It always amazes me when eBay Store owners work hard on their businesses, have products buyers want to buy, use the right keywords and even make their Stores look professional through customization… yet they choose to pay eBay more than they should. I don't know about you, but I like to keep the money I make—and if eBay is willing to kick back even more money to me, I'm taking it!
In all fairness, many eBay Store owners don't yet know how to properly set up their eBay Stores, much less realize that eBay will pay them to have a Store. The fact is, if you market your eBay business anywhere outside of eBay, and that marketing brings buyers into your Store who purchase items from your Store Inventory, you will receive 75 percent off your final value fees. This Store Referral Credit posts to your account instantly and always shows up below the Final Value Fee for that item. If you're currently paying $600 in final value fees, this referral credit could save you up to $450. Fabulous, right?
There are two ways you can ensure you receive this 75 percent referral credit:
- A buyer types your Store's URL into his or her browser, or
- He or she clicks on a bookmark link for your Store
But hopefully, you're not just relying on your customers remembering your Store's URL. You want to market your business on all outside Web sites, including blogs, flickr, discussion groups, etc. It's incredible to me, as I'm out on the other social networking sites, how often people choose to not include the referral ID at the end of their eBay Store URL.
I remember teaching this huge benefit to an eBay Store owner who also wasn't setting up marketing for this referral credit. In the first month alone, after changing their marketing, the owner saved more than $500. That's an incredible amount of money to leave on the table each month. Over a year's time that seller could increase their bottom line by more than $6,000.
In order for eBay to track your marketing efforts and provide you with referral credit, you need to add a "referral ID" to the end of your eBay Store's URL. eBay's trackable referral ID is ?refid=store. So if your Store's URL is http://stores.ebay.com/maggies-magpies-and-antiques, your trackable URL would be http://stores.ebay.com/maggies-magpies-and-antiques?refid=store. When you paste this URL outside of eBay and a buyer clicks on the link and purchases a Store Inventory item, you will receive 75 percent off your final value fees for that product.
Besides driving traffic to just your eBay Store's homepage, there are a few other areas that are eligible to receive the referral credit. You can also use the Stores Referral ID on:
- One of your eBay Store custom pages
- Any of your Store categories
- Your About the Seller page (also known as the About Me page)
- A keyword search page within your eBay Store
- The listing page of your item (Store Inventory)
If you promote your eBay Store anyplace outside of eBay, always remember to use the referral ID at the end of your Store URL so you will be eligible to receive the 75 percent referral credit
Success Tip: If you are talking about toaster ovens, don't just automatically link to the homepage of your eBay Store. Studies have shown that you will convert buyers at a higher rate if you send them to the exact item/area you are talking about (don't ever make a buyer work to give you money). In this case, it could be a category called "toaster ovens," a Store page that results from the keyword search for "toaster oven," a custom page you created talking about toaster ovens and even the Store Inventory listing page for the toaster oven.
If you promote your eBay Store anyplace outside of eBay, always remember to use the referral ID at the end of your Store URL so you will be eligible to receive the 75 percent referral credit. This includes links on Facebook, Twitter, TaTango, YouTube, in e-mail communications, your own Web site and more.
There are other rules and regulations about receiving the referral credit. Your customer's computer has to be set to accept cookies, and sometimes you have to use the referral ID "&refid=store" instead of the one mentioned above. You can read those rules here and find additional information in the FAQ section.
In the Profitable eBay Stores training, we walk through step by step how to set up your outside URL's for this Stores Referral Credit so you can receive your 75 percent instant refund. We have also created a special series of five 1 percent eBay Stores tips that will be delivered for free to your inbox. You can receive yours at the OSI Newsletter.
My next article in this series covers the power of an eBay Store outside of eBay.
Janelle Elms is a best-selling author, inspiring educator and Visionaire of the OSI Rock Stars. You can hear her on wsRadio every Wednesday on Ask Janelle Radio. Learn the success information you need to grow your business at www.osiRockStars.com. For step-by-step training on how to set up an eBay Store for maximum exposure and profit, visit One Percent Coach.
Opinions expressed here may not be shared by Auctiva Corp. and/or its principals.
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