Why Every Small Business Needs to Be on eBay

In my opinion as a small business owner I think that eBay is one of the most essential and under estimated tools out there today. No matter what type of company you have you can have a presence on eBay. EBay offers so many tools and resources that small businesses need, but most small business owners have never taken the time to look at eBay from an angel other than selling household items.

A small business needs the following things to survive and get clients:

o Newsletter

o Email List

o Advertising

o Web Presence

EBay can offer all these to a small business owner and so much more. Why eBay you ask? Why not sign up for all those services individually with a company that deals with those issue specifically? Well, if you have the money to do that you could. I would still recommend using eBay along with those efforts though. Why do you think companies like the Discovery Channel Store and The Sharper Image sell online?

Let's break down each business needs I listed above and address it individually.

Newsletter

Every business should have a newsletter to reach out to their customers or people interested in their products or services. Yes, you can offer services on eBay. There are many websites that deal with handling all of your newsletter needs and customization, but why pay for them when for the same price you can have a eBay store, newsletter, get targeted customers, advertise online, and get customer emails?

EBay offers a built in newsletter program that other eBay members can sign up for if they like what you are selling.

Email list

Email lists take time to build or money to buy. Even then it is no guarantee that the email addresses are valid or that the people at the other end of the email even want what you have. So how does eBay fix that problem?

Every time someone wins one of your auctions or asks you a question you will come in contact with their email. Thus you can start creating a email list based off of people you know are interested in what you are selling.

No company selling email lists con promise results like that!