Anyone tried Build A Niche Store (BANS) for eBay instead of Parking ?

[Seabass]

http://www.buildanichestore.com/

I like the concept b/c it is not dependent on Google or Yahoo for success, otherwise I would probably heap it in with all the other MFA programs out there now. This is based mainly on ebay

Has anyone tried this yet? It builds a store for eBay, plus you can add content and adsense, etc... It seems it would be a good solution on carefully chosen domains. On some domains, I can't see it working at all since they don't fit in tightly with any eBay auctions, but others are a perfect match. Many sites look good and surprisingly seem to give some real value to the surfer unlike the millions of crappy automated MFA sites.

Here are some examples I found:

http://www.turboguides.com/
http://www.usgoldcoinauctions.com/
http://www.homegrownsushi.com/

And, after doing a little research it appears many folks are making money doing this. How much? It is hard to say since the info. out there seems limited since not everyone wants to disclose their income, but a few have showed their earnings on various sites and blogs. I could see this working, but all of the working sites I have seen are based on really lame domains.

I just wonder if anyone has tried it on a great generic domain yet, or an expired domain with big traffic, and what were the results - especially compared to parking?
.

 

[soggyindo]

BANS-like sites, amazon etc have been my bread and butter, anything that gets any parking traffic for me gets a quick site. I use the ebay out of the box widgets though, which is fine.

What's good about them is that the longer you leave them, the better they do in the searches, rather than parking which often doesn't get indexed. And you can link to them, go back to them and improve when you feel like it as the stats suggest, etc.

They talk about this sort of thing much more on the "other" forum, a couple of guys helped get me started. I've thrown a bunch of the links, plugins etc. they told me to get on the Namehugger site - under "development".

You soon get a sense of the names that work best, too. I like the super generic terms (in whatever extension), but people report good results with all sorts.

 

[Seabass]

It's interesting how many folks are using this, but yet domainers and developers never really mix too much so not much has been said on NamePros or the other forums about this.

Thanks to bondjfp, Slick Domains, Synozeer, and soggyindo and others for taking the time to shed some light on this here. I'm encouraged by what I have seen and what is being said.

 

[Ben42]

I was looking for something like this, someone got a referral /

I'm putting some of my .pro sites to work, see if they can recoop some of those reg fee's. They are still pretty ugly, but I put the three together in less than 2 hours.
bass.pro, scuba.pro, parts.pro

cdboard,
You have a lot of pro's that would work well with this methinks.

 

[Seabass]

I was looking for something like this, someone got a referral /

I'm putting some of my .pro sites to work, see if they can recoop some of those reg fee's. They are still pretty ugly, but I put the three together in less than 2 hours.
bass.pro, scuba.pro, parts.pro

cdboard,
You have a lot of pro's that would work well with this methinks.

I signed up yesterday under the link sig of bondjpf shown on both page one and two - he's the one that got this thing rolling. I'm loving it so far. :bingo:
.

 

[Ben42]

I'm sure this has been said, but WHY couldn't they pick a better name. Change the Acronym! Maybe TANS - Try A Niche Store or MANS - Make a Niche Store or even CANS - Create a Niche Store

 

[Seabass]

BANS..... it sounds like a disease.

Everybody's got BANS!!! ...... BANS, BANS, BANS!!! Your brother, your mother, your sister too...... everyone's got BANS and so do you ! Oh Yeah !!! :lol:

Nevermind..... you would only understand if you have seen the movie Team America.

BTW.... I finished a site and I would swear the folks are clicking like crazy compared to when it was parked. Still waiting on income though, but it is still so early.
.

 

[bondjpf]

Let a few days go by.
Remember the cookie lasts for 7 days. They may click on your items and buy something completely different on ebay.

 

[Ben42]

It does look like people like to browse around the products if they are interested in what the site is selling...
eBay US Visits: 52 Clicks: 47

 

[advaita]

Do BANS sites do better than ordinary minisites or blogs with Ebay ads. on them with regard to attracting visitors ? And if so why ?

 

[Slick Domains]

Do BANS sites do better than ordinary minisites or blogs with Ebay ads. on them with regard to attracting visitors ? And if so why ?

BANS helps you build a site on your domain, but you still need to apply basic SEO strategies, link building, etc. Same as you would if you setup an eBay store some other way.

I've found BANS stores can make decent money with NO work other than installing and adding your eBay categories. With that said, you can make a lot more with some work or extra customization.

 

[vanh]

Can you add the list of Ebay sellers into preferences and have the search results from this list of sellers only?
Or can you limit the seatch results to brand new items?

 

[Seabass]

It does look like people like to browse around the products if they are interested in what the site is selling...
eBay US Visits: 52 Clicks: 47

Where are you finding the stats for visits?

I don't see that in the eBay reporting which is odd. It only gives impressions, clicks, earnings, and ppc as far as I can tell.

