eBay alternatives: eBay Affiliate
22 February 2008As the old saying goes, “If you can’t beat ‘em, Join ‘em!” The great part about eBay raising their fees is that there is a way to take advantage. eBay affiliates, or people who get paid to send buyers to eBay, get paid quite well for their efforts. Affiliates can get up to 75% of the eBay income on a sale. So for every $1 of fees, a really good affiliate can get $0.75 of that.
Of course, to get to the 75% bracket, you’ll need to send several million in sales to eBay. Most of us won’t be able to do that, so we’ll have to settle for a lowly 50% cut. Yeah, that’s not so bad either is it. Add to that the $25-$35 they’ll pay you for new members and you’ve got yourself a recipe for success if you send enough their way.
So, how do we take advantage of their generosity? We build websites of course. There are several ways we can go about this. If you’re comfortable with some design work and scripting (most won’t be) then you can build your own sites. All you’ve got to do is sign up for the eBay affiliate program at affiliate.ebay.com and then get an eBay developers sign in to get all the info you’ll need. It’s not an easy way to do it, but it gives you complete control over what and where you show the auctions.
If that sounds too complicated for you, and it will for most, there are several programs that will help you out with the process. One such program is BANS (Build a Niche Store). The program comes with many different website templates and all the coding is already done. You simply have to spend a little time setting up the hosting, domains, and a few settings in the software and you’re off and running, free to go about promoting the new eBay affiliate site you just made. Of course, something that makes something fairly difficult and makes it really easy isn’t going to be free. The cost of BANS is a one time purchase of $97. It seems steep, but the potential to make that money back quickly is there. Even if you only get a few people to sign up for eBay, you’ve made your money back. And the maintenance on a website is so little that you can easily leave it be and collect the money as people trickle in.
If you can’t leave eBay (or never used it in the first place), you might consider joining them as an affiliate. You automatically get the support of a multi-million dollar brand name and marketing behind you and the largest selection of product to “sell” in the world. You don’t have to worry about sourcing your product, shipping your product, or deal with unhappy customers. You just point them in the right direction and collect the rewards. Give it a try and see what you can do!
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