Hi Kate.

I have a slightly biased view here but I will say this. The move from an auction site to your own site is a big step. For most people the auction venue is the first step into online selling and this is often due to a lack of understanding of how to create and run sites. There is nothing wrong in this. People are experts in their own fields and are not all programmers. Through frustration of Ebay sapping the profits or lack of sales through other auction venues it becomes increasingly attractive to run your own site.

Please take this into consideration. When you have your own site, and it is exclusive so you can do what you want, when you want. Without rules laid down by Ebay or others then this is only the first step. It is a pro active step. But it is just a tiny step. Because then you then have to drive people to the site. There lies the problem. If you want to use the site purely to cater for people who you personally can manualy drive to the site through emails or personal marketing, then remember you can do this with an Ebay shop, or an Ebid shop etc... However only you can weigh up the financial benefits.

The only thing I can say here without seeming to be unfair in any way is to ask yourself this. When the site is done, how will I get traffic to it? Because it will be down to you alone to do this. With auction sites, even though you are one of many traders this marketing problem is down to others.

I hope this helps a little.

regards

Lee