Power Sellers Unite

usedapplianceparts · Joined: 16 Dec 2011 Posts: 1

Through a lot of hard work and long hours I have created a full time job selling on ebay and I have come to the point where I need to branch out and create a store of my own outside of ebay. I have spent a bit of time looking at the options and have narrowed it down to either prostores or ecrater.

While I know html and can create my own ecommerce site from scratch, I realize I dont have the time to sit down and create one or maintain it. I like the fact that the prostores automatically updates when I create new listings on ebay, but I don't like that you have to use paypal. I like ecrater for the simple facts that it is FREE, allows google checkout and I have seen many of my competitor's listings at the top of google with ecrater listings.

Does anyone have experience with using both? Can anyone offer any advice? Or list the advantages or disadvantages of either?

caljackscollectibles · Joined: 08 Feb 2011 Posts: 251 Location: California

I sell on eCrater. Have done fairly well. It is easy to use. Since it is free you have to do your own promotions. Items show up fairly high in Google. Good forum to get help/advice.

Rediscovered Shooting Tre · Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2011 8:43 pm Post subject: Re: Prostores Vs. Ecrater

I've been a seller on ebay for over 11 years. Watched it become such a hostile venue that I would love to leave it but it still account for 50% of my business. I migrated my listing to eCrater two months ago. The start up has been a little slow but satisfying. People are friendly with minimal contact demands and it free. I also took advantage of this start up to add GoogleCheckout as an option and see about 50% of my eCrater buyers use it. 45% Pay Pal and 5% paying via mail. I can say nothing bad about eCrater and hope it becomes the new shaker and mover in the online mom and pop venue now that ebay has declared the age of ecomerce dead. Their words not mine. Good luck with your efforts.

RgrGTI · Joined: 08 Dec 2006 Posts: 30

No experience with ProStores...and given its parent company, and its subscription and transaction fees, not likely I'll ever have experience with them. I do sell on eCrater. The advantages for me are: it's 100% free, there's a very shallow learning curve to use the features, listings never expire, sellers can list as much or as little as they want, there's space for 10 photos and a good bit of text, site owner is conscientious and responsive to legitimate problems, sellers are expected to act like professionals and grownups so there is a good deal of autonomy. Disadvantages are: eCrater's not a household word so sellers need to cultivate their own customers, the site is so minimalist that potentially useful features (like more sophisticated shipping options) are not available, and not all sellers meet the expectation of acting like professionals so there's a good bit of flotsam and jetsam on the site.