eBay is to Online Auctions what Google is to Search

Sellers, deal with it. Like it or not, eBay is not going away. On the contrary, I believe they will thrive; and thrive with great gusto in the face of economic adversity. I base that statement on eBay’s brand power alone. Just think: When was the last time you heard someone say, “I wonder how much I can get for that guitar on Amazon? I rest my case.

Incidentally, I want to give credit where credit is due so, I’d like to point out that I ‘borrowed’ the headline for this post from text written in a brilliant article published yesterday in WebProNews by Chris Crum. Read it here… 

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/01/12/what-keeps-shoppers-going-to-ebay

Build A Niche Store with Confidence… and Wordpress

So you want to build a popular eBay store with BANS software? Great, you’re on the right track. One method I’ve noticed that is gaining popularity at a fever pitch is the combination of BANS software and Wordpress Themes. I plan on WP integration with my own stores in the near future but in the meantime, I want to direct you to the master of “BANS/WP-ology” — Mark Hansen; author of The Niche Store Builder. He’s your best bet to get onto the fast track of all things BANS.

Incidentally, if you are already astutely “BANS-ified”, check out Mark’s Top 100 Niche Blogs.

BANS Update for 2008

From an Internet marketing perspective, Build A Niche Store, a. k. a. BANS from the very beginning was a concept that was destined to win when it was conceived in October 2006. The product; software that offers an unlimited license to build eBay stores, has evolved along with the increasing demand of savvy (and not so savvy) internet marketers and start-ups.

I have to give kudos to the develpers of BANS as they have implemented a number of marked improvements to their already well-suited site development platform for affiliate marketers. This of course, supports eBay Affiliates who are on board with BANS and who will atest that the software and support systems work remarkably well.

Should you decide to start developing your own portfolio of niche stores with eBay, I would highly recommend BANS as the most efficient means to earn affiliate commissions.

First ePN and BANS Commisions Documented

The first signs of life on a potentially profitable site built with BANS are starting to come to fruition. Nothing Earth-shattering mind you, In fact, quite meager but I’m not expecting any windfall profits just yet. Checking my ePN stats for July, I’m averaging about 5 clicks per day with one sale. Actually, I’m more impressed with my BANS affiliate sales of 2 units since July 1st. Those commissions, thanks to ClickBank just about pay for my own BANS license. This is occurring on minimal effort.

Meantime, I continue to build Tomato Basics albeit at a gradual pace; adding content and such. Time being of the essence and considering other projects, this at some point may have to be outsourced. If that’s what it takes, no problem. My ego is the last thing that needs to satisfied.

Creating BANS Content Pages To Promote Related ClickBank Products

Besides using BANS to incorporate eBay listings into your niche store, there’s another opportunity that seems to fit well into the scheme of things. Use ClickBank to enhance the value of your content pages. Probably more convenient that anything else, BANS itself is a ClickBank product so, if you’re like me and you are interested in saving time thinking of ways to add content, ClickBank can be utilized as a kind of one-stop shop for affiliates. And why not, they have loads of “how to” eBooks and such and chance are, they have something that relates to your niche.

For example, I found a great ClickBank product that is ideal for my Tomato Basics store.  It’s called How To Grow Juicy Tasty Tomatoes and tell you the truth, I could never find anything that targeted elsewhere. For illustrative purposes, I’ve linked to the actual content page on my store. I have already received several hops on the page without even trying; no sales yet but not really in any hurry as far as this project is concerned.

My objective is to use the Tomato Basics concept not only to create a successful niche store, but as a pilot program for future BANS sites I build with the software license. I must say however, after viewing some examples of advanced BANS sites using specially developed Wordpress themes, my future stores will most likely incorporate these as well. But first things first.

Build A Niche Store (BANS) Resources

Another headline attention-grabber? No, not really. Just want to give a bit of a BANS heads-up to those of you building niche stores with BANS software for the first time. I know from experience how frustrating it can be from a start-up perspective so have a look at this; two blogs of note that I have found to be very helpful. First, click over to Build A Niche Store Blog where you will find a plethura of expert “how to” posts and second, Niche Store Strategies, a comprehensive guide to building a niche store empire.

