Who Else Has Had Just About Enough of eBay?
Is it just me or is anyone else getting to the point where they couldn't care less what eBay do or say, I have pretty much lost ALL respect for them, their company and their network. All we have seen since ePN took over the eBay affiliate program is changes, of course no one likes change and everyone expected some degree of change through the transition from CJ/PJN to ePN. But that was over 18 months ago and still we are seeing changes which require affiliates to jump through hoops left, right and center just to prevent your account from being expired, a threat which we seem to see a lot lately around ePN.
Why do eBay do this? They're a big company with power and they can!!
The next time you are sitting worrying about your account being expired remember this, affiliation is about a partnership between the affiliate and the network/merchant, it's a two way relationship in which both parties equally have the right to scrutinise one another. It's becoming increasingly clear to me that eBay don't want, need or care about their affiliates so why on earth are we continuing to pander to their every request AND send them traffic?
Lets Look Closer:
Okay so the eBay affiliate program, by my own admission, converts well on affiliate sites but that aside, what do ePN really give us?
- Regular changes to suit themselves causing us A LOT of extra and uneccessary work
- Unclear and questionable reporting statistics
- Regular threats of expirey
- A lack of decent communication and clarity
Do we really want to continue partnering with eBay? Isn't it about time we EXPIRED THEM?! Don't forget to retweet and share with your friends!
Thoughts below please!
I have had enough of them as well, but as long as they continue to deposit money into my bank account I’ll put up with it. But I’ve been focusing more on building amazon and adsense sites.
Amen, Ben! I have a couple of EPN sites that bring in about $200 a month, and I’m just going to let them stand as-is. I’ve decided to build no more new EPN sites personally. The drama and fear is just too much for me.
There are far too many companies with affiliate programs at Linkshare, Amazon, CJ, Shareasale, and others that offer higher commissions, greater transparency, and actual RESPECT for their affiliates.
Yep, I think it’s time we expired EPN. That might get their attention.
I agree with being entirely fed up with EPN and constantly having to mount defenses against my “partner”. However, I’ll continue building EPN stuff. I’m just going to make darn sure that I limit my sites/pages to niches where I can easily replace eBay listings with Amazon via PhpZon and ReviewAZON. i.e. I’ll only do EPN where the niche is strong on Amazon, as well.
That, for instance, would rule out collectibles, autos and the like. It just adds another filter in the niche finding process.
Ben,
I’m right there with you! I’ve got two BANS sites left, and I am going to completely delete BANS from them and install some other platform. To heck with eBay.
I’ve been wondering why they would do their most recent round of hoop jumping. I can understand, up to a point, but I find it hard to believe that they are paying people to scrutinize sites the way they soon will be (do determine if we have made their most recently requested changes).
As much as I hate to think it, I can’t help but wonder if part of the reason is to get more sales without paying out affiliate commissions. There is sure to be a fairly large collection of sites that don’t make the required changes, either out of ignorance (they don’t know about the required changes, and, to be honest, I wouldn’t know about them if not for blogs like yours and Mark’s, because I certainly didn’t get an email from them about this), or out of forgetfulness (people forget which sites have eBay auctions on them, so don’t make the changes).
Just imagine how many accounts will be terminated, but the eBay listings remain on the sites and blogs. That’s a whole lot of free traffic that eBay will no longer have to pay for.
Rochelle
It’s ridiculous to be sure. If only Amazon had a cookie that lasted for more than 24 hours. Could we beg?
.-= Jake´s last blog ..Mayweather vs. Pacquiao Drug Testing Rumors Emerging =-.
Hey look. I made $56 with EPN yesterday. It ain’t much, but I’m just not ready to give it up. It buys a few groceries, maybe lunch and some gas (petrol) to help me get around. Even though I wouldn’t be risking a whole lot by dumping EPN, it all adds up. A few bucks here, a few bucks there, and darned if I can’t pay my mortgage too, and a few other bigger nuts, because some of my stuff is covered by EPN.
I’m gonna ride EPN until I get fired. Maybe there’ll be days in the future when I don’t even have to think about them. Wouldn’t that be nice? Or is that just wishful thinking?
Do you know what, when I saw the email that Wade sent out the other day, my first reaction was, ‘ whatever, I cant be bothered!’ Every so often we need to change this or do that. The main thought in my mind at the time was, ‘they are not the only ones out there.’
.-= Gerri´s last blog ..Personal Tax Refunds DIY | New Zealand =-.
I stopped building anything NEW for eBay right after QCP came around… which eventually turned into removing ePN from almost ALL of my sites to find other pastures.
This last change, in my opinion, is to allow them to dump everyone who just left some residual links around (like mine), but has no intent of doing anything more with eBay. No intent on changing the links, etc.
