If you are trying to learn how to make money on eBay without selling or buying anything, your best bet would be the eBay affiliate program. With lots of options and resources available, eBay makes it very easy for its affiliate to earn money from eBay without having to sell a single item.
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What is eBay’s affiliate program?
It’s basically like any other affiliate program. You earn commission for sending lead to eBay’s market place. Another words, you are the middle man here. You connect buyers with sellers, and if a transaction occurs, you earn commission.
The good thing is that even if you are an eBay beginner or newbie to affiliate marketing in general, eBay’s affiliate program includes all kinds of tools and resources, such as Search engine marketing, banners, auction feeds and Web Services, which can be a tremendous help to an affiliate newbie who is trying to make money using eBay.
How to become an eBay affiliate?
To become an eBay affiliate, you must be an eBay member. So if you don’t already nave an account with eBay, you will need to sign up with eBay. However, when it comes to the actual affiliate program (registration, tracking transactions, payments, banners and links to be used, etc,), its done through the famous affiliate network, Commission Junction. So, you will need to register with CJ (which is free) in order to get access to affiliate links and banners you can use to promote products sold on eBay. To do that, simple visit http://affiliates.eBay.com.
The good news is that once you got your account with CJ, you can apply for eBay’s affiliate program with one click, and unlike many other affiliate programs, eBay approves you almost instantly. So, you don’t have to wait days or weeks to get approved. You care approved immediately and can start promoting eBay’s market place right away.
Payouts
I personally think it is crucial to understand how eBay’s commission system works, so you can know what to expect. As an eBay affiliate, you get paid commission for 2 things:
- Someone registers with eBay using through your affiliate link. Although, this new member has to either use “Buy It Now”, or “Place A Bid” within 30 days of registration, in order for you to get your commission.
- Whenever someone bids or buys on eBay through your affiliate link.
Whats incredible about eBay’s commission payout system is that they are volume indexed, meaning as you refer more buyers and bidders, your payout for each leads goes up a well. I work with lots of affiliate programs, and I haven’t seen not many with such a great payout system.
Since February 2005, an eBay affiliate who refers between 1 to 499 new members a month, earns a minimum of $20.00 for each new user sign up, and an affiliate who refers over 7500 new users, earns a maximum of $45.00 per registration.
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If between 1 to 999 bid/BIN are generated through your affiliate link, you will earn $0.10 per bid/BIN. For affiliate who generate over 100,00 bin/bid, the payout is $0.25 per bid.
As you can imagine, making substantial amounts of money through eBay affiliate program, just like any other affiliate program, comes down to your method of promotion. There are many ways to promote your eBay affiliate links, from placing a banner on your own site, to article marketing, classified ads, SEO, and more.
eBay affiliate program is one of the easiest and best ones as far as conversion goes. I mean, you don’t have to really convince anybody to buy on eBay, everybody knows and trusts eBay, so you really don’t have to pry-sale anything. And there are lots of best sellers on eBay that you can promote. All you have to do is to place your affiliate link or banner in the right place at the right time in front of the potential buyers.
I really think becoming an eBay affiliate is a great way to make some money using eBay. You don’t have to know where to buy items to sell, you don’t have to deal with buyers, shipping, returns and all the headaches that comes with being an eBay seller.
That said, it still takes hard work and dedication to succeed. After all, you need traffic, and traffic generation takes time and work, depending on what method you use. Nonetheless, eBay affiliate program is a great way to make money on eBay without selling anything.