My Best Month With BANS So Far

I don’t want to jinx anything for August, but as of today I have had my best month with my Build a Niche Store websites since I joined last November.  June was really awful and I was worried it would continue through the whole summer.  Or that it was a sign of what was to come from all the economy doom and gloom talk we hear on the news everyday.  July has been great.  I’m not up there with the big boys and girls in earning – yet, but I have paid for my BANS software and domain registrations and hosting months ago and now it is just about all profit.

To what do I owe the turn around in earnings in July.  I have no absolute answer, but I did several things that any one of them could have been the answer, perhaps it was a combination of all of them, or none of them.  There’s no way to tell, but I will keep doing them until something happens to tell me otherwise.

Once BANS offered us the option to cloak our links, I cloaked all of my sites, and I turned off the “now on ebay” feature, replacing it with an eBay banner instead.  After reading a few posts on the BANS forums about whether to cloak or uncloak, I decided to turn the option off and at the same time, I turned on the “now on eBay” feature back on.  I saw a big difference in the amount of clicks, bids, winning bids and ACRUS almost immediately.  It may have been a coincidence, but I am superstitious so I’m leaving it alone!

I also took a break from building new sites in July, except for my Casual Dinnerware Sets store, I did not build any new sites.  Instead, I have been going through my existing sites and adding original content, including articles and new categories based on the search terms people have been using to find my sites.  I have also add a blog to a few and have been adding content through regular posts.  All of this also could have, and probably did, contribute to the improvement in earnings I’ve seen in July.

I’m planning to add another store or two in August.  I am anxious to use the Bans and Wordpress SimpleCSS Template I purchased from Mark Hansen at The Niche Store Builder.  Its another integrated site and makes building BANS stores with blogging easy.  If you haven’t done so yet, check them out.  My Casual Dinnerware Sets site was built using the BANS/Flex template. Notice how the main page is the Wordpress blog with all the store categories in the right sidebar. If you click Store in the top menu, you will see that the BANS store is identical to the Blog.

While I will continue to add more stores, I will also do more work on my existing sites to make sure they stay up-to-date and earning steady income.

Tags: bans, Build a Niche Store, Casual Dinnerware Sets, eBay

Summer Slump Over?

In my last posted I talked about how a summer slump seemed to be affecting not only my work on building new BANS websites and my posting regularly here. Well, I am very excited to say (and I hope I’m not jinxing myself), my sales for July are on track to be my best month ever. As of today, I have $83.95 in posted revenue for sales and ACRUs since the July 1st. I had no ACRUs in June.

I’m not sure whether I’ve talked about ACRUs, but they are the icing on the cake for eBay affiliates. An ACRU is any customer that clicks onto eBay through one of your affiliate links, registers with eBay, then places a bid on an item. For this, eBay pays $25.00!

They don’t have to place a bid at the same time they register. As long as the customer does not erase their cookies or does not click on another affiliate eBay link before they place their first bid after signing up, the cookie from your link is good for 30 days (cookie for sales from your link is good for 7 days).

If you are undecided about getting started building Build a Niche Stores, now is a good time to take the plunge. The BANS software is only $97 and you get free upgrades for life. You can sign up with eBay as an affiliate, or you can sign up as an eBay affiliate through Pepperjam Network. More about Pepperjam later.

Tags: affiliate, bans, Build a Niche Store, eBay, pepperjam partner network

Step 2 – Affiliate Registration with eBay Partner Network

Before you can use your BANs software, you will have to register and be approved by eBay into their affiliate program.  Go to eBay Partner Network and click on the Join Now button. 

On the next screen, there will be a list of eBay programs for different countries and for Half eBay.  They will all be checked already.  Leave them checked.  Select the language preference and check all boxes to accept terms and conditions.  (I recommend reading them first. )  Then click the Continue button.

On the next page, you’ll fill out your personal information – name, address …

On the second half of the page, you fill out your business information.  I selected individual, buy you should select what is appropriate for you.

Under Primary Business Model some people choose Natural Search/Website.  If you choose this, you will have to give a URL for the website.  I chose other, then under Business Model (if “Other) I used BANS affiliate niche stores, and under description – affiliate niche websites build with Build a Niche Store software.

Type in the word verification and click Submit Application. 

You will get a message telling you your application will be reviewed and an email will be sent to let you know if you are accepted.  They make it sound like it could take 24 hours or more, but I received and acceptance immediately – so go straight to your email.

Once you receive your acceptance, you will need to go back to eBay Partner Network to set up how you want to be paid.  You will have to fill out a W-9 form giving you social security number or tax ID number since eBay will have to report earnings for tax purposes. (This is for US residents, I’m not sure what you have to do for other countries).  You can choose how you want to be paid – either direct deposit or Paypal. 