I KNOW they could just drop everyone… but making the 302/301 BS required, they can fall back on their policies and use that as the reason.
Cmon… if the policy has been around forever (As they say in the blog post) why choose to enforce it now versus 1 or 2 years ago? Because they found a loophjole to eliminate MORE affiliates who are getting their traffic!
When QCP came around, I was told privately from an eBay employee (As were many of you) that eBay WANTED & EXPECTED to eliminate 50-70% of their affiliates, since they figured they would get that traffic anyhow.
This is just another step in the process IMO
Potentmix is right on… Drive or ride it until it ends. For me, the gas just got to be more than I wanted to pay!
Mark
I’m with you, mostly, on this matter. I will keep ebay on my sites that have it via phpBay. But I’m dumping it on my BANS sites because 1) BANS is no longer supported by Adam and Kelvin, so there is no official fix for the problem, and 2) the fix that Sanjay and Tao came up with broke my sites.
What’s sad is that, every time I log into my eBay EPN account, I fully expect it to be terminated. That’s no way to live as an affiliate.
The more I think about this, the more upset I get. Unless I completely missed it, I have not received a single notification about the June deadline, or what I’m supposed to do. No emails sent to me at home, no messages from within my eBay EPN account.
Rochelle
Yup.. nothing in my inbox either Rochelle – but it may have hit a spam filter. A LOT of the ePN email goes right into spam for some reason…
I subscribe to their rss and saw it in my reader.
M
I’m pretty sure there wasn’t an email. I check my spam box before deleting stuff, and there hasn’t been anything in there. Plus, if I recall correctly, every email that they send is also duplicated as a message from within our EPN accounts. That seems pretty underhanded…
Ben, I’m with you. I have less and less to do with eBay and will eventually dump them. Unfortunately I still have a few sites that depend on them. I also have not received any notification about any changes. I think eventually they will either put themselves out of business or bring in some new faces to turn it around. I am not planning on staying around to see what happens.
.-= Diane´s last blog ..Childrens Wheelbarrows – Reviews =-.
@ All -
Well I kind of expected that response to be honest, and I think the general consensus is that eBay suck!! I’m with a lot of you in that I will continue to show eBay ads on sites which are earning money. I haven’t built a single ePN site in a long time and I don’t intend to either!
As many of you have pointed out, there has been no email notification about this in our inboxes, at least I haven’t recieved anything anyway.
I have commented on MANY blog posts at ePN and never had a single one published, they have never been rude or agressively written either, just truthful. I know alot of other people who have never had their comments published or answered as well. If a company selectively publishes comments as much as they do, just to make them appear in a better light, then that must tell us all something.
Anyway, rant aside, thank you all for sharing your true feelings about ePN.
Ben,
I’m with Rochelle, Mark et al with one exception. I have a couple decent performing sites and a BANS site that does nearly nothing.
You know how much time I’m going to spend with the 301/302 issue? Am I going to hunt through the BANS or EPN forums to find a fix?
Nope! I’m going to delete the site from my EPN and then delete the domain from my hosting and Godaddy accounts.
Problem solved.
The rest of my development has been for every other network on the planet anyway.
Ebay sucks and this WILL come back to haunt them.
On a lighter note, I did enjoy telling a smart ass EPN customer service rep to enjoy their next employment opportunity when this one ends.
LOL!
Jeff
Jeff,
You’ve just made me laugh on an otherwise miserable Friday with those comments :D and I mean laugh out loud!!
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head, I’ll make the changes to my last few top performing ePN sites but that’s all, they can stuff the rest.
Ben
Always glad to “give back” to the community…LOL!
.-= Jeff Jones´s last blog ..How Do You Make Money From Your List? =-.
Hiya
My sites are made with bans and phpbay, but I have bought reiewazon and am just figuring it out. I am just going to leave my epn sites running and concentrate on amazon and adsense. I am thankful to the BANS software and to EPN for getting me started in affiliate marketing. My income from it is a pittance at the moment, but it doesn’t matter I am enjoying it on the whole. Ebay is now a pain and like Rochelle I fully expect to log in one day and find myself expired.
Thank goodness for all the help over at the BANS forum from all the great people such as Mark, Sonjay and Tao etc who help out us novices, and all the other genorous folk who point us in the direction of such good quality, helpful forums like this.
There is a mountain of good karma being built up.
.-= Paul´s last blog ..Lay For The Day 26th May =-.
Hi Paul,
Yep BANS helped my get started as well and I loved the platform at the time, it’s a shame it didn’t progress and get updated. But all credit to Adam and Kelvin, they really kick started the trend a few years back and a lot of people forget that.
You’re right, there is still a good community around Niche Site Building.
Ben
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