I know ebays fees are a big negative for using it but they do have a lot of traffic I have read before it is a good idea to run sales alongside your own site and link your ebay listing to your site
Not sure if this actually breaks any of ebays listing rules but would definitely be a good link
if anyone knows how to do this without breaking rules please add on (if it does break rules that is)
Your point is a very good one swifty and it's a marketing technique that I personally use.
Now the way I do it on eBay is by harvesting emails. I encourage people to sign up to my newsletter by offering a discount and bonus offers to all subscribers, a membership essentially. No purchase is required, it's the email address I am looking for, and once I have that address I am able to fire off a monthly html e-newsletter, independent of the eBay system, and promote products I have available outside of eBay.
The Me Page on eBay also provides you with two links that you can use for promoting off-site websites. Now here is the sticky part, I've been told so many different stories by eBay support in regards to what sites I could link to, I'm as confused as anyone.
I use a custom template on eBay that is designed so the listing page has all the information linked to the eBay Me Page. So when a customer wants to know the shipping price, they select the shipping tab and that opens the information on the Me Page.
It was designed like this because you are only permitted to use those two links on the Me Page, you are not permitted to promote ANY other URL on the actual listing itself!
So the first issue you have is how to get customers to your eBay Me Page, and having it linked into a custom built template such as I have done accomplished that.
I was initially going to use the Me Page to promote my Facebook and Twitter accounts, however after being told that was ok by support, a double check (just to make sure) informed me that wasn't ok at all.
Getting a little frustrated, I asked if I could link direct to my own site, and much to my surprise, the answer was yes for some bizarre reason. Of course I had to contact support again to confirm that and yes... you guessed it... no that of course isn't permitted.
Having contacted support with this question now no fewer than 7 times, I am still no wiser as to what exactly these links can be linked to, but hey... if anyone else can get a firm answer, then drop a post because I would love to know 100%
Perhaps our resident eBay guru Erica may well know the answer to this, so you can try sending he a PM erika-garnica
The other that I know works quite well is register on eBay with your own sites email address, and then display that email address on your listing for inquiries. It doesn't mean that people will use it, in fact most will use the eBay messenger system, but it is marketing by stealth.
Anyone online these days will know that info@myshop.com means that there is a www.myshop.com out there somewhere, and that will encourage a few to go and look at your site.
Is that legal? Well to be honest I'm not 100% sure, but it's a technique I have used in the past to good effect and I know several that are using it now, and have been for the past couple of years, so who knows!
Of course if you are going to set-up a site and use eBay as traffic flow via any means, you need to manipulate your stock. It's no good selling the exact same stock on eBay as you are on your own site, only cheaper on eBay, because no matter how much eBay traffic you generate they will still buy where it is cheaper!