STORE CATEGORIES     BACK TO TOP

One of the first things you may want to do is set up your store categories. These can reflect the eBay category names or be those which make sense for your offerings. It is assumed you will have already decided which categories you want in your store and any sub-categories you may wish to have. Of course, consider what is easiest for you in your organization of categories, but it's most important to set things up in a logical manner from the point of view of shoppers. You may have a total of 300 categories and sub-categories, each one up to 30 characters long.

Please note, if you later modify, add or delete your store categories AND you use listing software such as Blackthorne, Turbo Lister or others, you will need to follow your software's instructions to update your store categories in that program.

In this tutorial, we're setting up an eBay Store for a coin seller (fictitious name here: ABC Coins Fake Store - though I'll be using ABC Coins as the name in these samples), so categories and other information will consider that type of business. You likely sell other items, so please be aware you may set up some things differently than in this tutorial.

To set up your store categories, on the left side of the MMS under Store Design, click on Store Categories. You will set up your top-level categories. In this sample, we just have added 3 categories. To do so, click on the Add Category button:

DISPLAY SETTINGS     BACK TO TOP

This is the section from which you name your eBay store, select its logo and enter its description - or to change these in the future. Click on the Change link to the right in the Basic Information bar to edit these settings.

On the Edit Basic Information page which opens from that Change link, enter your store name and description into the appropriate fields. Resist the urge to use fluffy, "Welcome to our eBay Store" sort of text in the description: USE KEYWORDS such as the product you sell, brand names, etc. - terms shoppers may search on. This will assist in search engine placement.

You next choose a store logo from this section as shown below.

You may use one of the eBay-supplied logos as shown to right above, you may upload a 310 x 90 pixel store logo image to eBay or you may enter the URL of the store logo you have hosted online off-eBay or choose to not display a logo.

THEME AND DISPLAY

To change the color scheme, when you click on the Edit current theme link, the page below will open. You may click on the color chooser to open the palette shown and select your colors that way. If you have custom colors, you will enter their Hex Color code into the fields. (Some photo editing software, such as Photoshop, will provide the Hex codes in the color chooser. You might also do a web search for "hex color chart" to find many pages with the colors and their Hex codes.) Click Save Settings to save your color scheme.

The Left Navigation Bar settings allow you to choose whether or not you want to display a store search box, categories, buyer display options and links to your store pages.

The Store Header Display settings allow you to insert a custom header if you wish. (This is custom HTML you insert.) If you want a custom header or to add info to the header, you'll check the Yes, include? radio button rather than the No, do not? button as in image to right. By clicking on the Stores HTML Builder link, a pop-up window will open. Within that window, you can create links to items, a Store page or Store search which will appear in your header.

On the Edit Store Header Display page, you may also choose to have a minimal eBay header on your store pages IF you have a subscription for a Premier or Anchor Store.

CUSTOM PAGES

Please see this advanced information below.

PROMOTION BOXES     BACK TO TOP

Create Promotion Box: Content and Color

Click on and Refresh preview the various display types to choose which type of promo box you want to create. Choose the Item selection criteria. You may rename your Promotion box title if you wish. (Click on Refresh preview to see how your new title looks.) Select the ending time period and from which category to show items in this promo box.

You will next Change color and font if desired. (I have been unable to do this in Firefox, but have to change the color and font in Internet Explorer. Perhaps this is due to some obscure Firefox setting I have.)

Name your Promotion box for your own information. You may then want to Preview sample page then save your promotion box you've just created.

STORE MARKETING     BACK TO TOP

PROMOTIONAL FLYER

You may create a promotional flyer to print out and distribute as you wish. Click the Create Promotional Flyer button to go to the page on which you'll select the information to be included in this flyer. Keeping most of the default settings, this 8½" x 11" printable flyer (image to right) was generated for ABC Coins.

LISTING FEEDS

As a convenience to your web-savvy shoppers, you may wish to make available an RSS feed, which will notify these shoppers when you've added new listings on eBay. You may also export your listings to third-parties with whom you've set up a partnership, such as Google Base, thru the Listing Feeds selection, Search engine and comparison sites.

ITEM PROMOTION     BACK TO TOP

MARKDOWN MANAGER

eBay has a tutorial about Markdown Manager at http://pages.ebay.com/stores/markdown-manager/tutorial/index.html. Learn how to apply discounts to one, more or all of your store items.

CROSS PROMOTION

You may set up rules to cross-promote other items you have on eBay when a shopper views or bids on another item. For example, if ABC Coins receives a bid on a Morgan dollar, they may wish the bidder to view other silver US coins they have listed.

FAVORITE SELLER TOP PICKS

You may select the items which you want to promote to those who have you chosen as one of their favorite sellers.

PROMOTE SIMILAR ITEMS

You may choose to promote your items on other sellers' notices and closed eBay listings and have other sellers' items promoted similarly on your notices and closed listings.

LOGOS AND BRANDING     BACK TO TOP

CUSTOM PAGES     BACK TO TOP

Once you have your store header code ready to go, you will put it into Manage My Store>Display Settings> Theme and Display>Store Header Display. Click on the Change link as shown below to go to the page to add this code.

