I often get asked if owning an eBay store is worth the expense. I think if you are serious about your eBay business owning an eBay store is a no brainer. In this article I will try to explain the benefits of owning an eBay store.

1. Owning an eBay store gives you your own unique URL to promote.

Having your own link to promote means you can promote your eBay store from your auctions, about me page, email signatures, forum signatures, blogs, articles, eBooks, newsletters etc etc.

2. You look more professional.

If you look like a professional seller you will sell more. Obviously a lot of factors count to looking professional such as excellent feedback but having an eBay store adds to the professional look. Also, a fully stocked eBay store gives you a professional look and with eBooks this is easily achieved at low cost.

3. You can sell multiple store items for a few cents per month.

That's right, you can list an eBook with a 1000 items available and this can cost only a few cents per month. In fact you could list 1000 different items in your eBay store as store inventory items for around $30 per month. The minimum price to do this with 1000 auctions would be almost 10 times the expense.

4. You get to send out store newsletters.

Yes, you can build your own eBay subscriber database. Every time someone leaves feedback for you on eBay they get asked if they would like you to be added to their favourite sellers list. If they accept they can also subscribe to your store newsletter. This means you can send out mailings to your past customers. Plus you can also set up eBay to send out regular mailings on your behalf every 2 weeks.

There is also the option to add a link to your store newsletter and store favourites in all your auctions. This is a crucial promotion tool eBay provides, just look at the top right corner of any of my listings to see these links in action. This means you can add people to your eBay mailing list even if they don't initially buy from you.

5. You can 'feature' your most profitable items.

By putting your most popular items in the featured section of your eBay store you are gaining maximum exposure for the items that make you the most money.

6. You can personalise your eBay store to differ yourself from other eBay users.

With a little HTML experience you can add categories, logo's, graphics, pictures and a lot more to give your eBay store a more personalised, professional look. Even if you are not familiar with HTML you can still create an attractive looking eBay store.

7. You can track sales and traffic.

Depending on your store subscription level you can track a whole host of features such as store traffic, your most viewed items, search terms used in your store, where your visitors came from and a lot lot more.

8. You can link to your store from all your auctions.

If you use all the tools eBay provides you can have up to 10 links to your eBay store from every auction you run. Without an eBay store you can have 3 or 4 links at the most linking to your other items.

9. Your store and store items will appear in the major search engines.

Google 'planetsms' and you will see number one is my website and number 2 is my eBay store. You can add keywords to your eBay store and there is also more chance of your listings showing on google. In fact Google 'planetsms eBook collection' or even just 'eBook collection' and see what you get :-)

10. You get to say 'visit my eBay store'.

Sounds silly doesn't it? Well get more visitors to your eBay store and you will sell more and that's a fact no one can deny. You can ask people to visit your store in your auctions, about me page, email signatures, forum signatures, blogs, articles, eBooks, newsletters :-) etc etc etc.

There you go, 10 reasons why you should have an eBay store. I have probably missed out a lot more and maybe even some more important reasons why you should have an eBay store but I'm sure you get the picture.