Ebay Affiliate Scam

[Design Agent]

Hypothetical Situation:

If I had a site selling a product and the visitors came to my site to buy, but were sent to Ebay (using an affiliate ID). They then bought the same product from MY ebay auction rather than from my site.

I would earn the referral commission everytime someone registered thus getting paid twice and effectively earning money for free (this is still in ebays interest as it doesn't actually take from ebay - ebay want new signups for all the repeat purchases really).

Does anyone know if this is legitimate or a against their TOS? If not, then whether it actually works?

[Solicitors Mortgages]

is that assuming
a) they are not already registered on ebay?
b) they want to register?

if i came to your site to buy a product...
and you referred me to ebay....erm......seeya <click>

apart from that...you cannot stop people visiting your site...signing up on ebay
and buying whatever they want to...from whoever.

[Design Agent]

if i came to your site to buy a product...
and you referred me to ebay....erm......seeya <click>


Your right of course, but then you know what ou are doing and there are millions out there that dont.
I'm not really considering doing it, I think you need big traffic numbers to make it worthwhile, but I just noticed that it could probably work

[haystack]

I don't think it would be a problem. You may be able to make more money off the affiliate commissions than fulfilling orders in some industries.

The only drawback is the relationship you potentially lose with the customer. They're not as attached to you as they are to Ebay if they end up purchasing through the auction site. Would you want prospective customers to think of you or Ebay first the next time they need what you sell?

[Design Agent]

True, but you do also get a commission per bid and those customers are likely to buy competely unrelated items

[chachi]

the commision is only .10 on sales made. Don't plan on making it rich on sales referrals. The money to be made with ebay is referring new registrations.

[Ben5082]

I believe ebay's tos says you aren't allowed to promote your own auctions