Using eBay to Drive Traffic to Your Web Store
by Stuart Lisonbee
Despite eBay's policies, there are still several ways to use eBay to drive traffic to your website, or as I like to call it, mining for traffic. But why would you want to do that?
To begin with, consumers go to eBay to find a bargain. They are looking to pay less. In other words, the average consumer is willing to pay more for an item from your web store than they would for the same item on eBay. Selling an item from your website will net you higher profit more often than not.
Secondly, any item you list on eBay is surrounded by your competition. When a person does a search for your item on eBay, your listing will be buried by the items of hundreds, even thousands of other sellers. What reason does a person have to buy from you rather than the hundreds of other sellers? Regardless of the reason, it's far easier to sell an item to a person that doesn't have dozens of other sellers clamoring for their attention.
Third is the potential for repeat business. A key part of being a retailer is developing long-term relationships with your customers. It's very difficult to develop loyalty among eBay buyers, whereas it's much easier to create repeat business with your web store.
Now that you know why you will want to drive traffic away from eBay, let's talk about the ways to do that.
The easiest method is to create an eBay About Me page. Your About Me page is a great place to talk about your business and build the trust of buyers. But it is also the one place on eBay where you are allowed to link to nearly any kind of website, including your own web store.
Make sure that you have an About Me page, and make sure that you talk about and link to your web store on your About Me page. To help drive people to your About Me page, place links to it in all your eBay listings.
Next, in part two of this series, I'll discuss more methods of mining eBay's traffic.
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About the Author
Stuart Lisonbee is an eBay PowerSeller, eBay Certified Consultant, and former eBay employee. He currently works for Doba, a drop ship service provider, at http://www.doba.com
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