Sellers Create Doors2Stores – A Buyer Education Campaign About Shopping eBay Stores
by Lourdes
eBay Stores Marketing

When you've put a lot of work into your eBay Store, you want your customers to know that you're not only open for business, but that you are committed to providing the best shopping experience on eBay.

Recently, a group of sellers came together on the eBay Stores discussion board to discuss marketing ideas to raise awareness of eBay Stores among buyers. The thread generated hundreds of posts and many good ideas. The result of this grass roots effort among eBay Store sellers is Doors2Stores, a Community-led educational campaign designed to help other sellers promote eBay Stores listings to their buyers.

In this month's Selling Edge column, I'd like to applaud the efforts of the sellers who created this innovative campaign, and share some of their ideas for improving awareness of eBay Stores.

Promote eBay Stores as eBay's online shopping mall
eBay Stores is a special place on eBay where individual sellers can show you all of their listings and tell you more about their business through their own customized Web store. Members of Doors2Stores compare visiting eBay Stores with going to a mall, where you may find hundreds of stores under one roof. Similarly, eBay Stores is eBay's online mall, with over 299,000 stores worldwide offering a huge selection of items from all over the globe.

The creators of Doors2Stores recommend emphasizing to buyers that every eBay Store has a storefront that they can bookmark or add to their eBay Favorites. They also like to point out that the shopping experience on eBay Stores can be very different than on the core eBay site. They liken it to shopping at a mall where buyers can enjoy going from store to store. As the Doors2Stores website puts it, “When you come through the eBay Stores red door, you enter a whole new eBay world.”

Tell buyers to look for the Red Door

Point buyers to eBay Stores items

Doors2Stores recommends letting buyers know that they should look for the red door symbol, which will appear if they have an eBay Store next to the seller's User ID. You can also encourage buyers to get to eBay Stores in these other ways:

• Click on "eBay Stores" in the Specialty Sites section on eBay's home page.
  
  
• Look for Store Inventory format items at the bottom of the search results page when their search results show fewer than 30 auction-style or fixed priced listings.
  
  You can also recommend buyers click "See all matching Stores" in the bottom left corner to see all eBay Stores that have items matching their criteria, or they can click on the list of store names displayed.
  
  

• Ask buyers to customize their Searches to display eBay Store names

  Recommend that buyers customize their eBay search pages to display Store names. (To do this, click on “Customize Display” in the top left corner of any search page, move “Store name” to the right hand column, and click “Save”.)

Doors2Stores' top reasons to shop eBay Stores
As a Store seller, you may also want to educate your buyers on the value they receive from shopping on eBay Stores. The creators of the Doors2Stores initiative have come up with talking points that they call their "Top 12 Reasons to Shop eBay Stores". Here are a few of them:

• No Bidding Wars – Buy Store merchandise instantly. The price you see is the price you get!
• Online Webshops – Easily find a variety of items in one place from each seller, including their store merchandise, auctions, and Buy It Now items.
• More Variety – Find many great items in Stores that you can't find in auction-style listings.
• Sales and Promotions –Many Stores have frequent sales and promotions on products and shipping.
• Committed Sellers – It takes time and hard work to develop a professional-looking eBay Store. Having an eBay Store is a strong indication that the seller is here to stay on eBay. Most Store owners are committed to maintaining a long-term eBay presence and taking care of their customers.

How to join Doors2Stores
If you're interested in learning more about the Doors2Stores initiative, visit the Doors2Stores page.

I'd like to acknowledge all the great people who created and implemented the Doors2Stores inititative, and thank them for their efforts.