Convert regular account to ebay store

[retro_licious]

I have 650+ items selling mostly vintage jewelry and designer bags. My account name is retro_licious. I want to open a basic store and move those items into it. I'd like to keep my name retro_licious as the store name but ebays says it already exist as someone else's account (which is mine). I'm already stuck here as I have followers that know that name and i would like to keep. Also, does ebay automatically convert my 650+ items into the store or is this something manually I have to do (ugh)

Any advice is helpful. TY

[nobody*s_perfect]

When you have a Store subscription, all of your listings are automatically in your store; you don't have to do anything about it.

eBay uses the term "Basic" to describe their second-tier store subscription, which is probably what you want.  The lowest level of store subscription is called "Starter" and only gets the same 250 free insertions per month as non-stores.

Your followers can still find you by your eBay ID even if the store name is different.

[isaiah53-57]

So you are paying Insertion fees on about 400 items a month while you are selling about 45 items a month?

I see money pits / profit leaks posted like this here all the time...

No wonder ebay can stay in business...

[lacemaker3]

@retro_licious 

The problem is that with a store name, eBay removes special characters and spaces, and replaces them all with a - character to create the URL. So you can't have a store name that is the same as any other user name except for special characters.

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/ebay-stores/open-ebay-store?id=4092

There's another member who has the user name retro-licious, so you can't use the same name for your store with any character or space between the two words. There's also a member who has retrolicious, so you can't use that either.

You will have to come up with a different variation, that hasn't been used by anyone as a user ID or a store name. But, your user ID will stay the same, and your followers will still be following you by your user ID. You won't lose them, even if you decide to change your user ID, your followers will still be following you.

[mam98031]

@retro_licious 

I think it is a very good move for you to subscribe to a Basic store.  They will save you money and pay for themselves if you consistently have 300+ listings.  You can do this on a month to month basis [which costs more] or you can get a yearly subscription.  You do not have to pay for it all at once, they will bill you monthly if you want.  Also make sure you understand that if you need to close your store before the 12 month subscription is complete, they do charge early termination fees.

https://pages.ebay.com/stores/subscriptionterms.html

As to your store name.  You would be fine calling it retrolicious or maybe your first name in front, like Alice's retrolicious.  Or you can call it most anything, Ebay will flag you if it is already being used.

When you open the store, all your listings will migrate to the store automatically.  You will need to go in and set up your Store Categories and then you can use the Bulk Editor to edit your listings so that you can add your store categories to the listing.

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/ebay-stores/managing-ebay-store?id=4090

https://pages.ebay.com/store-category/index.html

https://export.ebay.com/en/marketing/ebay-store/customize-your-ebay-store/

Have fun setting everything up.  It can be an exciting experience.