The benefits of an eBay store depend on several things:

1. Which country you are selling in, as fee structures and even shop types are different in the US and the UK for example.
2. Whether the majority of your listings are fixed price or auctions.
3. How many listings you have.
4. For US sellers, the value of your sales each month and what category they are in, as there are fee discounts in some categories for store owners.

eBay Store Benefits

There are extra perks to having a higher level store, for example in the UK and US you get vouchers towards eBay branded packaging supplies. In the UK there’s a monthly £10 voucher for Featured Shop subscribers and a £20 voucher for Anchor Shops. In the US the vouchers are quarterly rather than monthly but even Basic Store subscribers get them, they start at $25 a quarter for Basic Stores and rise to $50 a quarter for Premium Stores and $150 a quarter for Anchor and Enterprise Stores.

Another of the perks of having your own eBay store is that you can have your very own storefront page and we can design a custom eBay template for your eBay listings and the same design for your eBay storefront. This gives your listings and store a very professional polish and marks you out as a brand and business on eBay which instils trust in prospective buyers.

All UK shop subscribers get access to Terapeak Sourcing Insights (eBays own tool for product and market research) and in the US all store subscribers except the lowest level Starter Store get access to the Terapeak tool.

US Anchor and Enterprise stores get access to a dedicated customer service program. In the UK there is no Enterprise level so it’s just for Anchor store subscribers.

In the UK Featured and Anchor Shop subscribers get access to the European Sales Booster program. This is a free program that eBay run in partnership with Webinterpret. When activated Webinterpret will translate your listings to the appropriate language and list them on the eBay sites for Germany, France, Italy, Spain, US and Australia up to a maximum number of listings depending on your shop level. Follow the link to find more information on the European Sales Booster.

Overall, for the majority of sellers, the main advantage of opening or upgrading a store will be on fees. In both the UK and the US stores get a certain number of free fixed price and auction listings per month.

Cost of an eBay Store

Unless any of the Featured or Anchor shop features are vital to your business then choose your eBay shop level based on the overall cost savings on insertion fees compared to shop subscription fees. For US sellers things get a little more complex as there are also savings on  Final Value Fees for some categories, as well as savings if you pay your subscription yearly rather than monthly. You also get extra free listings if your listings are in certain categories!

If we base the decision purely on the number of free fixed price listings that you get to use in any category with each store level per month with fees paid monthly, then the levels of store for the numbers of your listings above which you will make a saving are as follows:

For UK sellers it’s a pretty straightforward equation, but because the savings for US sellers are a lot more complex as the Final Value Fee savings for different categories and extra free listings in select categories mean that if you sell in certain categories you can make a lot more extra savings than detailed above. In those cases it may be worth having a higher level of store at a lower number of listings. Only you know which categories you sell in and how many listings in each, so we’re afraid you will have to do some extra maths to figure out your exact savings but you can find all the relevant information here and here.

Another of the perks of having your own eBay store is that you can have your very own custom design and we can design a custom eBay template for your eBay listings and then we can do the same design for your eBay storefront. This looks very professional and marks you out as a proper brand and business on eBay which instils trust in prospective buyers.

For more information on how Frooition can help you to build and expand your eBay business with our eBay designs, tools and software, schedule a call with one of our eBay experts today.