Squeezing every cent from your eBay Store Part #1
Branding your EBay store, and your products.
Now days you need to work smart when it comes to online sales and making most out of your Ebay store or other such sites.
First and foremost any eBay seller can save up to 75% of their FVF’s simply be delivering the buyer into your own store and making the sale.
If you bring in the sale outside of eBay with your eBay referral link you get a 75% credit for your FVF’s.
Your eBay referral link will look like this http://stores.ebay.com/EnterYourStoreIdHere?refid=store
You can use your eBay referral link in many different ways to bring traffic into your eBay store and enjoy the 75% FVF credit for doing so.
Now Ebay dose not teach you how to use this link and they don’t even make this info easy to find, go figure!
So with that in mind I will point you in the correct direction so you can learn more about this. Visit this link for more info
http://pages.ebay.com/help/specialtysites/referral-credit-faq.html
Using the referral id that eBay gives you aren’t very effective as it is, the URL is way to long for people to remember. You need a cheap means of getting a shorter referral URL and advertising your new URL. The cheapest way to do this is via your own domain name. Domain names only cost about 10 bucks, per year, and are worth their weight in gold.
Pick a domain name that is descriptive of your eBay store. If your eBay store is called Jims Tools then try and register the domain JimTools.com.
Go Daddy is a good place for parking domains and setting them up for advertising your eBay referral links. This will be the best 10 bucks you will ever spend, I promise!
First things first however, you need a domain name, but why pay full price for it when you don’t have to!!!
I am going to show you a site that will allow you to save money on your domain names and even save on all your future eBay purchases and other popular online shopping sites – stores.
This is 100% free to setup and maintain and this service is worth its weight in gold. I will show you many tricks that you can use with this service to generate a nice little extra income along the way while you are promoting your eBay store
Please go sign up here http://www.bigcrumbs.com/crumbs/landing.do?r=dscoins&s=8635
If you are already a member of “BigCrumbs” great you are one step ahead of everyone else.
Once you have joined Big Crumbs go click on the shopping link and look for GO Daddy.com
Click the Go Daddy link within Big Crumbs and go buy your domain name, your costs will be 10 bucks minus your Big Crumbs savings.
Go Daddy will try and sell you a TON of add-on extras with your domain name, save your money, you don’t need any of it! Once you have registered your domain name it may take a few hours before it shows up in your account, don’t worry this is normal. Once your domain name is showing up in your account you will want to setup Domain forwarding and the FREE email option for this domain.
Make sure you register a .com address and stay away from the .org or .info addresses. You can search the availability of domain names at Go Daddy. Once you find a domain name you can live with register it. Try and keep your domain name as short as possible yet still descriptive of your Ebay store. Your domain name will soon be acting as “KEYWORDS” for your eBay store so choose your domain name with care.
Here is how you should setup your domain name.
Login into Go Daddy, at the top left of the page find the “DOMAIN” link and hold your mouse over that link and then scroll down and click the “My Domains” link.
A new page will open up and with any luck you will see the new domain you just registered, Double Click on your domain name.. A domain control page will open up, look for the link called “FORWARD” and click that link. Now the Domain Forwarding page will popup, when it dose click the little “Enable” circle.
Next fill in the “Forward to” box with your eBay Store’s referral ID, it should look something like this http://stores.ebay.com/EnterYourStoreIdHere?refid=store
Please keep in mind your eBay store Id and your eBay login are Not the same thing.
Next is the “redirect type” check off the “301 Moved Permanently” Selection.
Then click the OK Button.. A new window pops up telling you that your forwarding changes are processing, Click the “OK” button at the bottom of that page.
That’s it you now have a nice .com domain name forwarding all traffic into your ebay store instead of that Long eBay referral ID.
It may take a few hours for the forwarding changes to take effect, don’t worry this is normal.
Next is setting up your free email for this domain. Don’t skip this. Having an email address that matches your domain is a must for making $$$ online. Get rid your HOT Mail accounts they are no good for branding yourself or products online. When setting up your free email account use this email address Admin@YourDomainName.com
You should already be back into your domain control page after clicking the last “OK” button.
On the right hand side of the domain control page Find the “Manage Email accounts” link and click that link..
