Why You NEED Your Own Web Store - Don't Just Rely On eBay, Etsy, & Amazon!!!

You Don't Own Your Own Business You Don't Own Your Business!!!! Amazon, Ebay, Etsy, & Others Can Suspend You & Ruin Your Business 

If you decide to sell an item around the house on popular auction/sales sites like eBay or Amazon chances are you will probably make some money. And it's true that lots of people are making big money on these platforms. These platforms are great in that they are turnekey, bring the traffic and buyers to you, and handle the payment and escrow side of the ecommerce busines. With that being the case why would anyone ever want to own their own ecommerce web store? Why bother having to do the work of establishing your own customer base when you can leverage someone else's like eBay or Amazons. 

The answer may not be obvious but selling on a third party platform which you don't own can lead to problems such as your account being closed at will leaving you alone and your customer base alienated. This also often leads to these sites holding your money for extended periods of time. I recently read about a fellow who happenned to be selling a product which was mentioned by Dr. Oz. His previous sales which were non-existant exploded into doing over $330,000 in a two week period. He wound up spending something like $60,000 on shipping fees alone. Amazon then for some reason suspended his selling priveleges, closed his account and froze all his funds for a 90 day period...imagine that!!!

 

This isn't even necessarily to say you shouldn't sel on these platforms but you should heed the age old adage don't put all your eggs in one basket. Even if you don't decide to setout and setup your own ecommerce shop, at least get on as many selling platforms is possible be it eBay, Amazon, Etsy, and others. This way should you run into any problems with any of those services you have some backup sales to fall back on. My advice however is that you build your own business online and your own store. These days it's both incredibly cheap and easy to do with no tech skills or coding skills whatsoever through programs like Shopify, Wix, Godaddy, Blogger, Wordpress, and others.

Below we are going to go through one by one and I'll mention a trend of things I'm seeing in terms of issues with Amazon, Ebay, and Etsy and how they are treating accounts and potential problems it could cause. 

Selling On EBay

 In a recent report on satisfaction index eBay's customer satisfaction dropped over 4$ while Amazon rose.

 

You can't blame eBay, they have to provide a pleasurable and safe shopping experience to their customers which is why they have been trying to improve their image by comming down hard on "bad" sellers. In past years eBay was pretty lax on shipping times and other things where as Amazon tracks whether tracking is uploaded on time and if packages get a scan; the second part which is sometimes unfair as USPS First Class packages don't necessarily get scanned ever unless upon delivery. Sometimes they do and these are referred to by USPS as courtesy scans, however oftentimes the only scan on a first class package is upon delivery.  

These days if you are new to eBay and sell a few items and get even a single negative feedback or a low DSR score there's a big chance your account will be banned for life with no appeal. (check back for an upcomming blog post where I share the one last hope of getting a banned account back)

 

While a marketplace should have high standards for sellers, it shouldn't be such that a single unhappy and possibly even unreasonable customer or a mistake or two on the part of USPS which is no fault of your own and you could very likely find your account suspended, you banned for life and all your hard work building up that account down the drain.

 

Selling On Etsy

A big complaint these days about etsy is what once was a marketplace for crafts people hawking their own handmade goods, these days there is a lot of mass produced items, often cheap stuff from Alibaba and other chinese manufacturers being sold at inflated prices and sold as handmade goods. 

Because of this etsy has been much more strict in terms of what is considered handmade which has led to a lot of people being unjustly suspended. There's plenty of stories online in blogs in which people share stories about how their accounts, according to them, were unjustly suspended and the process of contesting it wasn't easy. In some cases it led to them not getting their stores back and in others at best resulted in weeks of lost business as the issue was sorted out. 

Just as with eBay and Amazon the rug can be pulled out from under you without cause or notice and if you don't have a backup store or sales channel you are in bad shape.

Selling On Amazon

It seems not a month goes by that I'm not contacted via email, Youtube, or through the blog in which I don't get a story about a suspended account emailed to me or have someone hire me for a consulting gig to attempt to get their account back for them. 

 

Though everyone seems to always claim innocence, and I doubt they all are, but there's too many stories of people unjustly being banned from selling by Amazon and other selling platforms. Again, you don't own your business. 

 

Another interesting thing, it seems Amazon is somewhat notorious from stopping sellers from selling in a particular category when that selling is making more money and having more sales than Amazon themselves in that category. 

 

Here are just a few reasons Amazon could ban a sellers account, although ultimately, you sign away all your rights when you join a third party selling platform.

• Seller experiences a string of negative feedback (sometimes as few as 2-3 negative comments in a row)
• Seller opens more than one account under the same person’s name
• Seller’s name is associated somehow with another banned account whether it be from a friend or relative
• Seller is accused of selling counterfeit goods.
• A competitor buys your items and leaves negative feedback or makes counterfeit claims in an attempt to sink your business

One other thing to keep in mind about Amazon. Should your account be banned Amazon will hold your funds for 90 days and in many reports even takes much longer than 90 days to return funds. With Amazon already having a 14 day lag time in payments, should someone's account be suspended right before payment time it's possible Amazon could be holding tens of thousand or even hundreds of thousands of dollars of a sellers money for 104 days, three and a half months, that's crazy. Could your business sustain that drain on cash?

Moral of the story, a dirty competitor, a postal mistake, or just doing a great job of selling could result in your being dragged away from your customers kicking and screaming. 

Creating Your Own Store & Customer Base

My rundown above of eBay, Amazon, and Etsy should show you the importance of having your own sales channel, having control of your own business, and not having to abide by a third parties terms. By all means continue using those sales channels of eBay, Amazon, and Etsy but do so with a goal of driving your customers off those sites and onto your own and have multiple sales channels open incase you have issues with one.

When you own your own business you don't have to abide by a third party companies terms. You can choose how you ship, how you accept payment, and what type of return policy if any you offer. When you own your own business you don't have to beg to be reinstated nor do you have to hire lawyers to get your own money released to you so you don't run out of cashflow and go out of business.

Owning your own store and your own busines is the best way to ensure longevity to your store and endevour.