I’m so glad you took the time to add your input to this post, with your firsthand experience.

You have the perfect combination for a ‘real’ website. Your topic is niche and you have taken it upon yourself to learn everything you can about search engines, etc. EBay just isn’t enough for a business like yours

And, your point about the traffic driving is one I thought of including in this post, but I was afraid it was getting too long. Haha.

I think you are quite right about not simply closing one’s eBay store the day you launch your website. It can certainly drive traffic, and is an additional source of exposure to your brand. If you find that cross traffic converts to sales or some other meaningful goal, why not keep both things going? Good advice!

Thanks for stopping by, Lori. It’s a sunny day around the igloo whenever you visit!
Miriam

You’re correct – there are some benefits to eBay, and anyone who only sells sporadically, or sells “garage sale” style (a little bit of everything), then eBay is still a good place to go.

Leaving eBay was the best thing I’ve ever done, but mostly because I’ve been willing to do a lot of research and work over the past year. I’m sure my business would have grown on eBay, too, if I had stayed there, but probably not to this extent.

Many businesses use eBay successfully to drive traffic to their main e-commerce site. I used that option at the beginning, when I was first setting up my stand alone store. In other words, even if you do set up an e-commerce site, you may not want to close your eBay store right away. Using discounts and promotions, you can make sure that repeat buyers come to your e-commerce site after buying from you on eBay.

Great, thorough post, and I hope many people see it who are thinking about this kind of switch.