Ebay accounts for about 25% of sales at Hytechgear.com, a marketer of professional sound and lighting equipment, but CEO Eric Johnson is looking for marketing alternatives so as to branch out online, he tells Internet Retailer. Johnson, who launches eBay auctions using the services of provider Vendio, finds that what sells on eBay has lower margins than what sells on his site and via phone orders, a situation compounded by recent fee increases for eBay sellers.
“When I put an item on eBay and everything’s said and done, I’ve sold the item and pretty much just covered the cost of marketing it,” he says. While the margins may be less profitable, however, Johnson notes that eBay provides much broader marketplace exposure than he would have just on his own site. “For us, eBay is paid advertising,” he says. “It’s a way of letting people know you’re there and allowing them to make a purchase from a vendor they didn’t know before. I have a 20,000-person mailing list that was acquired through sales on eBay,” he says.
Johnson’s experience shows that while sellers may not like the fee increases, they recognize that nothing beats eBay’s market reach. It’s the largest e-commerce platform, getting 10.6 million unique visitors on an average day, according to February figures from ComScore Networks.
However, Johnson anticipates shifting some of his marketing spend to search marketing when Hytechgear completes several niche sites, now in the works, that will target specific segments of its market, such as sound and lighting equipment needs at churches, for example.
“If you’re from a church and need equipment, you’ll be able to go to a site specifically designed for that. We’ll have search marketing pointed at those niche sites and also the main site,” where they will be linked, Johnson says.
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