Use Ebay To Grow Your Business

Experienced online traders know that eBay is more than just a selling venue. It’s also a great way to promote your own website and increase your traffic and sales. Ideally we all want to sell from our own website, simply because it’s free, there’s no eBay fees to pay meaning more profit for us. The trick is getting people to your website in the first place.

EBay obviously knows that sellers are using their site to send traffic to their own websites and has put into place measures to prevent this. You are not allowed to link to your website from eBay. When listing your item you must not link to any outside selling venues or you are in breach of eBay’s rules.

For the creative person however, there are ways around this. You are for example allowed to link to an offsite image hosting service. If you add extra pictures to your auctions, and I hope you do, then you can host them on free services like photo bucket. Your eBay listing allows you to link to these. Many sellers put a watermark with their website on the images hosted off the eBay site.

Your “about me” page is a good way to promote your own website, you are allowed to have one link to your website on your about me page. Most buyers do not look at the “about me” page so eBay is happy to allow this. It’s up to you to get creative in your listings. Put a link to your about me page in all your listings and encourage buyers to click it. They will then see your website address.

EBay is a great fishing ground for bringing in new customers to your website. When you make a sale on eBay, your marketing machine should whirl into action. It’s objective is to get the customer to return to your website for their next purchase. You want this customer to buy all future products direct from your site. You want to build a lifetime relationship.

As soon as I make a sale on eBay, I send an email thanking the customer for buying from me. I send the product out immediately, providing a fast and efficient service. I inform the customer when I have posted the product. Inside of the package, I include a personal addressed letter, thanking the customer for their business. The letter obviously includes my website address on.

Usually the customer will look at my website and make a further purchase. And may even sign up for my newsletter. I will then include the customer in any direct marketing offers I run. From one eBay, listing you can increase your customer base substantially.

EBay is the best advertisement for your business if you utilize it correctly. Get creative and think outside of the box. EBay is a huge source of traffic just waiting to be utilized. Plug into it and redirect some to your own website.  You’ll soon build up your own loyal customer base this way.