Do you have a website? What has that been like?

[Virginia Caputo]

I have been reading an interesting thread on the Powersellers Board on ebay on the topic of websites. This has been a topic among a lot of antiques dealers lately. A lot of dealers are attempting to create one and to use them as a means of marketing. A lot are disappointed with how things are going (or not going) on ebay and are looking for other options such as selling online through their own sites.

The thread on the eBay Powersellers Board on this topic is interesting because so many are sharing their experience and are offering suggestions. If you are already on ebay and are a Powerseller, you would likely enjoy reading that thread.

I am new to the Ephemera site. I am impressed with how it is set up. I'm a little surprised that it is not being used more as it is a very nice site. My compliments to the creator or creators!!

That being said, I think that it happens frequently that despite our best efforts, things don't always go as we think that they should. But it might help to share experiences and find out what does work.

I've noticed in my reading on the subject of websites and ecommerce that what works for dealers in new things may well not work for dealers in antique and vintage things. In my own decisions on how to do things, I make choices that are very different from those who sell new things available in quantity. My website design likely will not be in accordance with the recommendations of those who set up the usual ecommerce sites for dealers in new things. What is needed for an effective website for one seller might not work for another.

What is going on for you in your own experience of offering Ephemera online through a website? Is it working? Not working? What would you like to share?

Thank you in advance for participating!

Ginny

[Gary Roberts]

I've run a number of websites for my own purposes for around 10 years. And a blog or three. It all comes down to marketing and branding, more than the creation of a website.

The central problem is how to drive or attract people to your site(s). And that is a huge hunk of time in and of itself. I already had a brand name as Toolemera from years of selling books through email lists, activity in forums, tailgating at auctions, volunteering publishing services to associations. Many people think that simply creating a site is all that is needed.

Then there is payment methods: Paypal, credit card, cash or ? You can always sign with one of the existing online storefronts such as estey and agree to abide by their rules and pay their fees. Or do it all yourself.

I've recently signed a contract with a magazine publisher that also has an online bookstore. They'll carry my book titles, handle the transactions and I take care of shipping the titles as they are ordered. Yay! no more Paypal. Truthfully, managing an online storefront is a lot of work. If you don't update frequently, people will drift away.

I also offer a lot of public access material for people to enjoy and that drives a lot of visitors to the storefront.

Website design is a topic all by itself. I'm a fan of stripped down basics in online storefronts. Ebay is a good example of one that works, although lately they can't seem to decide what format they want to follow. Look at Amazon for another basic design that works.

[Books and Unusuals]

I have my own website and I love running it. I'm not at the whim of anyone else's decisions leaving me to continuously redo my listings to keep in compliance. I accept usps money orders, paypal and googlecheckout and folks can still pay by credit card (via paypal form) without having either a google checkout or paypal account.

I host my cart (zen cart - free open source) on hostgator with their business package. This package provides a free ssl. It's not required to have an ssl to use paypal standard as a payment option but is still good to have to protect customer contact and shipping info as well as provide more assurance for a customer that steps are being taken to secure my site.

For googlecheckout there are two levels of integration.

Level two integration is where google and my cart communicate with each other and sales are automatically posted in my carts admin as well as in my google checkout account. Level two integration requires a ssl certificate.

With level one integration, google checkout does not require a ssl but when a purchase is made google does not post order info back to the carts admin. Google checkout sales are managed in google checkout account.

I use live USPS shipping rates with a tare weight set. For the most part shipping calculation has been accurate and any minor discrepancies are due to estimated tare packaging weight. My packaged items vary in size.

My only fees are my monthly hosting fee, yearly domain name renewal fees, google checkout and paypal fees for payment processing.

Having my own website is a completely hands on job. I am responsible for SEO, meaning I need to do my own meta tags and try to figure out the keywords that will most benefit my site and listings. I have to get my site 'out there' through various methods. I make use of tools offered in my google account including submitting my feeds to google merchant which is handled via my carts admin panel.

There's always something to do. List items in my store. Promote my store. Look for ways to improve my store. Update my cart when important security patches are released. Not to mention acquiring new and interesting items for my store and we all know what that side of things entails. :-). There's always more to learn, to do things better and or easier.

If I list items on ebay or elsewhere I can host the images on my own hosting account so there's no paying for extra images in the listings.

There is a learning curve. It doesn't happen over night. I like the independence.

[Country Joe]

We have had our website up for a number of years and it has worked out well. Of course like any other business you have to work at it. The old "if you build they will come", doesn't work.

You have to get out a market your site through links, blogs, forums, places like Google Shopping and others. You also need to write up decent titles and content on your merchandise. Make yourself search engine friendly etc.

Bottom line is you need to work to succeed, just like any other business. Also it takes time, so don't give up.

See ya, Country Joe

Country Joe's Collectible Stuff

 

 

 

[E. S. Gordon]

Hi, Ginny! I'm a very new member, and want to echo the sentiments of previous posters - the website is only the beginning! Then comes the marketing and trying to get traffic to the site. It takes a lot of work.

 

I think it's a great idea for most businesses to at least have an informational website, a sort of combination calling card and brochure where people can go and get an introduction to you. But when it comes to actual selling, it may make sense for smaller outfits to use one of the e-commerce sites that offer storefronts to individual sellers. That way you can take advantage of the traffic that's already coming to those sites, although you'll still have to promote your storefront actively. For antiques, some good ones are rubylane.com, cyberattic.com and goantiques.com.

 

For the past few years I've been using a site called ecrater.com, definitely not fine antiques oriented, but it does have a fair amount of vintage stuff. It is completely free to use (no listing or final value fees!), and has the great advantage that all products listed are submitted to Google Product Search. It is also optimized for indexing by the major search engines. Even so, it takes a lot of work to promote a store, but at least there's that little extra head start.

 

The listing process and account management are very easy. I have a constantly changing inventory of vintage collectibles including vintage ads and vintage postcards, and I am able to change my product categories readily as required. For example, right now I have categories for vintage liquor ads, vintage car ads, vintage ship ads, vintage railroad ads, vintage consumer ads, etc. . . . But a year ago I needed categories like vintage costume jewelry vs. handcrafted jewelry. I appreciate the ease of being readily able to change my store configuration in a minute. Great flexibility!

 

There are also drawbacks: I don't like the lack of design options (like only one style and size of typeface - far too small in my opinion). But "FREE" makes up for a lot of drawbacks!

 

Hope this is helpful!

 

Best,

E.S.

 

www.nectarine.ecrater.com