eBay or not to eBay? A full business case study explaining 8 reasons to use Tiger Commerce over an eBay Shop…
Cost Considerations
A basic eBay shop starts at £14.99 /month, but you need to pay an additional £4.99 /month to get the sales management tools (without which you can do very little with the shop). Also, on top of this you also need to pay the selling fees for every product you list / sell (up to 10% per item). That makes the eBay shop option a costly way to sell your products online. With Tiger Commerce you pay £17.99 /month and that's it - you get a complete ecommerce solution with best in class online shop features, full shop management and marketing functionality and you don't pay any selling commissions (other than payment gateway charges).
Leading Edge Technology
Tiger Commerce comes from GForces Web Management Ltd. We are experts in ecommerce and we have many clients who have been successfully using our Tiger Commerce software for a number of years. We stay at the forefront of ecommerce best practice and our software is constantly being updated (monthly) to both reflect the market place and also to bring innovative features ahead of the competition. eBay's shop is a basic ecommerce package which has many limitations and has not kept pace with the technical developments in the market (eBay is increasingly criticised for its lack of technical innovation and its shop features are not a priority).
Professional Store Look
eBay shop templates are pretty restrictive (for example font sizes and colours are limited). With Tiger Commerce you have full flexibility to create a look that reflects your product, your company, and your unique positioning in the market place. There is a limit in the number of customised pages (about us, buying guides, information pages etc) which you can add to your eBay shop (5 for the basic package). There is no limit on the number of custom pages with Tiger Commerce.
Control
With an eBay shop you are at the mercy of eBay's trading terms. For example, eBay announced in September '08 that it would no longer allow the sale of downloadable items. Many eBay shop owners have also been upset by the Detailed Seller Ratings (DSRs) introduced early last year - which prevent them from giving feedback on buyers or responding to negative buyer feedback. The risk of shop suspension has risen and many shops have complained that suspensions have been unjustified. With a Tiger Commerce ecommerce website you have complete control over your online shop - we don't interfere with your business and allow you to run it as you wish... as long as it's legal!
eBay's Reputation
In spite of its global dominance, consumer confidence in eBay has suffered recently. Consumer perception that eBay is just about cheap prices and sellers 'getting rid of junk' can be a negative for businesses selling quality goods and services. Whilst the announcement of eBay's first ever drop in revenues in Q4 2008 is largely attributed to macroeconomic factors, eBay has also been criticised for failing to take action to keep its business moving forward.
Communication and Support
Speaking to anyone at eBay is virtually impossible, email contact is slow and cumbersome. With Tiger Commerce, it's in our interest to support you well. We have a highly responsive and specialist ecommerce team who are available via email and telephone. We have online video tutorials which take you through the process of building your shop and also full user guides for every part of the software.
Additional Services
eBay gives you basic tools to market your shop within the confines of the eBay community, but leaves you to get on with it. Tiger Commerce is provided by a web management company that offers many additional web design and web marketing services. Whether it's design for your online store or help marketing your shop on the search engines, we have a full range of packages to meet your needs. We want to make your business a success and have all the necessary in-house expertise to deliver results.
Independent Reviews
The eBay shop software recently received a 3* rating (out of 5) from PCPro Magazine (verdict: "Great for selling a small selection of items, but more demanding companies should look elsewhere" September '08). Tiger Commerce received the following overall review from Personal Computer World "A quick and surprisingly effective way of setting up shop on the web... It's quick, it works and that's what matters". Personal Computer World also gives it an average 5* user rating.
However, we understand that the eBay online marketplace is simply too large to be ignored when considering increasing sales opportunities and market exposure for your products...
As a result, Tiger Commerce fully integrates with eBay. Shop owners can select products they want to put onto eBay from their shop's catalogue and then choose the type of auction (either Chinese, Dutch, Fixed Price Item or Classified Ad) that they want the product to be sold under, the appropriate eBay category and price. All other pieces of information required such as the product's description, images and shipping terms are automatically propagated into the auction item by the software.
So why not have the best of both worlds? Use Tiger Commerce as your main shop platform and benefit from its state-of-the-art ecommerce technology and other benefits mentioned above, and then utilise the eBay integration tool to populate your shop's products onto the UK's biggest online marketplace.
