eBay About Me page - Is it ok to lure buyers in by offering discounts?

I know you can put a link to your personal online store in the About Me page but I was wondering can you direct people to your About Me page in the product description saying you offer discount prices in that link?

Hi enforcrr,

Great question! When directing people to your About Me page in your eBay listings, you need to be REALLY careful and discreet.

The short answer to your question is no, you can't direct people to your About Me page by saying that you offer discount prices there, since eBay considers that to be soliciting an offsite sale/transaction from your listing, as well as fee circumvention, by trying to drive traffic to your website through your About Me page instead of through selling the item in your listing.

In fact, you can't say anything remotely about people being able to buy products by going to your About Me page, unless you want eBay to pull down both your About Me page as well as all of the offending listings, and slap a pretty unpleasant List Practices violation on your record.

In order to get people to visit your About Me page and thereby find a link to your website, you usually have to get pretty creative. It usually doesn't cut it to just let people know that they should visit your About Me page, or even to tell them to visit your About Me page to find out more about your business. No one really cares about that, unfortunately.

Here are some good "hooks" you can use instead:

"Make sure to visit my About Me page -- you just might find some freebies there!"

"If you'd like 10% off your next eBay purchase from me, you'll need to visit my About Me page to get the coupon code!"

"I'm running a contest this month, where you can win a free ________. If you want a chance to win, you have to visit my About Me page and then email me the secret code listed on there!"

I hope that helps!

Erika G.
Theauctionguru

Nice tips there by Erika!

I actually generate traffic to my Me Page by keeping all relevant information there, such as shipping and so on, then by directing people there via a custom menu in the listing, so people don't even know they are being directed to the Me Page.

To the user, they are just selecting the tab on the listing that they wish to view information on. The only information I include on the listing itself, apart from plenty of cross marketing information, is the basics that are specific to that particular product.

As for being able to post a link to your own site on the Me Page, well the jury on that is still out, and perhaps Erica may well be able to shed some light on this. I've seen seen plenty of examples of where people are linking direct to their own site, yet when ever I try to confirm the use of these two links they allow, I get all sorts of different stories, just depending on who I get answering the question.

I'be been told yes, you can do that, then when talking to another to confirm that response, I've been told no you can't post any link that will take others to a site where you are selling products. I've even been told that I couldn't use either of these links to promote a Facebook or Myspace page as these could then be used to direct users to a site that is designed to circumvent eBay fees.

I have absolutely no idea what on earth you are allowed to put there, if anyone does, then please share it, because I am just getting more confused I talk to eBay about the subject.