Selling on eBay if You Own a Retail Store

Do you own a bricks and mortar retail store? Are you looking for another avenue to generate higher sales? Why not sell on eBay?

We have always thought that a great combination for profits would be to own a bricks and mortar retail store and sell online, assuming you already own a retail store. And we have never been able to understand why more traditional retailers don’t take this approach. eBay is an ideal place for you to start selling online and might just be what you need to double, triple, even quadruple your revenue.

Think about it. As a bricks and mortar retailer, your potential customer base is relatively small. You can only sell to those that come through your front door. How do you change this? You sell online and then suddenly the world becomes your customer.

As a bricks and mortar retail store, you have a huge advantage over the person that is working from home. Presumably, you already know how to run a retail business. You already have inventory. You have working relationships with product suppliers. In other words, you are miles ahead of the typical eBay seller.

More importantly, you have an actual business location rather than your home. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find distributors and manufacturers who will deal with an online only retailer. It can be quite a bit discouraging when you contact potential suppliers day after day, only to be turned away because you are an online only retailer. Heck, you don’t even have to say you sell on eBay to be rejected. Just by mentioning you are an online retailer is all it takes for suppliers to tell you they aren’t welcoming online retailers “at this time.”

If you operate out of a traditional retail location, there is nothing stopping you! You can source all sorts of products that are not available to online only retailers because you never have to utter a word about selling online.

A lot of suppliers will request you to supply a photograph of your storefront, an ad from your local yellow pages, a copy of a signed lease, etc. which you will be more than happy to supply. As an online only retailer, you will be hard-pressed to provide the prospective supplier with that information.

So, if you are selling out of a bricks and mortar location, you are doing yourself a serious disservice by not selling online. You are passing up potentially huge amounts of profit by not selling online. Quit complaining about how the online retailers are killing your business and join them by selling online. eBay is the perfect place to get your feet wet and it doesn’t cost much to get started.

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