AdWords are all very well, but you cannot beat a good organic placement on the SERPs which takes good SEO, quality incoming links and hard work. You need to get out there and sell your business on other sites, it takes time but is worth the effort in the long run.

Whether to go for your own store, an auction site or both depends on the type of person you are and the items you sell. If your items are highly varied and not aimed at a specific market then an auction site is possibly the best place for you as your product range will be too varied to market easily, but if you're focusing on a specific market then your own independent store can work very well for you.

If you have many of each item then go for every sales outlet you can find. You will often find that the sales you make on an auction site will be followed later by a sale on your own site. The auction sites can be a good way to introduce new and loyal customers to your business, though you should never abuse the P2P site's T&Cs by marketing your own site on their's. Often a simple URL on your invoice will suffice to introduce that customer to your own store.

If your have a one-off, or just a handful of each product then you're usually better off leaving them on your own site if trading on more than one venue.

Marketing is more involved with your own site than on a P2P venue as they will do much of it for you, but it will be generic marketing and not aimed at your product range. If you're lazy, you can just list your stuff on a P2P site and quite possibly make a sale or two. If you do the same with your own store then you will struggle to get traffic and therefore sales.

You need to market it yourself and aim for a very targeted market. As Paul said above, don't just aim for simple common words such as "gold" or "silver", use whole phrases that are specific to your products. It is possible to run a successful site with a very small or even no marketing budget depending on what you trade in. The less competitive your market is, the easier and cheaper it will be. If your market is highly competitive then you may need to outlay more to rise above the crowd, but always remember, Google is your best friend and like all friends you should get to know it well!

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Lawrence