Anything Points (AP) are an incentive eBay has created as a way for sellers to motivate buyers. An AP is worth one penny towards anything on eBay, including: fees, items, etc. Since it is a straight one-to-one trade (one penny from the seller to the buyer), there is no money "created" for this incentive.

The way it works is very simple. As a seller, you ad incentive to your item listings by offering so many APs per dollar of bidding. In other words, if you were to offer, say, one point per dollar spent and if the item ends at $6, the buyer gets six APs. The APs are only collected if the auction is paid via PayPal. When the APs are rewarded to the buyer, the seller is charged one penny per AP given.

I've been trying this out on my own auctions for about two weeks now. Adding the AP offer to your auction is easy: you log into the AP Offer Manager (via your seller screens) and choose how many to give per dollar and which auctions (or all) to ad them to. Easy!

Once the auction is over, if it is paid via PayPal, the APs are transferred (charged to you and given to the buyer).

During the past two weeks, I noticed a slight increase in the number of visitors to my auctions, but no noticeable increase in sales. I have, however, had a number of "thank you" notes sent to me by buyers who liked the little extra.

A couple of them said they "thought it was cool." Another said they purchased only because of the extra incentive (the item was identical to several others being sold, at the same price, etc.). One even said he thought I should "make a bigger deal of these Anything Points" in my auction listings.

So if your auctions aren't already strapped for profit and you have a little leeway to allow a few cents to go, Anything Points could be a great extra incentive. In my opinion, though, I don't think they're critical to success.