Tis the Season to Build a Niche Store
October 15, 2008 · Print Post
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Holidays are coming up and I have just finished creating 2 new sites, well old landing pages into sites. I also have been busy promoting some Halloween offers as well. The biggest aspect to marketing is to take advantage of the up and coming waves - the holidays. I built 2 new Build a Niche Stores for the upcoming holidays. I currently have a couple sites that use the Build a Niche Store platform and I am continuing to grow my BANS network.
I am doing this because last year, I did well and would like to see if I can surpass it. I think this year or the upcoming months it is more about sales than offers. Users are in a buying mode no matter how bad the economy, lesser gifts and presents maybe but they still buy. Promoting offers at this time can still be powerful but I do not think it will be as powerful as selling physical items.
So with my new BANS site up and running, I still need to create some content and graphics, there is a lot to be gained. It is very easy to create your own store and just implement ebay and amazon items within your layout. If you do not know what Build a Niche Store is:
Game Improvement Irons Store Build A Niche Store (BANS) is a store / website development platform which enables you to create content based sites that generate income through the eBay affiliate programs.
BANS has recently upgraded their platform and has a brand new interface. It has more of a web 2.0 taste to it but I think there is too much white space and the colors are too light. Whatever. Their new system also works with 2 affiliate services, PepperJam Network and the eBay Partner Network. They have 2 separate scripts for each network to better service you. I personally use PJN because of the reporting.
Creating your own store or even e commerce site is time consuming, why. There are a ton of people out there that want to sell their items and eBay is a trusted company and brand. If you started your own building the type of atmosphere, brand, recognition can be very time consuming. Having this on the fly makes life much easier and faster. I have talked about BANS in the past and my experiences even with video and an out of the box experience. With all that I still decide to create a Build a Niche Store because of it’s simplicity. I can pull thousands of products with just an eBay category number or a simple generic keyword.
Though BANS is already monetized to help you earn from the eBay network, you can monetize it even more with data feeds, widgets, Adsense, chitika, and so many other aspects. Just do not clutter your store, remember it is a virtual window to eBay - it acts as a landing page or bridge page before the consumer reaches ebay.
The system is literally a 5 minute install and make life simple. Again, I have about 4 and just about finished on 2 more. Once that is done promotion time for the sites.

































October 15th, 2008 5:22 pm
I have put up a couple BANS sites. You said it’s promotion time, care to share how you promote?
I understand if the answer is No.
October 15th, 2008 6:28 pm
Thanks for the tip about BANS! I hadn’t considered allowing someone else to create the shell of the store and just provide content for it, normally I promote things by manually crafting them. There is the disatvantage of flexibility with this method, but it sure saves time.
October 16th, 2008 11:54 am
> THC
the next couple post will be about optimizing and traffic gens
October 17th, 2008 1:31 am
I always wondered if users who came into a BAN through organic or paid search and found ebay auction ads in there repulsed. I say this because I remember a time when you would look up something on the search engines. You would come across a site in the SERP only to find it was cluttered with adsense ads. Do users feel the same about BANS? Just wondering.
October 20th, 2008 12:25 pm
Seriously… my bans stores have been doing decent but I hate depending on ebay for a number of reasons… what’s the deal with the PJN? I have never looked into it because I’m tired of upgrading stores and installing updates everytime ebay decides to make a change.
Do you recommend PJN?
October 20th, 2008 1:10 pm
I currently created my own Bans store and it generates several hundred clicks a month but no sales. I don’t get it.
And PJN Sucks!! I applied for the Ebay program over 3 months ago and my accounts is still pending its stupid.
October 20th, 2008 4:10 pm
> edgarreally? are you going through EPN because I had issues with EPN and everything became perfect with PJN - let me know what you need help with maybe I can be some of assistance
> kirby
i like pjn and their tracking, visually they have a great interface and have decent offers. with ebay and bans I love it because they have alonger cookie duration 45 days
October 24th, 2008 10:45 pm
Hello Ian,
I though PJN & EPN operated pretty much the same? When you talk cookies, do you mean that with EPN, a customer has 7 days to make a sale vs PJN having 45 days! ?
If that’s so why wouldn’t everybody jump ship and go to PJN? or am I not understanding. Thanks
October 27th, 2008 9:48 am
> Angela
they do but the cookie duration on PJN is longer (to your anolgy - yes). not sure maybe the brand of ebay is stronger than PJN? just not sure why other wont go to pjn - I know I switched once pjn had ebay on their network list
October 28th, 2008 10:39 am
Ian, you got to watch eBay with PJN, if you don’t make sales right away you get kicked from the network. That happened to me after two weeks but I have since joined directly with eBay partner program so I can use my Store Stacker system with Ebay and everything is going good so far.
October 28th, 2008 11:27 am
> Collin
you should not have gotten booted from PJN - they are not like CJ - where you do not make money and they boot you. let me know I know Kris and can probably help you out.
how is store stacker btw?
November 6th, 2008 3:14 am
Nice post and better blog. I’ve been searching around to see if anyone has messed with Store Stacker and found your BANS post. Has anyone here used Store Stacker? If so could you contact me i want an honest opinion thanks