Judy,
When it comes to any kind of marketing you could never talk my leg off. I love this stuff! It really sounds like you have your marketing act together. I also read your About US page and I have to say, I really admire your perseverance and dedication. You really seem to enjoy what you do and I think that is one of the most important things in life.
“First I use the Auction Wizard 2000 configured websites and upload after I have concluded listing for the day.. that pushes quite a bit of traffic.” I never saw the value in this particular feature in AW2K. I guess I never understood how it was different than sending someone to your eBay store. I am really curious as to how this helps you. From what I could see you don’t sell directly from this page right? The page directs them back to your store for actual purchase? Is it that the items are more organized so people can shop them better? Does it get people who have bought at auction into your store? Is it that it shows new items listed only? I always thought it was a really cool feature but could never figure out a definitive purpose for it. Of course I have been known to tear the house apart looking for my keys with my keys in my hand. LOL Maybe you could explain the value to me that I am sure I am missing?
I actually agree with you about what eBay is doing. I don’t really think they are doing anything all that “wrong”. In all honesty, the reason I referred to it the way I did is that usually if you mention it to anyone who sells on eBay they tend to get very heated about the subject. You are actually the first person I have spoken with who doesn’t think it is the end of auctions and possibly even the end of the world. :) I think it is really as simple as them wanting to change their business model a bit and grow with the times. I think they know what is going to happen to them if they just sit on their hands. Sometimes change is good. I guess we will all see soon enough. Nash

Wait a second.. weren't we talking about window size and position here? LOL
I emailed Thom the question about that and I will post his response, whatever it may be, just in case anybody else is ever looking for an answer to that. Maybe there are other people out there who obsess over such things. :)
Have a great night! Nash

Nash,

We love what we do.. Hard work, long hours and never know what the next day will bring. In fact, my husband is off again tomorrow afternoon on another buying trip. Bringing home another semi of goodies. third one in two weeks. I haven't even got through the first one yet!

People like to see "pictures' and things ordered... the AW2K configured websites are real search engine friendly. ANd the eBay store link properly configured is Store Referral credit eligible which earns me back 75% of the Final Value Fee. That isn't anything to sneeze at. I make back quite a bit every month in Store Referral credits.

Typing in a URL into a browser address bar is often a task lots of people cannot do. We take for granted that our skill levels are the same as others and that is often not the case at all. Most people will use the "Search engine" box to type in a URL instead of into the address bar. So if they have to mess with a URL or link to an Auction listing page, they won't do it. Have a picture with a link to the page, that's easy. click and bid.

There is almost as much traffic from my website back to my eBay store as there is from those that find me in a MSN search.

Driving traffic to your eBay store is a good thing as there is a lot of marketing behind eBay's platform.

I really need to add more of our email address links on my website and put our phone number back up. I took it off months ago because the phone calls were getting out of hand. But in hindsight, that was a bad move and we are going to put it back up again. Especially since Ebay wants sellers to put their phone number in their listings.

Anyway,, we actually do sell off our website. It is amazing how many people email us wanting to know how many of x item do you have. They need 25 do I have them. Yes I do, here's the cost, send me your shipping information, I create an invoice in AW2K, send them a total amount due invoice from AW2K which contains a Paypal PayNow URL link, they pay, we ship.. Happens almost every day of the week.. At least once or twice a day.. Which is kind of mind boggling..

I am not really very good at marketing at all. I am not creative when it comes to thinking up an original idea. I can develop ideas though. And I am very analytical and methodical by nature. But I take every marketing class I can get into and read tons of material on it

Nah, you wont get me heated up on the changes. I have worked with some of the upper management on some of this stuff. And regardless of what the community says, the eBay management is geniunely attempting to make changes which will grow the marketplace. If the sellers don't sell and make money, they don't make money. So the venue has to grow and expand.



