How to use Ebay as a marketing tool for your online store

The death was prematurely reported to eBay. It is commonly thought for the last two years, or so that the impact of eBay on internet trade was waning. With the explosion of e commerce sites, the expansion of sellers to Amazon, and the novelty of online auctions decline, the shadow of giant eBay was no longer keeping the rest of the Internet in the dark.

Perhaps, eBay does not cast its shadow over the rest of the Internet. But the disappearance of eBay has been exaggerated. As search engine optimization pro drop everything themselves more to sacrifice to the gods of Google, those of us who sell items online, would do better to focus only on the eBay search. The reason is this, the processes of eBay as a request to issue a month as a Google search. It is true that both process about 2 billion searches per month, so that both are huge resources of traffic. The difference is that people search on eBay are buying or at least shopping. People use Google for all kinds of reasons.

Like many online retailers, I started on eBay. Click auctions only for the first two years, and then branches out into an eBay store, do not go on a stand-alone site for two more years. Although I stopped an online store of all, re-inventing a brand new shop on line with a new marketing approach, I have always been on eBay.

As my online store has started to overtake sales on eBay, eBay began to look less like the approach. Thinking eBay customers were only valuable if they have become clients of the website. I rely on repeat sales and a growing base of customers. And I thought eBay was a bit 'a thorn, and do not appreciate the customers that I had there. But about a year ago I had a change of heart. Continue to use eBay to find new customers. In fact I consider eBay fees nothing more than advertising, and is constantly in my first three monthly advertising expenses. eBay is in my top 10 referring traffic to website traffic, but now I appreciate eBay as a source of making money. I use it to sell items for auction or liquidation saturated, I use it to test new ideas. It also has different seasons that my website is going strong from Thanksgiving to May to start my season slowly dying as the peak of my season website. Although it represents only about 15% of annual sales, it's a 15% that you could not do without. It is also a major generator of new customers.

My strategy has changed a bit 'with eBay. Auction begins less than my website prices retail, while items in eBay store are about 8-10% compared to the website prices to recover eBay fees. More than half of the auction winners also buy eBay store, and about 5% of all sales website per month come from a direct link to eBay. While you are not allowed to put links to the site, you can insert links to more information about the product that just happen to be on site. This valuable tool.

How Wall Street and the guru of the Internet on-line I had once looked with suspicion on the value of eBay. But I certainly changed my heart. If you have an online store, and do not use eBay to help drive traffic, increase sales and reduce inventory of what is missing a valuable partner in your overall business success.

If you have a strong presence online, or even a brick and mortar store, try the following strategies for eBay. Use auctions for items for customs clearance and saturated, deep discounts attract a lot of traffic, and therefore a lot of potential new customers. Use auctions for the best selling products to attract new customers. They also have an eBay store, the products of the package in a different way just for eBay, half of all auction winners will also buy things from there. Price things in your eBay store 8-10% more than your online store to help offset your eBay fees. Think of eBay fees as advertising costs, if you consider that you sell directly out of it, is one of the best values ​​out there. Have links to all of your eBay listings for more product information, which will be on your website. Include coupons to redeem at your online store, when shipping their products to customers on eBay. Encompass eBay marketing, and you will find it a valuable tool in growing your business online ....