With eBay making so many changes and so many eBay sellers becoming unhappy now may be the best time to start an eCommerce website. A while back eBay was a great place to get your feet wet so to speak with selling online, you could open up an eBay store, customize it and get sales almost instantly and actually make some profit. Starting an eCommerce website took a little longer, almost like a steam locomotive, it had to build up steam and there was some time before you could really see sales from it.

We are not seeing that now, we are seeing a lot of people doing a lot of work on eBay only to make a small profit, things do change. In my opinion if it’s not broke don’t fix it but who am I? The bottom line is even back in eBay’s prime when life was better on eBay you were still in business with eBay. You did most of the work, the listing, the advertising, the packing, the shipping and the good folks at eBay sat back and collected a profit plus they were partners in your customer base.

Several years ago there were some top power sellers that left eBay, they took the money they spent in eBay fees per month and put it toward internet marketing, pay per click and different things. They were able to double in one year what they did on eBay. Personally I think more people should have followed their example then.

With the rise in popularity of social media marketing there has never been a better time to make the transition from eBay to your own eCommerce website. You will not only save in eBay fees but you will also own 100% of your client base. You will also be building an asset that later on you can sell or pass down to someone else unlike an eBay business that you don’t really have ownership to.

If you have not started selling on eBay yet and you’re just thinking about it you may want to think long and hard, there are other options out there. If you do currently have an eBay store you do want to take advantage of what you have if you are making sales. Spend a little time and money to make it professional but keep in mind not to put all your eggs in one basket. Focus on the long term goal of your own website and build something that will belong to you and only you.

Local brick and mortar business can benefit from social media marketing by becoming more personal. You can harness the power of Twitter and social media for your offline business. Business marketing is taking a huge shift and moving to social media because of high costs involved with traditional marketing such as television, news paper and magazine ads.

There are many ways that you can market your business via the internet and social media that can cut your adverting cost by more than half plus you will build personal relationships with your customers.

Step out from behind your company and let people relate to you first and then your company brand because you are your company, right? This is personal branding and it makes your customers feel special and it builds loyalty. You like to feel special don’t you? You like to have an owner of a business call you by name when you come to their establishment don’t you?

If you think about it years ago this is how business was done, you went to a local establishment and the owner knew your name, this is the way business is supposed to be.

Your brick and mortar business can build a personal community with Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media channels and it can be live and on demand. You can gain loyal customers in real time just be befriending them and making them feel important.

Twitter will let you communicate with your target audience in real time and so will Facebook; you can gain a mass following of targeted people if you set things up the proper way.

I was shocked to do a local search on Twitter for businesses in my local Tri-Cities, Bristol TN/VA, Kingsport and Johnson City area and not see hardly anyone there.

The folks from WJHL news are taking advantage of Twitter and I think this is great but why are there not more business not tapping into this advertising gold mine?

Are you taking advantage of Twitter and social media for your brick and mortar business?