Maybe you are using your own server to count uniques?

Can you add the list of Ebay sellers into preferences and have the search results from this list of sellers only?
Or can you limit the seatch results to brand new items?

I think you can do this, if I remember correctly from the manual.

Confirm with bondjfp or Slick Domains, or one other regulars as they would know for sure.


On another note..... I already got some Adsense clicks in about one full day's time my first site went live, which is totaling about what I was making each day on the parked domain. It is just a low traffic (3-4 uniques a day) generic domain that perfectly matches a product.

So far so good.
.

 

[Ben42]

Where are you finding the stats for visits?

It's on the main Dashboard for me as soon as I login.

Program | Impressions | Clicks | EPC ($) | Earnings ($)

 

[Seabass]

It's on the main Dashboard for me as soon as I login.

Program | Impressions | Clicks | EPC ($) | Earnings ($)

Thanks Ben42 for the reply. Are you saying Impressions are Visits?

 

[Ben42]

My bad Seabass, yes I did write that incorrecty originally.

Your right, no visits.

 

[Slick Domains]

Can you add the list of Ebay sellers into preferences and have the search results from this list of sellers only?
Or can you limit the seatch results to brand new items?

j

Yes, you can add category ID's or you can add individual seller ID's. I think you can due multiple seller ID's only as well.

By the way, for anyone who has already purchased BANS, you'll want to check out these BANS Templates. You get 3 advanced templates that have built-in support for advertising.

I've begun using these on about 15 of my BANS sites and it has allowed me to make the site much more customized looking and add affiliate links or AdSense to the sidebars. The eBay income picked up a little, but the AdSense/affiliate income really made a difference.

 

[bondjpf]

You can get more stats by going to Reports, then By Campaign and then chose your campaign like EBAY US.
This will give you number of ACRUS(signups), Bids, winning bids, etc.

 

[Seabass]

You can get more stats by going to Reports, then By Campaign and then chose your campaign like EBAY US.
This will give you number of ACRUS(signups), Bids, winning bids, etc.

bondjpf, thanks for that. That is a better view of what is going on. But, they don't report the items sold? Seems like that would help eBay and the publisher out to know so as to focus better on high ratio click-to-sale items.

I sold two items on my first day up for more cash than what I make parking - but I don't know what items sold.

Also, is there a way to place regular links on the sites in the navigation bar to other sites I own?

Thanks in advance!

On to the next site........
.

 

[bondjpf]

Hi Seabass, to know items sold you need to go to Transaction Download and dowbload the txt or excel file .
Then you just copy the number after the Date Hour (12 digits) and insert it on the search box at ebay. It will tell you the item sold.
This is important so that you can identify which items are being bought and to plan for new stores based on those items. Some times a guy comes to my auto store and ends up buying a diamond...
I'm really glad you're making money. Keep it going

As for the links, you just need to go to the ADS section and insert the links where you choose fit.

 

[Seabass]

Thanks..... your help has been invaluable in getting me rolling.

Rep added.

 

[Basement]

Don't you think just building a quick site (1-2 pages) populated with PLR content would be a better idea. Monetization could be done using any network except AdSense (AdBrite - pays pretty well, BidVertiser, Adversal, Canep Media etc.)

 

[cache]

Do BANS sites do better than ordinary minisites or blogs with Ebay ads. on them with regard to attracting visitors ? And if so why ?

I doubt unless BAN is contributing some contents

 

[Seabass]

Don't you think just building a quick site (1-2 pages) populated with PLR content would be a better idea. Monetization could be done using any network except AdSense (AdBrite - pays pretty well, BidVertiser, Adversal, Canep Media etc.)

I'm sure many are doing this.

You have a point about using others besides AdSense. It would be nice if we support some of these other companies so that we have some strong, viable alternatives to G, Y, and M to counter the power that they have. G and Y are already putting the screws to us and eBay might too, so............ They squeeze the profits for their own means but in the end they are shooting the customers which are all us publishers.
.

 

[GoldenAppleCorps]

bondjpf,

Thanks for the comment and also the script to stop the logo having text all over the top of it. I'm no php genius so was wondering what I could do about that.

I've implemented what you suggested but now just get the image and no text. Is there an easy way to have the image with the text under it?

Nice site.
Hope those sales start rolling pretty soon.
Please keep us posted on your progress.

PS: To get rid of the text on the logo just go to header.php and replace this:

<div class="headerimg">
<h1 id="title">
<a href="<?php print URL_PATH."/";?>"> <?php print SITENAME."";?></a>
</h1>
</div>


with this:

<a href="<?php print URL_PATH."/";?>"><img src="<?php print URL_PATH."/themes/$temp/";?>images/logo.jpg" border="0"></a>

 

[bondjpf]

You need to insert your text on the logo.
It will look better than the normal text string.