Seven questions to ask before paying anyone to run a store for you (including us)

If you have looked at done-for-you e-commerce offers for more than an afternoon you have seen the pattern: a video, a story about someone's results, a countdown, a call. Some of the companies behind those pages run real stores. Some sell the call. Here is how to tell, before money moves. We wrote it to be used on us as much as on anyone else.

1. Whose name is the eBay account in?

The only acceptable answer is yours. eBay verifies the person behind a seller account, ties payouts to that person's bank, and holds that person responsible for what is sold. If the provider opens the account in their name, or in a company they control, you do not have a store. You have a subscription to someone else's store. Walk away.

2. What exactly is included, and what costs extra?

Ask for the list. Product research, listing, order handling, supplier coordination, buyer messages, returns, pricing, reporting: which of those are done, by whom, how often. Then ask what is not on the list. Photography, a store subscription, inventory, shipping supplies, software fees, ad spend and the like are all real costs, and a provider who does not name them on the first call is not being careful with your money.

3. What does it cost, all in, and when?

There is nothing wrong with a price that is scoped on a call; stores differ. There is something wrong with a price that changes on the call depending on how you react. Ask for the full scope and price in writing before you decide anything, and ask what recurring costs exist after the build. If the answer to "can I have that in writing" is pressure, that is your answer.

4. Can I see the work?

A store is a stream of small actions: listings posted, orders shipped, messages answered, prices adjusted. Ask how you will see them. "We send a monthly update" is thin. A portal or report where you can see every listing, every order and every message, on your own schedule, is the standard to hold out for. If the work is invisible, you cannot tell the difference between a store being run and a store being left.

5. What happens when we stop?

Every engagement ends eventually. Ask what you have on that day. The right answer is your account, your listings, your data, and a handover. Watch for transfer fees, for listings that live in the provider's tools rather than on eBay, and for any suggestion that leaving is complicated. It should not be.

6. What are you promising, in writing?

A provider can promise work: a store built to a scope, a catalogue sourced, orders handled within a window, a report every week. A provider cannot promise sales, profit, or a timeline to any income figure, because those depend on buyers, suppliers, eBay and the market, none of which the provider controls. If the promise is an outcome, ask them to put it in the contract. Most will not, which tells you what the promise was worth.

7. Whose results are in the ad?

If the page shows income figures, screenshots or testimonials, ask whose they are, whether they are typical, and what the disclosure says. Under the FTC's rules, a figure that is not typical has to be presented as not typical. A page that shows a number without saying that is either careless or counting on you not to ask. Either way, the number is not information about what will happen to you.

The short version

• Your name on the account, or no deal.
• Everything included and everything extra, listed.
• Scope and price in writing before you decide.
• The work visible to you, on your schedule.
• A clean exit with your store intact.
• Promises about work, never about outcomes.
• Numbers in ads treated as advertising, not forecasts.

A provider who passes all seven is not thereby a good one; you still have to see how they operate. But a provider who fails any of the first five is telling you what they are before you have paid to find out.