Auction 2 Post Review

eBay Monetization

As many of you know I have been building niche sites for years with a lot of success, particularly in the automotive industry, but somehow I have always strayed from the eBay monetization plan. I think it was laziness, stubbornness, and other excuses because I definitely knew about it and how great ebay has worked for some of my friends.

Past eBay Success

Finally over this past week I was talking to a friend and he was ranting about having amazing success with the eBay Partner Network with PHPBay sites for about a week to 15 days after launch when suddenly they would get “nuked.” He seemed very frustrated and asked me to look at it.

PHPBay Footprint

My friend has been consistently been pulling in $xxx monthly though eBay partner network over the past year and a half working with PHPBay. He has noticed that it has been increasingly hard to get his sites indexed. Though I have never used PHPBay, I took a look at his site and after a quick peek at his code and a quick Google search it was apparent he had a footprint problem. Lets face it PHPBay has 1,000s of users and the majority of them are newbies using the basic template so you can bet Google has figured out which sites are generated via PHPBay.

The footprint is easy to find. Most (if not all) PHPBay sites have one of the following footprints:

• every thumbnail is url/images/e/*.jpg
• <div><table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="5"> <tr> …
• “Powered By PHPBay”
• Or a site with information displayed in a table format, whos continually changes.

These footprints pose a problem, if you want to continue to be profitable in the eBay business you need to get away from this footprint. This means writing your own code to interact with the eBay API.

How to Eliminate this Footprint

If you want to eliminate this nasty footprint without programming this leaves you with virtually no options until now! Enter Auction2Post. This unique plug-in goes above and beyond the plug-ins that are currently offered.

Originally when I saw the Auction2Post WordPress plug-in I was a bit skeptical. I was really torn on what to do. Build my own software using the eBay API and invest 40+ hours figure it out or buy a $99 product (Actually $79 – $20 off coupon with code: D2A94ABA36) which might already do what I needed. Finally I decided for $99 is the same as about 2 hours of my time. So I jumped in and bought it.

Auction2Post – the Perfect eBay Plugin

Boy am I glad I went with Auction2Post. This plug-in does everything and more than I would have built for myself. Even better it completely blows PHPBay out of the water in nearly every aspect and it just is still in the 1st product release!

See PHPBay has quite a few limitations but its biggest limitation is its FOOTPRINT! There are thousands of users using PHPBay to develop eBay based sites and you bet Google has figured this out. Go ahead use PHPBay, I don’t care get your site nuked like what my friend experienced.

Auction2Post – Key Features

The key point where Auction2Post stands out is it actually uses the API to pull all of the information from relevant eBay items and builds WordPress posts based on a template YOU DEFINE! On top of that, it caches the images, to help reduce your foot print! The use of template tags allows new users to advanced users to make very dynamic websites. (Available Template Tags Below)

This gives you ultimate flexibility when it comes to designing your site the way you want. Auction2Post was built with customization in mind. Want to use a magazine theme? You can do that with Auction2Post because it utilizes WordPress custom fields! Want to display auctions in your sidebar, do it with custom fields. This feature alone brings Auction2Post to the forefront of the pack. (Custom Tag Area Screenshot Below)

Finally, Auction2Post features an automation system! That’s right, not only do you get content that makes you money but it will populate automatically. Set It and Forget It! Auction2Post will continue to deliver you with high quality niche specific content, this on top of all the other features makes Auction2Post an amazing software investment. (Screenshot Below)

Potential Improvements

Though the Auction2Post plugin is nearly a perfect dream for an advanced user there are a few things I would like to see included. The first of which is a countdown timer to display how much time is left in the auction.

Next I would like to see a feature which used a widget to pull auctions into your sidebar. That would be great for a basic user.

Finally I would like to see auto-formatting of eBay auctions. The template system is great, but it could use a couple improvements like the ability to add images throughout the content and not just above it or below it. The good news it this is planned for the next version!

Future Upgrades

Though there is room for improvement, I am positive the Auction2Post team will continue to upgrade this plugin to make it even better than it currently is. All future upgrades are included with your purchase which is great. So if I was using PHPBay and having any success I would get in on the ground floor with Auction2Post and loose the footprint. Best of all you can use the plugin on unlimited domains!

Outstanding Support

Finally Auction2Post has a stellar support team which you can always reach on the forums or via AIM. Raido does a great job helping new users get the plugin integrated into their site.

Closing

All in all, I would highly recommend the Auction2Post plugin to anyone who is interested in using the Ebay Partner Network to make money. It is the best longterm solution from both an SEO perspective and a customization perspective.

If you have tried the plugin, I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Tagged as: auction2post, eBay Partner Network, make money online