Two years ago I began selling products on Trade me, New Zealands' version of Ebay. I was so proud of myself, finally I was an "entrepreneur". I had dreamt of being my own boss all my life and now I had my chance. I had always assumned that all it would take to be successful on Trademe is to find a cheap product and sell it for a high mark up. Unfortunately for me this was only half the battle.

1. Problems faced

There were a number of things I had failed to take into account such as competition, trademe fees, people been reluctant to buy from me due to the amount of scammers around, no returning customers and I had no real asset to show for my hard work.

2. Benefits of starting an online store

Fortunately for me a friend showed me the advantages of starting a webstore and that is when my project became a business. By having a web store I was able to drive traffic from trademe to my webstore . Almost eliminating Trademe fees. This meant that I was able to spend more money on other areas of my business, all I needed to do was put up a convincing auction. My sales almost quadrupled since people could see I was a legitimate business and not a scammer. I began to get returning customers because people could now go directly to my web site instead of having to wade through hundreds of auctions just to get to mine. Having a webstore also saved me time having to list items. My webstore was fully set up with all my products and stock in my inventory. It was not only making me money it was now also saving me time.

3. How my web store became an asset

My web store had now become an asset. Previously I had just been selling through the auction site and the only thing of value was the products i sold. Having a webstore gave me a place to market my own brand. It gave me a way of becoming a store owner without having to pay the overheads assosiated with owning a physical store. I now owned my own bit of "online real estate" that I could sell if I ever wanted to get out of the business.

Owning a webstore is perfect for someone who is already selling on Ebay, Amazon or any other auction site, it saves on fees, you can generate more sale and you can sell it as an existing business if you ever want or need to. But if you're wanting to have your own business a webstore is perfect for that as well. You can also generate extra sales buy collecting email addresses from generated sales for your mailing list and potentially sell them to marketers.