eBay, the world's most popular auction site, continues to grow at a rapid rate around the world. Some recent news reports claim the site signs up 110,000 new users per day worldwide. Its affiliate program — managed through Commission Junction — was also one of the darling affiliate programs for many years. Keyword: was.
If you peruse eBay's Affiliate boards today, you won't hear many people crowing about the thousands of dollars they're making using one of the many tools used to promote eBay and drive new registered users (referred to as ACRU's) to the site. Even a look at eBay's Affiliate Best Practices page will show the same four "success stories" that were there two years ago.
Users on the Affiliate discussion board have repeatedly asked for new success stories only to be disappointed. The overall sentiment among eBay affiliates is that decreasing returns are a combination of market saturation with affiliates using paid search, organic search tricks and other tools and the number of registered eBay users. It's become difficult to drive new registrations, which result in the real payoff for affiliates.
To add insult to injury, eBay changed the reward structure of its affiliate program in October 2005, which marks the only real change to the program since we wrote about it last year.
Before the changes were made, eBay paid a minimum of $20 for every new active user registration (when you had 1-499 monthly active registrations) and a maximum of $45 (when you had more than 7,500 monthly active registrations). For bids/Buy-It-Now the minimum payout was 0.10 per bid/BIN (1-999 bids) and a maximum of $0.25 per bid (more than 100,000 bids).
The new structure now pays $12 for 1-499 ACRU's per month, $16 for driving between 500-2,999 ACRU's and $20 for each ACRU above 3,000.
Also, instead of the flat-fee paid out in the past for BINs and bids, eBay switched to a revenue structure where affiliates earn between 40 and 70 percent of eBay's Revenue (not item sale price) on Winning Bids or Buy It Now (BIN) transactions within seven days of an affiliate action, according to eBay.
While this shift would seem to now reward affiliates for higher bids instead of new users registration, the apparent glut of items that go unsold or are sold at low prices often negates those potential earnings. Sellers have told ECommerce Guide they are seeing fewer sales and/or lower selling prices across the board — a trend eBay denies.
One tactic affiliates should look into to offset declining referrals, however, is to promote eBay's growing user base overseas. As we reported during eBay Live last year, eBay's international sites are growing at a rapid pace and don't have the market saturation among users that its U.S. site already has. EBay offers its affiliate program for eBay Italy, eBay UK (which is seeing 105 percent year-over-year growth), eBay France (with a 160 percent year-over-year growth rate), eBay Germany, eBay India and eBay Australia through Commission Junction. The referral and bid fees vary per site.
Devin Comiskey is the Managing Editor of ECommerce-Guide.com.
Affiliate Week Update - eBay Affiliates