If you are a seller who blogs about your items or promotes on social media, eBay wants you to consider joining its affiliate program – “you could be earning commissions,” according to John Toskey, who is Director of Global eBay Partner Network and has been with the company since 2012.
While eBay originally excluded sellers when it launched the program in 2001, it opened the program to sellers in 2007, allowing them to earn affiliate revenue even for their own listings.
In a recent video on the eBay Partner Network blog, Toskey explains the program and why sellers might wish to link not only to their own items, but to other sellers’ listings as well.
“For example, if you sell laptops in your eBay Store, you could provide complementary items from other sellers such as accessories,” he said. He also said the program could be a way to offset seller fees.
Whether it makes sense for sellers to send shoppers to their marketplace listings is a separate issue. If they have enough of an online presence to be able to drive traffic to listings, it makes sense to drive them to their lowest cost channel or an independent storefront. You can find information about the eBay affiliate program, but estimating potential affiliate earnings can be difficult.
