If you're already selling on eBay or are thinking about it, you might be wondering if an eBay store give your business an edge? Absolutely! eBay makes expanding your business, and of course your profits, an efficient and straight forward process. Best of all, eBay provides a wealth of tools, tips, and resources to create a profitable store - a store that will increase your business traffic, broaden your audience, and increase that all important bottom line.

Here are just a few of the benefits of having your own eBay store.

Increase Awareness

eBay currently reports more than 84.5 million members worldwide. That's a huge audience that other online auction sites just don't have. Now, of course not every member is going to be interested in your products however tapping into this audience will help you reach a targeted group of people who are interested in your products and services and an eBay store will help you reach them.

Increased Traffic

Driving traffic to your eBay store couldn't be easier. As a store owner you receive a unique URL and home page. This storefront and URL is customizable, which makes it easy for you to consistently brand both your eBay store and your online business.

Store owners also receive an email newsletter function, which is crucial for being able follow up with your customers and to get them to buy from you over and over again. A basic store owner can send 100 email newsletters each month. Search tools, cross promotion tools, and assistance with print products like business cards and flyers are all provided by the eBay team specifically for store owners.

Beyond the Basic Store, Featured and Anchor store owners receive promotional dollars which they can then use on the eBay keywords advertising program. It's an option definitely worth looking into.

Store pages. Each store receives a number of pages for their site. These customizable pages include an “About Me” page, policies and procedures, sizing and order information, and an FAQ page - helping you create better customer service and confidence from your buyers.

Great Return on Investment

A Basic eBay store costs $15.95 per month and offers a wealth of resources including payment and fulfillment tools and resources via PayPal.

You can easily save time, and money, with eBay's automatic re-listing feature for store owners. This tool lets you set listings for 30, 60, 90, and 120 days or “Good ‘til Cancelled. If you're worried about the high cost of insertion fees, it isn't a problem. As a store owner, insertion fees start at $0.02 for 30 day listings. The maximum you'll pay is $0.08 for 120 day listings. Best of all, your insertion fee covers up to 1000 items.

eBay is a wonderful resource for internet entrepreneurs looking to grow their business. It costs very little to get started and eBay offers an abundance of tools and resources all designed to help you sell more and grow your business. If you plan to sell a large amount of goods on an ongoing basis on eBay, an eBay store is definitely worth looking into.