318ti.org forum - Why I closed my Ebay store. Story inside.

Overall just a business overview of the last part of the summer, July-Sept of 2006 which has been up and down with several issues..my health, and dealing with a b of system with Ebay's crap stores selling system.

I wasn't happy with the amounts of traffic I was getting vs the charges I was getting from Ebay..Aug was 50$+ for no sales...:( I couldn't continue at that rate..July was better but not by much still had a loss in sales verses cost.

I thought the .02 cent listing for 30 days would be better than a normal 7 day auction..but the traffic to the items was lower than a auction and the sales just were not there...but I realized I opened in the middle of the gas highs/slum in the economy...so that had some play also in effect.

So I came to the conclusion a domain/website store might be more cost effective than a Ebay store, that and I am getting sick of the "revisions" ebay is doing every 3 weeks..which seems to just be netting them more funds while driving up cost for the sellers. That and most of the sales this summer in new and used parts have come through either direct contact with florida club members(CFBMW, Ti.org, FloridaGerman.com) or via the internet of the more national clubs(Ti.org and BF.com). Plus I can get a more deserving price with those..On Ebay I had a guy off me 300$ for new set of Koni Sports for the e46 M3...several times. :( That was below my cost by a sum, and he wouldn't understand no for the life of me. That and Ebayers are a bunch of cheap bastards when it comes to thinks like shipping cost, packing material cost, I don't understand when you buy a 120$ beir stein that's from 1843, and then bitch about the cost of shipping/packing cost, cause bubble-wrap, a reenforced box and insurance on the item(s) are supposed to be free!?!

As for the Future of PanzerMotorSports.

I am going to kill my profit margin this Holiday season on a lot of stuff to get the company name out on the market..but I am still going to have to make atleast 20$ profit on stuff like Koni Sets and such....but the PR from the sales should make up for the short fall in the long term. I've been reading a bunch of DiY small business/finance books since I've been off my feet this month..got more of education doing this, than I got in my business classes at UCF. I still have a bunch of companies I want to stock. Powerflex, Ground Control and Redline Oil are the top since I got Eibach, Koni, Powerslot, SW, and my Panzer Carrier Arm Bushings in...dropped Bilstein since I couldn't make money on them with my current supplier..BavAuto was destroying me on them. Their shipped price was lower than my at cost...plus after looking at a few sets I think Koni might be the better performer.

Also I am not going to carry OE BMW parts, as another CFBMW member Bimmerbum does that, and I don't want to step on toes within the group. We can operate together in our own spheres of influence since our produce lines at the moment don't bump into each other. But I will still be getting European stuff in and Misc BMW stuff.