Free Wordpress eBay Plugins

There are many ways to monetize your blog, but by adding eBay auctions to posts and pages you not only enhancing your content but adding value to your pages while making money. Conversion with eBay auctions is much easier because most people already have an eBay account and your post doesn't have to "convince" them to purchase something. In addition, if someone clicks an auction to check it out, but then proceeds to surf eBay for 1/2 an hour and then buys something else - you make money on that purchase!  Wordpress is the most popula blogging platform in the world - it makes sense that there are many free Wordpress plugins to help you add eBay auctions to your blog!

This section is for those of you that might not already be members of the eBay Partner Network (ePN). To sign up you have to have a working web site with valid content, but once approved you have the ability to add eBay auctions to your web site or blog. This can be very profitable because if someone clicks an auction from your web site and then ends up the winning bidder (or clicking Buy It Now) then you get 50% of the eBay commissions for the referral!

Let's say someone clicks from your blog to eBay and buys a $400 Blackberry. eBay charges 8.75% fee for the first $25 ($2.19) and then 3.5% of everything after that. That means the total fees to list that Blackberry would be at least $16.19 and that's before you add in any extended options they chose (like highlight, bold, pictures, etc). You get half those fees for your referral or $8.10 on just one item. eBay will also pay you $15-25 for each new eBay signup on top of referral fees. See how profitable using eBay auctions to monetize your blog can be?

TWP Auctions is a free eBay plugin for Wordpress that allows you to add auctions to blog posts and pages.  It is free, but I don't like the fact that it requires you to add PHP code to your pages to get the auctions to display.  You could use a Wordpress template I guess, but that's not something a lot of Wordpress bloggers do.  Also it displays a "powered by TWP auctions" after each auction block and the links to eBay aren't masked at all (it uses 'rover' links).  There aren't any advanced options for filtering auctions by sellerid, category, or zip code either.  You can download TWP auctions here.  Here's a picture of the auction display:

Open Auctions is a free Wordpress plugin that displays eBay auctions, but you have to add PHP code for this one to work as well. It seems pretty configurable and possibly hackable, and you even have pretty much complete control over auction display through CSS. You don't get a lot of configuration options though and it would be nice to sort by category, sellerid, and zip code. If you're good with PHP and CSS this plugin might be fore you.  You can download open auctions here. The pic below shows example auction results:

eBay Sales Lister is a free Wordpress plugin, but it doesn't allow you to make money from eBay auctions through ePN like the others, it simple lists your own auctions (or any auctions by sellerid) in the sidebar of your blog.  This can be very handy if you want to feature your own auctions if you post a lot of things on eBay.  I also listed this one because it's the only one that does any sidebar display with eBay auctions.  You can download eBay Sales lister here.  The pic below shows the example output.

Wordbay is a pretty full featured eBay Wordpress plugin, and it is surprising to find this many in a plugin that's free.  The first advantage it has over the previously mentioned plugins is that it has the ability to add auctions to your blog posts and pages by using a simple tag format: [wordbay]ipod[/wordbay].  It also has the ability to display auctions in multiple columns and you have total control over their look and feel through a CSS file you can edit.  The links to eBay are masked (no rover links), but they don't have any SEO qualities either.  You can't filter auctions by sellerid or zip code, but there is a unique category code by country feature.  Wordbay has the ability to "geotarget" auctions to a users local by the IP address of their computer.  So, users in the UK will see UK auctions, users in Australia will see Australian auctions, etc.  My biggest nag about Wordbay is that all the options are set on the plugin admin screen and there's no way to override them within the keyword tags for customize for particular posts or pages.  But hey, you can't complain about FREE, right?  You can download Wordbay here.  The picture below displays sample auction results from Wordbay.

WP ZinText is a quite different Wordpress eBay plugin because it doesn't display eBay auctions in posts or pages, it contextually links them!  You've probably seen services like Intellilinks, Kontera, etc. where they add distinctive double lined hyperlinks to a page after it loads.  Then when you mouseover the link a little bubble appears with a text ad.  WP ZinText works the same way, but it's a plugin that allows you to add your eBay Partner Network id in the admin setup screen, and then you add a list of both positive and negative keywords that the plugin should (and shouldn't) link.  Then when a visitor mouses over a link the bubble displays eBay auctions!  Actually it displays 9 thumbail auction pics (as pictured below) and one larger pic with description.  It even has a search eBay box.  This plugin is different, but could definitely be used in place of other (not very well paying) contextual link programs and you could use ZinText WITH other eBay plugins on the same blog!  You can download WP ZinText here.  The pic below shows what the popup bubble with sample auctions looks like.

Are you a blogger?  Do you use Wordpress?  My name is JTPratt and I have hundreds of free articles about Hacking Wordpress, Niche Stores and Scripts, and my latest series was about how to build a Wordpress Affiliate Store.  I blog about my sucess (and failures) hoping that you can learn from me experience.