At this point, both the default store header and your custom header will show in your store:

To remove the default store header, you'll need to change your theme to allow for the custom header. Under Display Settings>Theme and Display>Store theme, click on the link, Change to another theme. Go to the Easily Customizable themes and select Custom Header Only and its color scheme (which can be next edited by clicking the Edit current theme link in the section shown to right) and click the Save Settings button.

Your custom store header will now appear on all of your store pages as well as your About Me page if you have one.

CUSTOM PAGES

With an eBay Store subscription, you may have up to 15 custom store pages. Use custom pages to boost your brand, communicate Store policies, and connect with customers. Many store owners will make their store landing page one of the custom pages. Some use one or more of the custom pages for FAQs, Grading or further information about their eBay Store or business. Some store owners use a custom page with tips about their industry. Some store owners use custom pages to feature categories within their stores. Some list their Terms of Service on a custom page - but please be aware, it is the terms on your listing pages which are considered the terms recognized by eBay. Terms on a store page or your About Me page are not considered binding as these pages may be edited after the listing ends.

First, how to create a simple custom store home/landing page...

Click on Custom Pages under Store Design on the left side of the MMS page. On the Custom Pages page, click the Create new page link as shown below.

Name the page as you desire. For a main/landing store page, I will generally name it with the Store name - in this case, ABC Coins.

In the Text Section 1, delete the default text within the field and paste in your HTML for the custom layout. This is a preview of my layout:

Notice the 2 special store HTML tags.

The html code* for this is:

* To display the special HTML tags in this eBay store, I had to put a space before and after the curly brackets in the code above - they must NOT include those spaces to render the proper display in your eBay Store.

Under the Left Navigation Bar section, choose whether you want to show the left navigation bar or not. If you have navigation as part of your custom page HTML, you will want to Hide... If you'll be displaying the default or custom navigation on all of your store pages and do not have navigation as part of your custom page HTML, click to Show...

Click the Continue> button to preview the page content. Save and Publish if correctly displayed.

To make this your main/landing store page, on the Custom Pages section of MMS, Select your Store Homepage as in image to right.

This is what the store homepage looks like thus far.

Next, we'll be creating a Promotion box to use for the custom side navigation.

Under Store Design, click on the link, Promotion Boxes. Remove or make inactive any Promotion boxes which you have for a Left Navigation location, then click the button, Create New Promotion box.

On the page, Create Promotion Box: Type, choose the type, Communicate to your buyers and Continue>. Choose Left navigation - Upper for your Promotion Box Location, then Continue. (For Store page where..., keep the default, All category pages in the Store.)

You will then Create Promotion Box: Content and Color.

1. Choose Custom for the Information type.

2. Delete the default text in the entry field and paste your HTML into that field.

3. Name your Promotion box

Click Save.

This is the code I used for the promotion box for the custom left side navigation.

We will now create one more custom page, in this case, Coin FAQs. Go to the Custom Pages page and click the link, Create new page. The layout, 1 Text Section, was chosen for this page. It was titled Coin FAQs and the code below was placed into the Text Section 1.

After previewing, this was saved and published. It now appears under Active Pages.

This is the Coin FAQs custom store page:

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES      BACK TO TOP

Should you need more information on setting up, modifying or customizing your eBay Store, please refer to the following:

eBay Stores Discussion Forum - http://forums.ebay.com/db2/forum.jspa?forumID=21 (Fellow members assist eachother)

Photos/HTML Discussion Forum - http://forums.ebay.com/db2/forum.jspa?forumID=99

Storefront Start Page - http://pages.ebay.com/storefronts/start.html (See links along the left side of this page to go to further information pages.)

eBay Guides - http://search.reviews.ebay.com/ws/UCSearch?satitle=eBay+stores+&ucc=g&usop=1001&ufm=1 (Fellow members' and staffers' guides about eBay Stores)

eBay Workshops - http://pages.ebay.com/community/workshopcalendar/current.html (Look thru current workshops and search the archives for topics)

COMMENTS     BACK TO TOP

These comments are my own based on my own experiences and observations.

Having an eBay Store, even a slick, well-designed and well-organized Store, does NOT mean you'll have customers! You HAVE to market your eBay business and do the best practices as advised by eBay to attract shoppers and buyers. All aution and fixed price items you list will appear in both your store and in search results pages on eBay.

In your Store header, make sure you have keywords shoppers will search on from search engines such as google. It is nice to welcome shoppers and tell them about your commitment to service and your great products, but search engines will find your eBay Store by the items and brands noted in your header text. (For the ABC Coins store in this tutorial, using keywords such as silver coins, gold, Morgan Dollars, French Roosters, Chinese Pandas, etc. are the type of words which should be used.)

Spending time on the discussion forums, workshops and burrowing thru eBay's Help files can be quite useful - not only to learn about eBay Stores, but about being an eBay seller in general. Running an eBay business is not only about listing and shipping, but about growing!