Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Motor Oil and Tulip Seeds

I recently saw a question on a discussion board where the person asked: "I have one eBay store where I sell three completely different kinds of products. Does it make sense to switch to three different stores so my customers won't think it's weird that I sell unrelated items under one store site?"

I think this is a very good question. If this applies to you, let me ask you a question:

What do you think would be a better use of your time - the work it would take to keep three different stores separate (3 accounts, 3 sets of inventory, 3 everything) or instead, spend that extra time on one store, marketing one store, listing inventory into one store....

Just throwing this out there - Wal-Mart does pretty well selling everything under one roof.

I understand the counter argument about really defining a niche - but I wonder if it might not be possible to focus on a niche, or two, or three, from within one store.

Even if you have one store that sells motor oil and tulip seeds - it's a little weird - but if you spend the time on great marketing, great free content, great everything about motor oil and tulip seeds - I think buyers will be ok with it.

In other words - I think you're better off having one store that does multiple niches really well than you are having three stores that are weak. Of course, the simplest thing of all is to have one store that dominates one niche. But nothing wrong with having one store that dominates a couple, at least in my opinion.

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