SUGGESTION: eBay Capsules - Display "Buy It Now" items only

1. 86

   Marisa Wrightposted 11 years ago

   Ever since eBay introduced QCP, most affiliates are finding it far more profitable to promote "Buy It Now" items only.  Go to any forum of eBay affiliates and you'll see that's the case.
   
   So it's highly frustrating that we don't have the option to "display Buy It Now items only" in our eBay capsules.
   
   In fact it makes such a difference (as I know from my own websites), I'd be happy if HubPages switched all eBay capsules to "Buy it now items only" as standard.   However if we could have the option either way, it would be great.

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   1. 93

      melbelposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      How do Buy it Now items make more money than other items? I'm not really used to the eBay capsule yet or anything eBay related (when it comes to affiliate stuff... I buy and sell, though.)
      
      It's really taken me a while to delve into that area vs Amazon capsules. I'm really curious. I'm all for more money.

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2. 86

   Marisa Wrightposted 11 years ago

   It has to do with eBay's new way of paying - which is per click, not per sale, and it's not a fixed amount per click either.  You get paid based on the "quality" of the traffic you send. This is how eBay explains it:
   
   "With Quality Click Pricing, we will now instead pay affiliates for each click sent to an eBay site. The price paid per click (earnings per click or EPC) will still depend on the short-term and long-term revenue of the traffic that the publisher drives to eBay, but will now also take into account the incremental value of that traffic to eBay, i.e., whether a sale happened as a direct result of the publisher’s actions.  The greater the incremental revenue and the higher the expected lifetime value of the customers an affiliate sends, the higher the EPC"
   
   In other words, if you send lots of traffic to eBay but few of them end up buying, you'll get paid less per click.  If you send less traffic to eBay but most of then end up buying, you'll be paid more per click.
   
   If someone clicks on a "Buy it Now" item having seen the price and read your wonderful sales pitch , they're quite likely to buy it.  If someone clicks on an auction item, they may or may not be bothered to bid - and even if they do, they may not win.   Bear in mind your reader has come to your Hub looking to buy something now - they're not expecting to find themselves in an auction, and they may not want to wait several days for the outcome.
   
   So overall, you're likely to have a higher success rate with Buy It Now items than with auction items.  Which means you'll get paid more per click.
   
   There are a few software programs around which allow you to display eBay items on your website (similar to eBay capsules on HubPages).   I use phpBay.  There are several professional eBay affiliates on their forums, who have done extensive testing on how to get the best from eBay.  All of them recommend using the "Buy It Now" setting for most products.  I certainly saw an improvement in my EPC when I switched to Buy It Now only.

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   1. 61

      Randy Godwinposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      The present Ebay system we have here is too convoluted for me.  After selling well over thousand dollars in products I received almost nothing in return for my efforts.  Not to mention these pennies compete with dollars on similar Amazon products.
      
      With no way to check to see how Ebay arrives at their particular pay-per-click, I simply refuse to deal with them here.  This new system is rife for abuse from several different angles.  And we all know how frequently this happens on the net when money is involved.  But I wish you and everyone else success in the program as we certainly don't have many other options on HP at the present time. 
      
                                             

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      1. 86

         Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         That's the big complaint that many eBay affiliates have.   I just need to emphasize (again) that it's not just "here" (i.e.on HubPages).  This system now applies to all eBay affiliates, whether on HubPages or on their own websites.

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3. 96

   Glenn Stokposted 11 years ago

   There is a way to display "buy-it-now" items with eBay capsules. I'm doing it in some of my hubs.
   
   You do it by specifying the actual eBay seller ID who has only buy it now items for sale. You also need to specify a keyword to narrow down to their buy-it-now item. That works.
   
   One important thing to keep in mind. Look for items that list "more than 10 available" so your listing doesn't go blank when they sell one.

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   1. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Because we don't get notified of broken links in eBay capsules, I'd be worried about using that strategy.   If that seller goes out of business - which happens fairly often - you've got blank capsules!

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      1. 96

         Glenn Stokposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Yes this is true. I keep a record of all my Hubs that have eBay and I check on them from time to time. I also review that status of the eBay seller before using any of them for "buy-it-now" and I only use the sellers that have a high eBay record, have been around for a long time, and specify a large qty available for the item I'm putting in my Hubs.
         
         I feel pretty comfortable with that. Never had a problem yet.  I've had more situations where YouTube video's disappear and for some reason HP doesn't always show the broken link icon on those.

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4. 74

   MickiSposted 11 years ago

   I am going to inquire with our contact at eBay to verify that Buy It Now items really are profitable. Since we have an inside source, let me do the fact checking.
   
   It that's the case, then I'm certainly happy to update our eBay capsule to allow Buy It Now only as an option (assuming that eBay enables the programming interface for us to technically do this).
   
   Stay tuned....

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   1. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I wish I could post some examples, but all the discussions are in private forums.  I'll be interested to see what eBay has to say.
      
      However, it's worth noting that all the many eBay affiliate software programs have the option to select "Buy It Now" items only.

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