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How to Legally Sell an Affiliate Product on eBay

by: Brian McGregor

If you're involved as an affiliate for any product, you've probably wrestled with how you can sell the product on eBay.

After all, eBay offers you a massive potential audience of 147 million members. And people who read about your product will likely have found it by searching thus saying they are interested in the product area in which your product resides.

The bad news, however, is that there is no easy way to market affiliate products on eBay!

First of all, if you haven't heard of affiliate selling, here's a very quick description of how it works.

Fundamentally, selling an affiliate product requires that you get interested buyers to click on a special link. This link takes the person to the product owner's sales page. More importantly, the link also contains your unique affiliate code - it is this code which ensures that sales made from your introductions are recorded in your affiliate account. Finally, if your prospect purchases the product, it is the owner who handles product delivery and who also you with your sales commission payment.

On eBay, you could easily set up an auction saying how marvellous your affiliate product is. You will certainly attract a number of people who would be interested in buying. The problem is, you have no legitimate way of selling it to eBay members!

It's against eBay's rules to have a link in your auction page which takes your readers away to another website to make a sale.

Also, if you think about it, you don't have the affiliate product to deliver. There's no mechanism for you to make the sale on eBay, and deliver the product. If you recall, this is handled automatically by the product owner.

So here are two ways in which you can tap into the eBay market with your affiliate products.

1. The Simple System

You create an auction which explains the benefits of the affiliate product you're promoting.

What do you offer on your eBay auction for the affiliate product?

You sell the information on where to get hold of this superb product. And you sell these details for just one penny.

Whenever someone "buys" your information, you send them an email saying thank you for your purchase. You then explain they don't really need to send you a penny, and here is the link to the fantastic product in which they've expressed an interest.

Of course, the link is YOUR affiliate link.

By the way, in your auction description page please think of a new angle for the product. You'll find almost everybody who is an affiliate for any popular product will be using the suggested sales material supplied by the product owner.

This means that you just appear to be one of many, and the standard sales pitch will be littering the internet. Your interested purchaser has probably seen some of these already. Why should they take notice of your one penny auction for the same product?

Lace your auction description with personal and credible information about the product, and you will get some of those prospective buyers to go with you.

Incidentally, you could find that your one penny auctions are removed by eBay. After all, a one penny auction doesn't bring eBay very much by way of listing or final value fee.

If this happens to you, you could try system 2 below, and you can also place your one penny auction on other auction sites such as Yahoo, Amazon, QXL etc

2. The Not as Simple System

With this system, you need to do a little research before you launch your eBay auction for your affiliate product.

The objective here is to create a package of items which are related to your affiliate products, and which you auction at 0.99 cents or pence.

First off, you need to create a 2 or 3 page report about your affiliate product. Ideally this should be based on your personal experience with the product. Failing that, it should be written in your own personal style. The key point is that it must include your affiliate link to the product.

The next step is to find other items for your "package", you do this by using Google search to locate related free products.

Let's suppose you're an affiliate for an ebook which teaches how to paint and draw figures. On Google you would search for something like "figure drawing" free.

It took me under 10 minutes to locate the following freebies:

Photographing Your Artwork (free ebook)
3D Figure Drawing Studio software (free trial)
How to Sell Your Art (free newsletter)

And there are many more you could unearth given a little more research time. Be a little careful in your selection - you don't want to give away something which will compete with your affiliate ebook.

Having found your items, what you now do is bundle them up and add them to your 2/3 page report. You then create an auction which offers the whole package for 99 cents or pence.

There's no way eBay can possibly object to this auction.

As you can see, all it really takes to get your affiliate product in front of eBay's massive market place is a little creativity.

About the author:
Brian McGregor specializes in showing website owners how to make more money from their sites by applying inventive and original use of eBay. For a free copy of �The eBay Traffic Funnel� which shows you how to use the power of eBay to make more money with your website, visit

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Getting Great Deals on EBay
by: Lorraine Venner

I love getting a deal. I try to smell them out from miles away. I love frequent garage sales, flea markets, closeouts, and more -- but found that I could much better by simply buying through online auctions - if I shop carefully.

Getting a deal out of EBay auctions is an art. Buying from auctions can be a costly proposition or a very economical option depending on your tactics. Buy wisely by learning from my (sometimes costly) experiences.

1. Is the Seller Trustworthy?

Both EBay and Yahoo auctions have seller ratings. Read these and their associated reviews. If the seller has a great rating from buying and a poor one from selling, you probably don't want to buy from them. Look at both praises and complaints as they may or may not apply to what you are bidding on.

2. Read the Description Throughly

It is very easy to read what you want to see in an Ebay auction rather than what is actually written there. Read both what is in the Ebay description and what is NOT in the description. Often your mind will want to fill in details with what is your dream interpretation. You need to re-read the description until you find out whether what you are searching for and what the seller is selling match.

* Used or New?

Is the item you are buying used or new? If it doesn't say new, you are most likely buying something that is used.

* Real or Fake

Is the item you are interested in "real" gold, sterling silver or pearls? For example, a description saying: "gold necklace for sale" does NOT say 14 kt gold or 18kt gold. That most likely means a gold COLORED necklace which may or may not have actual gold metal. This also applies to pearls as many call plastic fake pearls simply "pearls".

If the seller is selling beads, those beads could be plastic, glass, stone, scrap metal, crystal, chips, wood, clay, gemstone or some other material.

* Item Details

Does the EBay description really say how much you are getting, how long the item is, and quality of the item? Selling by the pound can be a great deal - or a horrible deal.

* Beware of Hidden Costs

Look at shipping and handling costs. I've seen many penny auctions that have $13 or more shipping. Some auctions even have handling fees.

* How Fast Will it Ship?

I've been seeing a fair amount of auctions that note that the product will ship in 2 months or that shipping time is 2 months. If you are buying for a particular holiday, be sure that you will get the item in time.

3. Is it a Bargain For You?

Many times an EBay auction will say that the items are "worth $XXX". In many cases, that price is inflated. Often you can find similar items much cheaper tah "$XXX" at normal stores. (However, the auction price may still be cheaper than you can by elsewhere - it really helps to know how much you usually pay for items!) If you are only interested in some of the items in an auction, adjust your bid to reflect how much you are willing to pay for just those items unless you plan to sell the rest as that is how much you would pay for it elsewhere.

4. Auction Fever

Compare prices on the net at the same time to avoid overpaying. Know that usually you can get the item later elsewhere. Wise buyers know to walk away when the price is higher than the item is worth to them.

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