When you registered your domain you should have gotten a “Free Email credit” click the “USE CREDIT” link.
Now you should see your new domain name popup on the right hand side of the page. Highlight your domain name and click the “continue” button at the bottom.
A new page will open up, click on the “Setup account” link. Next click the little “ADD” button and the add email page should open up.
Where it says “email address” type in the word “admin” this will create the email address admin@yourDomainName.com
Next fill in your password info and then check off “enable spam filtering for this account” Don’t change or set any other settings, click the
“OK” button at the bottom of the page.
Next you might see this, “You do not have any unused Email Plans. To purchase additional Email Plans, please visit our home page or contact customer support. Or return to the Email Plans list to manage your email plans.” Again don’t worry your email account should be setup. Just click the “Email” link at the top right of the page and you should then see your new account you just set up.
Now you need to make use of your new domain name and email address. Here is how to unlock the power of your new domain and email address.
You need a signature file for your new admin@ email account. Your email Signature file should contain a link into your eBay store “JimsTools.com” and maybe even a Big Crumbs link..
Make sure these links use your proper referral ids so you get credit for your work. If you look inside Big Crumbs website you will see they have “The Referral Link Wizard”
Use this when making the link for your email sigfile file that involves any Big Crumbs links. By doing this you will be able to track how effective your link is.
Now you need to advertise your new domain, don’t worry it isn’t hard at all. It will take a bit of time but what you do from here on out will last a lifetime if you want it to.
Your eBay FEEDBACK as a great advertising venue for your new domain name… Let me say this one more time!
Your eBay FEEDBACK as a great advertising venue for your new domain name, so use your feedback as the powerful tool it is.
Make sure Each and every single feedback, you leave, has your new domain name in it, like ”JimsTools.com” or whatever you new name is.
Your feedback should look something like this..
“JimsTools.Com thanks you for your speedy payments, Super Ebayer A++++ Perfect in every way!”
Make up several different feedback replies all with your domain name in it, you can use notepad or any text editor for this. Save your file so you have easy access to it when it is feedback time.
This way you can design and save your feedback replies so you never have to type them again, just copy and paste them into place.
As you leave more and more feedbacks this will snowball into a lot of traffic for you.. Don’t forget, this traffic is coming from your domain name “your eBay referral id” and any sales it brings into your store you will save 75% of your FVF’s.
Next you can advertise your Ebay store free at the Big Crumbs shopping site, so set that up at this time..
Also at Auctiva.com ebay store plugs into this website as well, so if you don’t have your Auctiva store setup yet, you should do so now.
ANY links you can get that point back at your eBay store, that are free, GRAB THEM!
When dealing with your eBay customers DO NOT use the eBay message system.. Always try and use your own email “client” system whenever possible. Always include your email signature file when corresponding with any and all your buyers.
Now that you have a domain name that points straight back at your eBay store it is perfectly Ok to use LINKs within any and all your ebay auction and store listings.
Setup links within ALL your eBay listings and auctions your new domain name in the top part of all your eBay listing. Make your links very visible and easily bookmarked.
Encourage all your page visitors to bookmark your Domain name. Placing such links within your eBay pages is perfectly legal within eBay’s eyes. I have been doing this for years and I haven’t had a single item pulled because of my domain links. Your links “DOMAIN NAME” MUST point back “Forward” at your eBay store if not your pages could be deleted by eBay.
You have just begun branding yourself and your products and are on the way to squeezing more cash from your eBay store.
It is late so I will stop here for now and give everyone a chance to ask any questions if they want.
I will post, “Squeezing every cent from your eBay Store Part #2” in a few days or so.
This is no B.S. people!!! You can view my 75% eBay referral discount for the month of January 2008 here.
http://dsouth.entryhost.com/ebay/75percentrefund.jpg
My total referral savings for ONE month was 46.97! Not bad for a 9.99 domain investment, hey? Like I said before it will be the best 10 bucks you ever spent!
With eBay’s huge price increases just around the corner, the more people that learn this tactic, means less money in EBay’s pocket. LMAO
Once I get part 2 done I will edit this message with the info on where it is.
D.South
