You don't need to work harder to make more money in the online sales and auctions - you just need to work SMARTER!

Stop busting your butt to pay those god-awful eBay fees. You don't need to make more sales, just more profitable sales, and the first step to doing this is to realize how much of your profit is actually being taken by eBay.

Figure out the percentage of your profit going to pay your eBay and PayPal fees:

Figure out how much your paying for each listing by adding the following:
listing fee,
final value fee,
listing upgrades (if you can even afford them!) and
PayPal fee.

Divide your total fees from above by your selling price. Chances are, you're looking at 10% - 15% being taken out of your pocket and given directly to eBay.

Example for a 100 dollar item listed in a fixed price format with bold:
*Listing Fee*
35 cents
*Final Value Fee*
Nine dollars 50 cents
*Listing Upgrades*
Two dollars
*Paypal Fee*
Three dollars twenty cents

That comes to 14 dollars and five cents. That's over 14% of your profit gone with the click of a mouse!

So now you think, yes, it is time to find an eBay alternative!

Start looking for eBay alternatives.

Now that eBay has gotten too big for their britches, there are plenty of them out there who would love your business.

Invest a few hours of your time to cruise other online sales and auctions sites to check out their fees. You can find lists of these sites simply by Googling terms like 'eBay alternatives'.

Read through some forums for online sellers who have already made the switch.

Here are some useful places to get feedback on eBay alternatives...
Vendio.com
Auctiva.com
Powersellersunite.com
Auctionbytes.com

Make sure to take your customers with you! Gather your Ebay customer information:

If you have a store, you'll have a list of users who subscribed to your newsletter

You'll also have your sales records in My eBay, which have the email addresses of your customers for the past month (the email addresses disappear after 30 days)

Your email address book

If you use auction management software, most programs will capture your customer's information.

Sign up with your new provider, get some listings up and running and use your eBay customer information to announce your new business.