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Business inadvertently growing, advice needed (alien.top)

submitted 10 months ago by mr_hmichael@alien.top to c/entrepreneur@indiehackers.space

7 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Title is probably weird,

Basically this time last year, I started playing around building an e-commerce store, I wasn't intending on being serious about it but then I got all excited, registered it as a ltd company, sorted it a bank account and an office service. Stocked the website out of my own expense, and paid to run some adverts on social media.

Company saw literally no movement. After a few months I plotted my exit strategy, try to sell all the shite off on eBay to reduce my loss.

On eBay it's been a different story, it's gone crazy, with multiple orders a week. I haven't done much to reduce prices of the products or anything, just sold them off through a personal eBay account.

I want to give it another shot, could anyone give me some advice on how to grow and slowly transition it back onto its own webstore?

I was thinking of reopening its website and running it in tandem with the eBay store, then advertise the website by putting flyers into the eBay orders parcels?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

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[–] SerenDipiosa@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

What prevents you to just keep selling your goods on eBay if it worked so well for you?

[–] Total-Associate3537@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

Sorry Iv no help for you. Be interested in knowing myself as I want to start a store myself

[–] astronao@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

Oh baby, it's time to pivot. The scariest and the most exciting part in entrepreneurship. Tons of book and guides on pivoting. Find out what exactly it is that is drawing the eBay customers. Make small changes and see if more come or more go. Study the new customers and then replicate that on your website.

Use psychological marketing on your eBay postings. Write in the summary of the product: Limited Stock. More Available at our Website. Or send with each eBay order received a 10% off coupon to your website.

[–] slinkywafflepants@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

Re-open your ecom. Put a card in the orders you ship through eBay with your website and a 10-15% discount code. That is what you pay eBay in platform fees anyway, so its free for you.

[–] Deepdiver272@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

develop further with 3rd party first, amazon next.

If it continues to go crazy, address original requirement.

Some products just do better on the 3rd party platforms.

Get eggs in 2 baskets and then aim for the 3rd.

[–] founderscurve@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

"I was thinking of reopening its website and running it in tandem with the eBay store, then advertise the website by putting flyers into the eBay orders parcels?'

this is a good idea. the thing about ebay is theres already users there, so its a good source of users, your website however requires you to try and pull users to it and then deal with the 'trust' aspect, which in ebay is mitigated by seller-side verifications and related.

so you can assign the role of cross-selling and up-selling to your website, and use ebay for first time buyers, then using the email and address you can push marketing to users who have already paid you once.

[–] mr_hmichael@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

Yeah, I wouldn't cut eBay off and lose that customer basis, my father uses eBay so I understand the trust thing with it