Judy/blue

Visit my eBay store!
http://stores.ebay.com/bluepennylady?refid=store
Visit our website too!
http://www.pennyworthsales.com

Judy,
Ahh.. See now that makes perfect sense to me. So you are saying that your products show up on the search engines by creating those pages. You are using the configured websites as an SEO tool. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that (I did warn you about the looking for the keys thing right?). That is really smart. Is that what its intended use is? I must have missed that when I first read the AW2K info. It was quite a while ago I must admit. I am definitely going to use that part of the program now. Thanks so much for explaining it to me!

When I first purchased AW2k several years ago I was using it strictly to list auctions and nothing else (I did use the email, templates etc). I did not have a store so I did not use any of those functions. My inventory was not consistent so I never got to utilize the full functionality in that respect either. I guess I really missed a lot of the true power of this program.

I never would have realized the trick about the store credit rebate unless you mentioned it. So, please correct me if I am wrong here, the search engines pick up your products and direct prospects to your site. The prospective customer then clicks on the link to your store item. This link is configured as a store link so you are able to be refunded 75% of the final value fee. Is that accurate? Is the link automatically configured when generated by AW2K or do you need to manually configure them? Isn’t any link that goes back to your store a store referral link?

I would have to disagree with the statement about you not being a very good marketer. It is my understanding that it’s not the people who have a ton of original ideas that do all that well. It is the person that takes time tested, fundamentally sound, proven systems and implements them into their own particular niche that is a solid marketer. I could be wrong but it sure looks like that is what you are doing to me.

Thanks for your help! I am working on the configured website right now. Nash

Nash,

The Store referral credit URL links are tricky.. The viewer MUST allow cookies. Use to any link clicked outside of ebay would qualify but they changed that a few years back.. Now to be CERTAIN the URL qualifies you need to add a tag to that URL link. That tag being the "?refid=store" tag..

here is the URL link to the eBay help file which explains how to properly configure those links.

http://pages.ebay.com/help/specialtysites/referral-credit-steps.html

The links within the website thumbnail pages need the ?refid=store tag added to the end. The text for the link to the Auction page can also have that tag added to it. However, I am not a coder and have never been able to figure out how to make the "viewitem?refid=store" not to appear at the end of the link. [cry] I do know that a huge part of my Store referral credits come from people clicking through the thumbnail pages.

Things grow dynamically in terms of what works the best for Organic natural search engine results. Meta tags use to be the thing. Anchor text works much better now than the Meta tags. And I am really behind the eight ball as I have almost no anchor text. But the little bit I do have pulls up higher in Organic search engine results. I have to get busy and add more anchor text tags on my pages.... (and re-do opening lines too as the opening lines which pull up high have changed a bit as well)

The other thing I do is all my AW2K email templates have links to my website, eBay store and email address so every buyer has easy access to them.

My inventory isn't consistent at all. We never know what or how many of something we will have come in. But I like the Inventory Items tab/window really well. My staff can work on seasonal goods now adding a few each day so we will be ready for the proper selling season. Those Inventory Items can just wait peacefully in the Inventory Items tab until I am ready to list as opposed to creating Auction lots and then needing to hide them or something. Plus there are certain reporting features which will not work for an item if there is no related Inventory Item. So we use Inventory Items for even one thing..

You got it for the STore referral credit. That is exactly correct. Two months ago my Store referral credit was really big. I spent a lot of time promoting my store off eBay and it paid off. I did several email campaigns using my Mail Bomber program and Constant Contact. Those campaigns had the Store referral qualifying links back to certain store listings. The listings sold and I got Store Referral credits too. makes it worth your time to market your auctions off ebay..

The AW2000 configured websites and the SEO just kind of evolved. It was actually developed as a marketing tool as you can elect to show listings on a page prior to listing them so buyers can see what is going to be listed next week or whatever you decide to do.. Then the listings move automatically to another page when the listings are actually listed. SEO just sort of ended up being an unknown side benefit.. I know that after I update my AW2K website that alot of time those who get RSS feeds will be notified my website has updated and changed. And the proper verbage on the thumbnail page also is search engine friendly. You'll just have to mess around with what text works for your products. And since you like to mess around with SEO, you will have a ball with it..

