Considering switching from ebay to hyena cart - need advice

[GiftsfromGod]

I'm a WAHM and have had an ebay store since Oct 2007 selling handmade doll clothes for 18" American Girl dolls. It does fairly well oct-dec due to Christmas but I don't sell as much other months and I'm really tired of them raising the fees all the time and making it really hard for sellers who aren't power sellers to get a break on fees. I've looked into both Etsy and Hyena cart. I really like that with Hyena cart you are paying a flat rate for as many items as you have listed because I have a fairly large inventory (usually over 100 items) at a time listed in my ebay store. The thing I'm wondering is about exposure. Obviously Ebay has a lot more people using it and you can run auctions that give your store exposure. How do those of you who use Hyena cart of Etsy advertise your business. Is there a way to run a few auctions on ebay to get exposure but somehow let the customer know about your other site (I'm thinking ebay probably has some guidelines on that)? Just trying to see how you spread the word online for your businesses. I would save a lot on costs month to month switching but if I lose business it may not be worth it KWIM. I'm just really getting tired of ebay making it hard for the "little guy" to sell affordable products. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated! :goodvibes:

[krw0410]

Maybe you could find someone who you could share a site with on hc or etsy and transition into it that way. You could probably get some free advertisement by posting on craigslist and by posting links check out to someone else's and vice versa. Just some thoughts to get you started hopefully.

[Umm_Ibraheem]

you can still sell on ebay one item a week for exposure if you want and add your store to your signature.

[mummyto3girls]

I bought some handmade items on eBay one time and the seller included a business card in the package that had their etsy store weblink printed on it. I keep all those cards, even the ones I get from WAHMs here because you never know when you'll want to buy from them again. Oh and I write on the back of the card what I bought so I remember when I order again :)

[rackits]

I just wanted to throw in there that this year Hyena Cart has put in at least one advertisement in a parents magazine for their site, and I think there was another one or there's about to be another one.

[Bumpkie Bottoms]

I'd say what the pp said but there's also Kijiji and Backpage.com