Tags: bans, Build a Niche Store, eBay

How to Get Started Building Your eBay Affiliate Empire

I’m starting a BANS for beginners category and follow through with step by step instructions for building eBay affiliate niche stores using Build a Niche Store (BANS) software.  It’s really not hard and once you try it, you won’t be able to stop.  It’s addicting! 

I built my first store 5 months, and I spent the past 6 weeks adding at least one new website each week.  As a result, I haven’t been blogging very much.  Recently, a couple of people who want to start their own BANS empire have asked how to do it, so I thought I’d start a beginner series and hopefully help anyone who wants to follow along. 

So if you new to BANS or thinking about getting started, bookmark this page or subscribe to my feed to get updates by email.  Feel free to post questions or add comments. 

Tags: affiliate, bans, Build a Niche Store, eBay

Build a Niche Store (BANS) Review

When you hear”eBay” and “money” in the same sentence you probably think of becoming an eBay seller.

You place product listings in the eBay marketplace, buyers bid, you pay your eBay seller fees and what you have left is your profit margin.

There is, however, another way to build a business which still revolves around eBay but which doesn’t involve you selling a single thing in the eBay marketplace.

This “other way” opportunity is based on the eBay affiliate program and a great tool which makes entry into this opportunity not only possible but also super easy. This tool is called “Build A Niche Store”.

Now if you don’t know – an affiliate program enables you as an individual internet entrepreneur to promote the products of a company in exchange for a commission on all sales that you refer.

You are basically operating as an internet middleman and connecting internet browsers to particular products and companies through you own network of websites and marketing methods.

If we return to the eBay affiliate program, eBay actually invites you to promote all of the product listings in the eBay marketplace and in exchange for your efforts will pay you up to 75% of the revenue they make from each sale you refer plus up to $35 for each new active eBay member you refer.

You can have a read about the eBay.com affiliate program here.

What this means is that you can earn up to three quarters of eBay’s revenue simply for connecting people to the products listed in the eBay marketplace.

Not only do you get to partner with the best branded marketplace in the world, you also get access to and control over ALL of the products listed in this marketplace. The eBay product inventory becomes YOUR product inventory and yet you do NOT have to stock items, deal with customers, organize shipping or process refunds.

You are no longer limited to selling only those products which you can buy and sell for a profit margin. You can choose ANY niche market and promote those eBay products relevant to your chosen niche outside of the eBay marketplace, funnelling targeted traffic through to eBay and into your own affiliate commissions.

Golf clubs, sewing kits, laptops, dog collars, diamond rings, Florida real estate…

If you know eBay you know how BIG it is – there are NO limits.

At this point you might be thinking – well this sounds interesting but in reality is there any money in it? Well, here’s the shocker – eBay’s top affiliates make over 1 million dollars a month. That’s right – 8 figures a year without stocking, selling or shipping a single thing!

Now eBay does provide some basic free tools to help you succeed as an eBay affiliate and build an affiliate business BUT it has been the development of a tool outside of eBay that has really opened this up as a legitimate business opportunity.

The tool, as I mentioned earlier, is called “Build A Niche Store” and what it enables you to do is build eBay affiliate websites targeted to any eBay niche you want. These act as the medium through which you funnel targeted visitors to eBay.

Here are a couple of my first websites, one targeting light therapy products for treating Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), and the other targeting Vintage Collectible Dolls:

Light Therapy Box

Vintage Collectible Dolls

As you can see, these are professional looking websites that contain all of those eBay products related to their target niche inside a searchable store format, each of which automatically contains your eBay affiliate id.

These stores then automatically update as new products are listed for sale and old listing expire from the eBay marketplace and the software has built in development features which enable you to create new store pages, add content to these pages, create content pages, modify your template etc etc.

Basically, in the space of about 10 minutes (once you are familiar with how the software works) you can create a fully functional eBay affiliate website targeted to the niche market of your choice.

Your store content is all search engine friendly which will provide the foundation for attracting targeted traffic from the search engines and you can then use the development features to attract more targeted visitors which will in turn mean more eBay affiliate commissions.

It really is a brilliant concept and I’ve been hearing great things about the guys behind the project and the member forum which you get lifetime access to when you purchase the product.

Build A Niche Store comes with a step by step user manual which will walk even the most technically inexperienced through setting up their eBay affiliate website, 9 professional template layouts which can be customized (from inside your admin panel) to match your target niche, lifetime member forum access, comprehensive product support and possibly most importantly – an UNLIMITED domain license which means you can build as many of these niche websites as you want for the small one time fee.

Think about how many niches eBay caters to!

How big could your eBay affiliate business be?!

This product gets my full recommendation – check it out today…

Click Here To Read More About Build A Niche Store.

Tags: Affiliate Niche Stores, Blog, Build a Niche Store, dolls, eBay, light therapy, light therapy box, vintage collectible dolls