eBay announces new Pro Stores marketing

November 2, 3:24 PMAuctions and Antiques ExaminerWalt AuctionWally

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eBay's Pro Stores selling platform recently announced a roll-out of a new marketing scheme for seller's who have their own Web store with Pro Stores. Basically, it involves sending traffic to your website in an affilliate type of manner, with eBay receiving a minimum commission rate of 8% on any traffic they send to your Web store which operates on their Pro Stores platform. 

From the press release:

"Hi everyone...this is Matt Ackley, VP of Advertising and Internet Marketing at eBay. Many of our sellers who run their own Web stores face the challenge of marketing their stores in a cost-effective way. With the release of ProStores 9.2, we can now offer sellers a way to take the hassle out of marketing their stores online with zero upfront cost or risk.

ProStores 9.2 includes Pay-Per-Sale Marketing (Beta), a new feature where ProStores can market your store for you and you pay a commission only on sales linked to the traffic we drive to your store. Just set a minimum commission rate of 8% and increase it for more exposure. This makes it possible to get more potential buyers to your store while controlling your advertising costs—with Pay-Per-Sale Marketing you won’t pay more for advertising than you make in sales.

And remember, ProStores is the online store solution for eBay sellers—with ProStores you can open your own Web store instantly using your eBay listings and other settings.

Learn more about Pay-Per-Sale Marketing and all the new features now available in ProStores 9.2."

 

 

Of course, besides the commission fee for marketing, there is a  monthly subscription fee, AND a .5 to 1.5% transactio fee on every sale, depending on which subscription plan you choose. Sucbsription fees run from $9.95 to $249.95 per month.

Here's my take on Pro Stores.  I tried the platform  about 3 months ago, it was so full of bugs that I was never able to get it off the ground, and I only wanted something very basic to market my appraisal and consultation services.

I since opened a store on GoDaddy.com, and have never looked back. My GoDaddy store costs me $9.95 a month with NO commission fees. As for the advertising, I take care of that myself.  With all the problems eBay has had in the past year, the last thing I'd  want to do is turn over marketing responsiblity to them.

To be fair, maybe the 9.2 version of Pro Stores is more stable, but I'm not very forgiving of platforms that have wasted a lot of my time in the past, so I'll be sticking with what I have for now. 

Thanks for reading,

AW