Since I recently found out that my WordPress eBay plugin BayRSS page has become outdated since the plugin author really isn’t supporting it anymore I’ve decided to explore some other eBay affiliate options for you (and for me)! Last time I checked the free options available for eBay plugins and affiliates store scripts weren’t that great – but that was probably 12-18 month ago. There have to be some decent free products out there by now!
The first ones I came across, and heard about late last year are from the Affomatic Network. They have 2 products available completely for free, and one is a WordPress plugin for blog posts and the other is for creating a standalone “eBay store” with no database required at all. Let’s check them out!
Affomatic Free WordPress Plugin Review
The Affomatic Free eBay WordPress plugin doesn’t cost a thing – all you have to do is “subscribe” to their affiliate mailing list to get the download link. I guess you just as easily unsubscribe after you get the download if you wanted. It’s pretty basic, a one file plugin install, and the readme file doesn’t even instructions – just the link to the download page. You place auctions on pages or posts by using the appropriate tag (listed on the setup page).
You get some pretty basic options, here’s what the setup screen looks like:
So you can control the number of auctions that display, one single category, the country, how to sort them, and that’s about it. You can’t display by zip code, or default category, multiple categories, and any of the other advanced options you might be used to with the pay-for eBay WordPress plugins. You want to see what the auctions look like when displayed? So would I, but when I installed it on this blog I didn’t get any no matter what keywords I used. Affomatic does have an examples site for this plugin, but the only page I could find auctions on was this page on Bonsai Training. The eBay auctions shown are in a 2-column style, something that’s not even an option in the free download plugin. If you have better results than I did, please comment below.
Affomatic Free eBay Store
The Affomatic Free eBay store is basically the same as my free niche store script, which originally was the 45n5 script that this is based on anyway, minus the amazon and youtube items that made it a “mashup”. It’s very basic and just about what you would expect for free. Once downloaded you just enter your eBay affiliate ID in the setup file and one set of keywords per line in the products file and you have an instant eBay store! I guess that’s all good and well if you have a way to drive traffic to it, but if you’re looking to get any kind of organic traffic or search engine listings – this script is not going to help you in any way shape or form. This is was the main reason I re-wrote the original 45n5 niche store script anway, so I could include a blurb of original content at the beginning of each page. It you could rewrite the template (like I did the original) I guess to do whatever you want, but just know that this thing out of the box is very VERY basic. I set up an eBay store here in about 5 minutes.
Both the WordPress plugin and eBay store are kinda cool at first glance, but after downloading and installing them I don’t think either one I’ll be utilizing personally any time soon. Try them both yourself and post back here what you thought! Click here to download Affomatic Free eBay Scripts.
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