain is forwarded to eBay's system. Your url looks like one of those childesh eBay stores with a shared url - ebay/whatever/yourdomain - only real difference is your domain comes first hosting on Prostores.

Do a simple test type yourdomain.com into your search bar and if it returns yourdomain.com your domain url actually exists. Type in yourdomain.com and if returns yourdomain.com/servlet/storefront then your domain url doesn't really exist.

Not only does this look preschool to you, your customers view this as not very professional too. Many search engines thus won't rank your site as high, as using meta refresh to redirect a webpage to another webpage is a techinque frequently used by spammers and they don't know the difference.

Another important issue is the shared SSL. Shared or dedicated SSL neither matters as both do the exact same thing and are both equally secure. Using the shared ssl provided by prostores will show the prostores/servlet url on your secure pages again making your store look preschool and costing you yet more customers.

Don't fall for the fully customizable. Even for the advanced web designer making many simple customizable changes can be a nightmare. If you choose to use the default options available you will be left with a very bland cookie cutter shop.

One issue making the customization possible is the fact prostores uses their own unique coding - SSML. As your store is run from a database that you will have no access to or any clue how it is configured, this makes writing your own SSML code virtually impossible. I can write a command to add something but if I cannot create a table in the database to get this information from, I can clearly not customize like I want. Basically all you have is an eBay store with just a bit more freedom, but not much.

Be ready for lots of hair pulling. Even after you do mange to make some changes and custimizations you will save them 4 times, view your site and all will be fine. Go back a month later and your changes you saved have mysteriously disappeared and you have to start all over.

Want Google Checkout on your own site? Forget about it. Prostores claims it is unsafe. Paypal, another eBay company, is claimed to be the only safe way to pay and your only easily intergrated option. And since Google Checkout is deemed unsafe, even though it is your store and they are technically just the host, no coding intregration is made available for you.

Final value fees will still get you. Maybe not as high, but paying any type of final value fee for items sold through you own store is ridiculuos. Sure you'll need to pay your rent via monthly hosting fee, but that is all, again paying a final value fee on top of that is a joke.

It may be a bit different if the final value fee got you some exposure generating traffic but it doesn't. With a Prostore you and you alone do all your advertising, traffic generation, everything. So why the final value fee? Unless you do the work needed your basically a flea swimming in the Atlantic ocean at night and no one will see you. All Prostores does is nothing but host your store. That they can't do very well either as you will encounter lots of down time, slow load times, continual errors(many will cost you customers) a service department that will more often than not say what you want to do cannot be done or we're working on it.

Prostores lacks in search engine optimization in several areas.

Trying to find any help using SSML code is a daunting task. Basically the only help you can get is from the discussion board and the designers reference. Any help via a search on any search engine will yield very very limited results.

If you enjoy having limited options, being influenced by eBay and Paypal on how you operate, and paying final value fees from your own store then Prostores is for you. If you want almost 100% complete control, having an almost endless amount of options, then one of the other shopping cart options combined with a good hosting company will give you the tools you need to succeed. Prostores will only hold you back from achieving what you are capable of.

30

storm888 · June 3, 2008 5:00PM

ProStores Info

ProStores Board

stevek · June 3, 2008 10:15PM

Thanks for the info.

hofautos · June 4, 2008 2:07AM

i like this post....

HANS

I'm interested in learning about Pro Stores, but after being a Professional in Business (Stock Broker with Morgan Stanley),

your salutation of "hey guys"

just about made me puke.

It certainly distracted from what your information is.

Please be gender neutral and less slangy if you want to be credible.

It's offensive.

Now, I'll go back and read but just remember you're on the Job not in a bar somewhere.

storm888 · June 4, 2008 4:07AM

"I'm interested in learning about Pro Stores, but after being a Professional in Business (Stock Broker with Morgan Stanley),"

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Yup. It is a classic case of a psychotic episode happening in public.
It was the equivalent of Carol coming on here and getting yelled at.

Sadly/gladly, it happens MANY times each day over there.

There are crazy/brilliant/nasty/nice posters there. Some know a
great deal about online selling AND about the collectibles markets.

..................

If anybody wants to try a PS, I will help them a little bit with the
set-up. NOT alot, a little bit. (I won't talk about it afterwards, all
contact confidential.)

The sites are free until October 1. At that time, the regular fees
fees kick in. Regular store owners always get 30% off on monthly
PS rent.

////////////////

NOTE: The current Italy tests contain a component that uses a
PS equivalent. The seller rents a PS and stocks CORE with BIN
and/auctions. The store is clickable inside the CORE listings, but
the other PS items are NOT on the site. The PS works like a
warehouse and stocking center. If this works out, it will likely
be how stores are worked in the USA.

Webstore by Amazon: Competition for Ebay?

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