At the beginning of every year, I try to come up with a few selling resolutions. Trying to be more organized, keeping better records and finding better merchandise to sell always seem to make it onto my list of resolutions. But this year, I think I may explore something else, too.

One thing I have wanted to do for some time, but haven’t had the time to explore, is building my own online store. Yes, it can be challenging, but it can also be very rewarding if you take the time to do it right. It can mean another source of income and added freedom.

If I ventured into that, I would, of course, use our own Auctiva Commerce software to get started. But then I think about everything involved in starting an online store and get a little nervous. For instance, I would have to consider my product line. The potpourri of random merchandise I currently sell on eBay won’t do on an online store.

I would need to find other inventory. I’d have to research my interests, see what niches are out there, see what items are in demand and what needs aren’t being met by other online sellers.

Then, once I had settled on a type of product or products, the real work would begin. I’d need to research and decide what shipping methods to use, how and what payment methods I’d accept, what my store and branding would look like, and how to drive traffic to my shop.

The last one would be the biggest challenge. Though the idea of having my own store is appealing, I know how difficult it can be for a “little guy” to stand out from the competition online. Sure, I have more than 12 years of online-selling experience, but I’ve never had to worry about driving traffic to a site.

Right now, I simply create a listing, use the appropriate keywords, give my items a competitive price and wait for the traffic to come to me on eBay.

I’m not saying I’m afraid of the work I would need to do to drive traffic to my store. I know I can submit product feeds to multiple services like Google Product Search and TheFind to make my items easier to find online, but venturing into the unknown is always scary.

It is intimidating if all you’ve ever really done, in the way of online selling, is offer your items on eBay or Amazon—two very trafficked sites.

I can’t tell you for sure that I’ll take the leap, but I’ll definitely look more into opening my own shop. Yes, eBay’s been very good to me for more than a decade, but maybe—if I do my homework—I can find another venue to offer my products and also find success there. What do you think? Should I venture onto my own store?

What are your resolutions for this year? Tell us below and happy 2012.

As you might have heard, or seen, Auctiva Commerce recently announced a new suite of pricing plans. What makes them different from our  old Auctiva Commerce pricing—and what’s really exciting—is the new plans do not include transaction fees! This a great benefit to merchants, who can now more easily predict their operating costs month to month, and don’t have to give up any of their profit margin as a sales fee.

We created these plans based on feedback from existing Auctiva Commerce merchants and internal research. The goal is to simplify the pricing of Auctiva Commerce, while continuing to provide an affordable and efficient shopping cart for our users. Check out the new pricing options for yourself here.

In addition to updating our pricing plans, lately we’ve made numerous improvements and upgrades to Auctiva Commerce, which makes now a great time to try Auctiva Commerce as an additional sales channel to eBay. Improvements include the introduction of the Store Designer suite to allow for greater store customization, updates to Google Merchant Center feeds that allow merchants to send more data to Google Product Search, and checkout improvements to minimize cart abandonment—to name just a few.

We’re also constantly working on new features and will soon be releasing support for product feeds by Yahoo! Shopping, Shopping.com, and TheFind, in addition to a comprehensive upgrade to our bulk import tool. Plus, we’ll give you 25 percent more product capacity if you sign up for Auctiva Commerce by May 31st.  So give us a try and start doing business your way!

Practical Ecommerce recently featured Auctiva Commerce as its Cart of the Week. You can read the article here.

Auctiva Commerce’s product manager, Chris Eckland, discussed the software in detail, and Auctiva Commerce user Bob Heitner talked about his experience with the shopping cart.

Bob, owner of Stuff Things and Goodies and Pattys Corner, said Auctiva Commerce’s ease of use, support, inventory management and SEO integration were among his favorite features.

“We’ve had stores on eBay, Amazon, Go Daddy, Go Daddy Marketplace and buyitsellit,” Bob notes. “Auctiva Commerce has the most functionality of all the products we have tried, and it’s the least expensive. It’s a fairly new product but has matured nicely over the last 10 months.”

More enhancements are in the works, says Eckland. “Auctiva Commerce is pleased to have been selected as the most recent Cart of the Week by Practical Ecommerce,” he adds.

Congratulations, Auctiva Commerce!