[on-ramp]

Ebay is an excellent customer acquisition tool. You have quite the selection of buyers. There are the bottom of the barrel scrapers who will never think a low price is low enough (they want it for free) and then you have the type of buyers who are willing to pay top dollar for the right item, if advertised correctly. I run a bookstore on ebay and there are quite a few collectors there. However, I also own and operate my own dot com. Their fees are certainly outrageous but it's the cost of getting a new customer. Even if you break even on a deal, it's worth it because you've gained a customer and now they know your business exists.

If you are operating an ebay-only business without another channel for selling, you are taking a big risk. Their fees overall, do end up cutting into your bottom line. For us, On ebay, on the average, the ebay/paypal fees account for 52% of net profit, whereas sales on our dot this figure is a lot lower. If you want exposure and want to build a reputation, sure, ebay is an excellent place to start. but eventually ,when you get big enough, it's wise to get away and run solo. which is the plan in this case. The issue is that of control and not having to run by ebay's rules, which seem outrageous at times.

As you also stated, a customer on a conventional e-commerce site can add multiple items to a shopping cart, create an account, and a host of other features that are not possible on ebay. it's an entirely different ball-game. On ebay, it's pay per listing (this is where the fees add up). On your own site, you can list as much as you want for a fixed price. Ebay does have stores but nobody will find it unless you run many auctions. The problem with auctions is that you need to list 30 to sell 2 . Your profit on the 2 sold better be high enough to overcome the fees for everything. Otherwise it's a losing proposition.

the biggest disadvantage on ebay, and this is a big one: Ebay doesn't allow you to create an opt-in email subscriber list for newsletters, which is a the first step in the sales process.