Basic vs Starter Store

[vintagetreasure86]

Hello fellow eBayers...

I have been selling without a store and am interested in setting up a store. I am wondering what the differences are between the Basic and Starter stores as do not want to sign up for the Starter store and find out it does not do what I am interested in doing.   so which benefits are available on a Starter store?  I would like to be able to list until it sells, not have item number change every week (I run auctions), be able to contact watchers, have sales, have more views, have a store name, etc.  I do not want to lose current following, so I was planning to open a separate store rather than convert to a store... and wonder if I can do that easily... have posted the info from their page... they reference not all benefits are available with a Starter store, but cannot find anything about which ones are available with a Starter store... not very helpful... appreciate your insights... thank you so much... have a great day...smile...

Marketing tools and support

• Run a sale or offer coupons with exclusive eBay promotional pricing tools
• Access exclusive eBay sales insights to help you decide what to sell, when to sell and how much to sell for
• Easily manage your Store in Seller Hub
• Choose your Store name and custom design your homepage

• Perks to boost your profits

  • Get unlimited insertion fee credits for auction listings that end in a sale
  • Use your quarterly coupon for eBay-branded shipping supplies

Some benefits are not available with Starter Store subscription.

[heckofagame]

Choose your subscription level (ebay.com)

Also, please keep in mind that your listing ability is still regulated by your allowable monthly limits. Subscribing to a store does not increase those limits. 

[mam98031]

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@heckofagame wrote:

Choose your subscription level (ebay.com)

Also, please keep in mind that your listing ability is still regulated by your allowable monthly limits. Subscribing to a store does not increase those limits. 

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Are you talking about Selling Limits or the listings limits within the store level?

[heckofagame]

I am referring to selling limits. 

[mam98031]

@vintagetreasure86 

Before you decide if you need a store or not and what level.  Do go to your Seller Hub and check what your Selling Limits are.  No since to have the ability to list more listings if your Selling Limits will prevent you from doing that.

When a seller desires to increase their selling limits, they are allowed to request an increase once every 30 days. Mark your calendar and every 30 days request an increase until you have your selling limit well above anything you think you will ever need. Below is a link to where you can go to ask for a selling limit increase. It is the third option in the link below.

https://www.ebay.com/sellerhelp/sl

[pcobra93]

Here would be my two cents.... Don't even consider the "starter store". Only consider the Basic one. Are you going to keep over 200 listings a month active? You get 250 free ones without the store so consider that. The reason I switched to a store was the fee savings. I list in categories that offer 9% on the fees instead of the 13.25%...if you have the store. That is great, but you have to sell a few thousand a month to make it justified. forget about the shiny object of the Ebay shipping supplies. They are over priced (at least the stuff I have used) and you can get the same supplies elsewhere for cheaper actually. One other thing I wondered about is if having a store bumped me up in the search algorithms... I have no idea if it does as they won't share the criteria they use...🤔 I sodl for a long long time before getting the store last year. I only went for it knowing I wanted to keep more listed and the fee savings worked out on the math that it pays the monthly fee for me. A store is NOT for everyone.

[rovemele-zmdmfp]

go with basic on montly until u are certain its 4 you  starter store would be almost what you do now so try basic for a month not yrly just $1 a day  im sure  u can swing it on a few sales  it may help sales but nothing to write home about im still on montly and  i can cancel when i want with out penaltys    good luck what ever u decide 

[kensgiftshop]

Your personal listing limit does not change if you subscribe to a store.

Do you sell enough each month to pay for the store subscription?

[gb58]

It depends on how many listings you run each month, because even though ebay says you get so many "free" listings with a store, they aren't really "free" because you are still paying the monthly store fee.

so here are a couple examples. Lets say you post 250 items a month.

no store: 250 listings- listing fee= free

starter store: $7.95 a month divided by 250 listings = 3 cents a listing

Basic store: $27.95 a month divided by 250 listings= 11 cents a listing

Now if you list say 900 items a month this is how it would break down

no store: 1st 250 listings free. 650 listings at 35 cents=$227.50.  

                    900 listings with no store would break down to 25 cents a listings.

starter store: 1st 250 listings free. 650 listings at 30 cents=$195 + $7.95 store fee

                            900 listings with Starter store would break down to 22.5 cents a listing

Basic store: 1st 1000 fixed price listings free. Cost of store monthly $27.95

                          900 listings with basic store would break down to 3 cents a listing 

So as you see, there can be a vast difference how much you are paying to list each item

depending on the number of listings and weather you have a store or not. 

With this breakdown though, you can take the average number of listings you run and do the

math for the different options and see which listing option works best for you.

[vintagetreasure86]

I would like to thank all of you for the great comments. I did check my selling level and am within the limits.

I have been wondering about views as when I google items my items do not seem to come up. My niche is model trains (my dad was a collector), so the idea of being able to organize them (locomotives, cars, etc) appeals to me. I have always done auctions since some items are unusual and might run up in price through bids. I have around 80 items on. It is also interesting that I used to have the same item number and now every time I do the auction again, my item number changes, the number of views change and the watchers for the item changes. 

I truly do not  understand and wonder if a store would help those things? Again, I do appreciate all of your comments and insights...smile...Happy Thanksgiving to all of you...smile... 

I was going to put some in as fixed until they sell, something I heard and while I used to have fixed for 30 days, I now do not even have a fixed option. Only auction and buy now, which we do not use and do not want to use as then people cannot make offers. 

[vintagetreasure86]

I might add... we keep reducing prices which helps to get views... however other guys have listed at higher prices (same items) for double and they are at the top of the search engines... and when I take photos, they look great on my computer and phone, but dark when I put them in  the eBay system... I wonder if a store would help... again, comments appreciated...smile...

[fern*wood]

When you are on the listing form, there is a down arrow where you can switch between "auction" or "buy it now".  The buy it now will be a fixed price listing that is good til cancelled and rolls over every month.   I thought they should call it fixed price rather than buy it now because that is confusing, since you can also add a buy it now price to an auction.

[az93]

Since you only have 85 listings, I think a starter store makes sense. I think a store is important as many people save your store. I only pay $8 @ month for my starter store. I downgraded from basic when forced into managed payments.  The only difference I have found is that I am no longer given a quarterly shipping supplies coupon.

[mam98031]

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@vintagetreasure86 wrote:

I would like to thank all of you for the great comments. I did check my selling level and am within the limits.

I have been wondering about views as when I google items my items do not seem to come up. My niche is model trains (my dad was a collector), so the idea of being able to organize them (locomotives, cars, etc) appeals to me. I have always done auctions since some items are unusual and might run up in price through bids. I have around 80 items on. It is also interesting that I used to have the same item number and now every time I do the auction again, my item number changes, the number of views change and the watchers for the item changes. 

I truly do not  understand and wonder if a store would help those things? Again, I do appreciate all of your comments and insights...smile...Happy Thanksgiving to all of you...smile... 

I was going to put some in as fixed until they sell, something I heard and while I used to have fixed for 30 days, I now do not even have a fixed option. Only auction and buy now, which we do not use and do not want to use as then people cannot make offers. 

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Keep in mind that a store does not have anything to do with increasing your views.

I'm going to phone a friend that is an expert in the area you are going to be selling in.  He is likely the one to help you the most.

@mr_lincoln 

[mam98031]

Lowering pricing isn't always the answer.  In fact there has been many times I've increased pricing and then the darn item finally sells.  I got no answer for that.  Making sure your shipping charges are close to being correct for  your cost plus fees, may offer some help.  IDK what it costs to ship what you sell, but the guy I tagged earlier will.