I hope that helps some..


Judy/blue

Visit my eBay store!
http://stores.ebay.com/bluepennylady?refid=store
Visit our website too!
http://www.pennyworthsales.com

Judy,

You have really good timing. I was actually working on this right now. :0 And I am confused.
I think I am still missing something here. If I go to your site and randomly click on something; This for example: http://iruvul.pair.com/joglesby/aw2k/Clothing.html If I click on the link to your store for the first item at the top, the hat, I don’t see the (viewitem?refid=store) code in that link. Are you saying that it does not need the link because it is going straight to the store? It is only the items currently at auction that needs that link? Is that right? Bare with me Judy... I am a little slow sometimes. LOL But I do notice that in your signature on this page you do use the code. I have really confused myself now.

"The text for the link to the Auction page can also have that tag added to it. However, I am not a coder and have never been able to figure out how to make the "viewitem?refid=store" not to appear at the end of the link. [cry]" Can you show me an example of this. I seem to be really lost now for some reason and I am really interested in this. Nash

Nash,

WELLLLLL. I haven't changed the actual individual links on the thumbnail pages because I haven't ever been able to figure out how to make the "viewitem?refid=store to not appear. The link looks sort of weird...

On the Website thumbnail page in "edit" mode. click on the "page body.. You will see Listing link text...


It reads [Click here for listing on <#AuctionSiteName

You can change it to [Click here for listing on <#AuctionSiteName>viewitem?refid=store]

But the "viewitem?refid=store? text always shows up...

What I am saying is I have never ever been able to figure out how to hide the viewitem?refid=store in the hyperlink... And believe me, I am super tenacious. I have worked on it for a very long time... So hence those links do not have ?refid=store on them.. All the other links do like my link to "visit my eBay store in the header and footer areas.. Etc.. They seem to qualify for the Store referral credits because if I send a buyer to an item from my website, the Store referral credits always appear in my account.

I converted a couple of the Website thumbnail pages to pure HTML and tried re-coding the links that way but never got the ?refid=store to hide. It may not ever hide. I just thought that perhaps it would work like a <a href> and the code part would not appear just the text. I hope that makes more sense. If anyone ever shoves me in the right direction once, I'll be able to figure it out and fix it. But like I said, a coder I am not just a wanna be

I am really sorry, I didn't mean to confuse you. I apologize. That was not my intention.



Judy/blue

Visit my eBay store!
http://stores.ebay.com/bluepennylady?refid=store
Visit our website too!
http://www.pennyworthsales.com

Nash,

I just edited one of the links so you could see what I meant and updated my AW2K website.

Here is the link to the page

http://iruvul.pair.com/joglesby/aw2k/ebayauctions.html

See how much different the link is from the other pages. Looks weird

It works but it is weird looking.


Judy/blue

Visit my eBay store!
http://stores.ebay.com/bluepennylady?refid=store
Visit our website too!
http://www.pennyworthsales.com

Judy,

No it wasn't you, I think I confused myself. That is kind of what I thought but when I didn't see the links on your site I kind of got lost.

So correct me if I am wrong. In order to get store credit a link that comes from outside ebay must have that tag in it no matter what, correct?

When you add the code on the thumbnail page. Are you saying that the code shows up on top of the thumbnail? Or does it show up in anchor text? I don't think I can generate one to look at it because I don't have anything listed at the moment.

Don't mean to drive you nuts with this. Nash

Nash,

I have to head out to church. Been painting lost track of time. I 'll be back in about 1-1/2 hours...



Judy/blue

Visit my eBay store!
http://stores.ebay.com/bluepennylady?refid=store
Visit our website too!
http://www.pennyworthsales.com