Most people know the popular online auction site ebay, as a great place to find bargains and sell their items. Also, thousands of internet entrepreneurs have staked their claim on ebay, launching numerous types of businesses with varied success. It's the keen web business person though, that knows the hidden benefit of using ebay to build a large list of eager to buy customers.



With the sheer volume of shoppers that browse the multitude of categories and

listings, ebay has proven itself to entrepreneurs to be the place to

.  Ebay is one of the most visited

websites in the world and the massive amount of traffic doesn't appear to be

showing any signs of slowing down.  Quite the contrary.  Statistics

show the cost effectiveness of a single ebay ad to be hard to beat anywhere else

on the internet.

You might be wondering; "How can I turn all this potential traffic into loyal

customers and subscribers to my newsletter?"  The answer can involve

several different aspects of ebay.  To complement it's large amount of

members, ebay has various methods of gaining newsletter subscribers.  Let's

examine a few of them.

One of the most versatile components of ebay is

that ebay provides to all it's members.  The About Me

Page is a special page that you can use to describe yourself, hobbies,

interests, and best of all, promote your other businesses.  One effective

tool to include on your About Me Page is a newsletter op-tin box that will allow

visitors to enter their name and email address to get something from you. 

This can be a free ebook, a report, or file download.  In fact, may

different things can be offered to visitors to get them to opt-in to your

mailing list.  An opt-in box can be obtained from any free or paid auto

responder service.  Additionally, you can also provide external links to

your other websites in an attempt to entice them to buy or participate in the

site. This activity is prohibited in your auction listings.

Another effective lead capturing method is to open an

and provide newsletter sign up boxes on your store pages.  Ebay

provides an easy to use newsletter subscription widget called a promotion box

that will make adding sign up forms to your store easy.  You can also add

your subscription box code by choosing a text promotion box and pasting in the

code from your auto responder.  An ebay store also lets you create custom

pages that work similar to an About Me Page.  They are more versatile and

are great ways to promote your websites, newsletter or items you are selling.

One of the most effective methods of getting newsletter subscribers via ebay is

through your regular listings.  Many sellers list lower priced items like

ebooks, reports or information products at .99 cents or less in hopes of making

a lot of sales.  More sales means more opportunities to get

subscribers.  Here's how.  Ebay allows you to make your products

available via digital download.  What this involves is uploading your

product to some web space in zip format, and when you list the auction, you

specify the item as digital download and provide the file location.  When

the buyer makes the purchase, they are automatically redirected to your file

location and their download begins.  The way to get subscribers is when you

prepare the zip file, add a "read me" file or "instructions".  In this file

you can direct them to your website to get a free bonus for subscribing to your

newsletter.  You can also make html or pdf files with your links built

right in.