I’ve been considering for some time if I would like an eBay store in addition to my regular listings. This would open up a variety of options for me. I could list an item for an indefinite period of time and it could be buy it now. Someone could look at the item for a very long tie and then decide to buy it, rather than having only 7 days to decide if they like it or want it.

There are many positives to this approach but the drawbacks are large amounts of money. The initial insertion fee is only 2 pennies but the final fee is 8 percent of the final value, up to $25 and then it’s 5 percent on any money over $25! So the book that I sold for $75 would have had $4.52 in fees, in addition to the $16 that I would have to pay monthly for the store. The usual amount in fees is $3.60, including the listing fee! That’s nearly a full dollar difference.

The major thing I would be paying for is the huge AMOUNT of time a store lets you leave items up, they can be there for 30 days or as long as it takes to sell. If I were selling 100’s of books that were identical I would find this format useful, however as it is now it’s not a good fit for me. I’ll continue to poorly utilize my website.

If eBay were to make the fee less, I’d think about getting a store, if it were $9 or so, I just can’t use the store effectively and pay as much as it is currently. It’s just too much.