These specialized blogs along with an excellent BANS member forum will keep you in a solid learning mode. That in fact, is one of the the things I like most about BANS. You’ll pick up some valuable skills just by following some step by step instructions from other users willing to share their knowledge.

Check Your Tomatoes for Fresh Content

Don’t mind the headline, that’s just me being mindful of the fact that I need to add fresh content to my Tomato Basics BANS store. Now if the search engines want to make something out my headlines, well, that’s okay too.

Last week I talked about adding color to the barren BANS template. This week the focus is on fresh content and no matter what you hear out there in website-building land, content is always king. Admittedly, there’s not much content to speak of right now on this basic tomato emporium, but that is about to change. By the way, if you’re wondering “Why Tomatoes?”, I did cover that in an introductory post here. There is another reason however and, let’s just say that tomatoes are deep rooted in my family’s history. We’ll perhaps cover that story in a future edition.

For the record, today I published what I will refer to as ‘Tomato Basics Briefings’ on two pages of the new BANS store; Beefsteak and Brandywine. I also figured out how to use HostGator to upload images to my BANS site — it’s a snap!

Oh yes, and don’t forget to check your tomatoes for real — all the more reason to grow your own.

A Splash of Color for Tomato Basics

The Build A Niche Store software is truly remarkable from an e-commerce perspective. However, the templates that come with the package are really bland. So today we’ll ad some color to the aforementioned TomatoBasics.com website. Believe me, having an SEO-friendly site like the ones BANS helps you create is worth the trade-off and besides, you’ll easily pick up some skills by following the user’s manual and online member guides.

So the theme is obviously tomatoes and thus we want to add some tomato-ey color. No problem. All I did was log onto the BANS member forum where there is a handy Template Guide. I found the tutorials on backgrounds and sidebar modifications, got my color-picker code and modified the template. Done.

Your Basic BANS Update; Boring

Back in the early days of my sales training, we’re talking way back, I recall sales guru, Brian Tracy reciting a line that somehow stuck with me all these years. It goes like this: “The basics are boring, but the results are beautiful.” I’m sticking with that mantra for now as I build my first BANS site.

The first bit of advice I can give you if your building an eBay Affiliate Store using BANS is by all means, follow the installation and user manuals. Read through them entirely prior to taking your first steps. Unless of course, you are a professional website developer, in which case, you wouldn’t be reading this. Suffice to say, any deviation from these well-organized BANS manuals and you will find yourself in head-scratcher mode.

Yesterday was a good day on the store-building front. Referring to Lesson 3, Page 9 of the user manual, ‘Setting Up Your Store’, I successfully integrated my eBay categories and listings for Tomato Basics. I had accomplished this task previously however, this required some tweaking. I also added several content pages (no actual content yet), as well as some content for the home page.

I know the store still looks very bland and I make no apologies for this. I could say that I’m sticking with my ‘basic’ theme and get away with that. However, I am looking at different template options and will decide at some point whether to outsource or build that part of the store in-house.

First BANS Site Up and Running

After some toiling with domain, hosting and FTP integration, I am happy to report that I now have my first BANS site up and running; albeit in its most basic stage of development. Perhaps that is befitting a store named Tomato Basics.

The domain at http://tomatobasics.com was available and we thought the name was rather catchy plus, I’ve gotten good feedback from people. For the record, I’m using GoDaddy domains, HostGator hosting and CuteFTP as recommended by the BANS developers. I also registered a cheap .info domain; TomatoBasics.info which links to the store at the .com.

Admittedly, the Tomato Basics store doesn’t have any content pages written yet. This will change. All you’ll see currently are the eBay listings that BANS inserts once hosting and FTP are set up. Once that is accomplished, BANS is as advertised, “easy to use” and I do highly recommend the software for those who want capitalize on the eBay Partner Network.

The store itself is the brainchild of my girlfriend and I as we were tossing domain names around just on a whim. Not giving any regard to the niche per se, I think it’ll make a good pilot program for testing the functionality of the BANS software.