The top priority after getting a sale on eBay is to make sure the customer has every opportunity to go to your own website to buy in the future. I think of it like me standing on the roof of my business yelling, ?GET OVER HERE!!? I'm subtle, I know? You want them to never even think about going back to eBay to buy from you again. To take a term from Andrews ?H3' system, we want to HIDE them away from eBay.



There are lots of ways to do this, but here are a few of my favorites.

eBay E-mail

Make sure you modify and brand every email that eBay sends on your behalf. eBay sends several emails out on your behalf after a sale, and you can customize each of them. A couple examples of outgoing emails from eBay are the ?winning Bidder Notification' and the ?payment reminder?.

Three things I add to every outgoing email from eBay are a personalized message from me, my store logo, (for branding), and my business URL - any and every place I can in each email. Yes, you can customize and go crazy with this type of branding.

On The Product

Here is another great chance to direct a customer to your website, right on the product. I sell both digital downloads as well as physical information products and I make sure my website URL is all over them.

In my e-books I make sure my website URL is at the bottom of the front cover as well as in the ?footer' of every page within the e-book.

On my physical products I make sure my website URL is on the front cover of the manuals and even the front cover of the CD or DVD cases. Go crazy and even put them on every CD and DVD you send out.

On The Shipping Box

Even the package you ship the product in should feature your website URL. I want every postal employee to see it as well as the customer. I print my website URL right on the shipping label, but you could also do a bright sticker on the box to achieve the same trick. Most office supply stores sell labels that you can run through an inkjet or laser printer. If they're color, so much the better.

So, those are some of the ways I ?hide' customers away from eBay. Look through your business and get creative, there are so many ways to get your customer familiar with who you are and where you want them to go, to buy from you again.

Never send repeat customers back to eBay, the eBay and PayPal fees are too high to sustain that method in many cases, and besides, directing customers back to eBay simply encourages them to shop around on price, when usually they're not even thinking about that. Provide an excellent experience on the first sale, and they'll keep coming back to your website ? IF they know where to find it. Never assume any customer knows what your website is. You can never over-promote it.