So now we find ourselves about a month into the launch of this new site, cs5music.com, and the question is why did I go through the effort and expense of creating this site after selling successfully through eBay, where our items continue to list?
The answer is essentially that it's a win-win for both of us - you, the client, and me, the owner. You can probably already tell that I'm not an experienced web designer, and even with the immense help of the Shopify platform, it took me several weeks of work, including weekends and late nights, to get this site up and running and products/images transferred over so that I can just now start to focus on adding new products (and there's a lot to come and be added!).
Ultimately I felt a sincere frustration with certain aspects of selling through a third party platform that charges a commission structure. Yes, it's generally easier to list products on third-party sites and manage other aspects of the business like sales tax (or VAT as it's called in some places) for example. But the cost is immense. Analyzing my sales, I found that oftentimes 30-40% of what a customer pays was going to that third party platform. Sometimes it rose to 50% or higher when including shipping costs.
While that definitely cut into my ability to turn a profit, it also felt unfair to my clientele as I realized I had to charge 20-25% more on a third party sales platform just to come out at a similar place on a sale. Moving to the Shopify platform felt like a better and more fair outcome for everyone -- I can charge a materially lower price on Shopify because less of what you pay is being captured by the host platform. So that's why I say it's a win-win for both of us - it's a little more effort for me, but I can reap the same benefits of my efforts while charging you less! It just feels like a better way to practice business by giving you the client cheaper prices, especially in a time when everyone is feeling squeezed by higher prices around everything else in our lives.
I sincerely thank you for visiting and will continue to do my best to provide top tier service and exceptional items at the best pricing possible. Cheers!