You may have considered using eBay stores for your business but before you set up an eBay store there are some key things you need to keep in mine in order to get the most success.

Store Name – Naming your eBay store is very important, you might be tempted to put your business name in your store but fight this urge. You only get a few characters so choose wisely and remember this is not traditional brick and mortar. People search eBay for products not business or personal names so “Anthony’s Cool Store” would not be a good name but “Website Design Success” because I have used key words in my name. What ever you sell is what you want to use in your name, in key words.

Appearance – eBay provides pre-made store design templates to choose from but the problem is everyone else uses them too; there is nothing to set the look of your store apart from others. There is a design template in eBay stores that is easily customizable, take this template and add your own custom design or have a professional store designer create a custom design for you. Potential customers will notice the difference, they will also get the feeling that you really care because you have taken time to set yourself apart from other eBay sellers.

Custom Pages – This is something a lot of eBay store owners waste but one of the most important things for SEO purposes. Each level of eBay store subscription provides you with custom pages, don’t waste them. Set up your custom pages to talk about your products and use text containing your key words to describe your products. Remember to write for your readers first and search engines second.

About Me Page – This is your spot, it’s a place where you can really connect with your potential buyer and let them get to know you. Take full advantage of this section and add information about you, how long you have been in your market, how you got started, why you are selling on eBay, how you feel about customer service, etc. People love to deal with people on a personal level so let them get to know the real you!

Setting up an eBay Store is one of the easiest ways to kick start your online business and build your brand. Here is the formula:

Set up an eBay store (basic level at $15.95 per month).You can easily set up your store on eBay in a matter of minutes and be selling soon after. The beauty of eBay is that you have customers waiting to buy your products. We have seen clients start making sales as soon as a day after listing items in their eBay store.

As you set up your store pay close attention to what you name it, make sure you get some key words in your store name and separate them with hyphens. Also, you want to go buy a domain name at some place like GoDaddy and point it to your eBay Store. This will not only make it easier to market your store but will help get some age and use on your domain name for the sake of the search engines.

Once your store is set up you might want to add a custom eBay Store design to it. Having a custom designed eBay Store will build credibility and let your visitors know that you really do care about them and your business. It will also set you apart from your competitors that are using the generic templates that eBay provides for their stores.

Now you want to optimize your eBay Store, you are allowed to have custom pages and you should take advantage of them. Use these custom pages to talk about what you are selling, making sure you use good key words in your text. I have seen many eBay Stores show up very high on Google searches.

If you have a good product with a good price point you should start getting sales. Some people like to sell from their store for a while but then they see that they are paying a lot of fees to eBay so it’s time to add to the formula.

Set up or have a professional set up a custom ecommerce website for your business. Remember that domain name you pointed to your eBay Store? That is what you want to use for your website. Forget about using ProStores or Yahoo Stores, you don’t really have the flexibility or control to design, optimize or market these the way you need to.

Since you have started building your brand already with your eBay store you want to make sure your website matches the look of your eBay Store, same logo, same name, same colors, etc.

You want to get those people buying from you on eBay converted over to your website. eBay is very strict about linking directly from eBay so to be safe you need to a little old school. Let’s say you have someone purchase an item on eBay, you will be shipping it to them so here’s what you do. (You will need a shopping cart that will let you generate coupon codes.) Generate a coupon code for a dollar amount or a percentage off, take that code and add it to a “Thank You” note that you will drop in with the package you are shipping. Thank them for their purchase on eBay and tell them as a token of your appreciation you have included a coupon for a discount on their next purchase from your website. They can use it or give it to a family member or friend.

You will start converting people from your eBay store (Where you are a partner with eBay, they are owners of your customer too.) to your website, they will be your customers and yours alone. Now you are building a solid business that is an asset, you can keep it or sell it, it and the customers belong solely to you and you used your eBay Store to get you there.