About the Store Referral Credit

About the Store Referral Credit
Store Referral Credit Requirements
Steps for Store Sellers to qualify for the Store Referral Credit
How the Store Referral Credit is calculated
Reasons for not receiving a Store Referral Credit
Credit for multiple item listings
Where Store Referral Credits appear on your monthly invoice
Tips for using printed marketing materials

About the Store Referral Credit
The Store Referral Credit is a credit that Store sellers are eligible to receive when they successfully drive buyers to their eBay Store directly from a location outside of eBay. With Store Referral Credit, eBay will give you a 75% credit on your Final Value Fees when your marketing efforts generate sales of your Store Inventory format listings. Here's how it works:

You promote your eBay Store or your Store Inventory items from locations outside of eBay, such as other Web sites, emails to buyers, print advertisements, and so forth.
A buyer sees your promotion and goes directly to your eBay Store or one of your Store Inventory items.
The buyer purchases one of your Store Inventory items.
On your monthly invoice, you are charged the regular Final Value Fee, but you also receive a Store Referral Credit. Like the Final Value Fee, the Store Referral Credit is based on the final value of the item. The Store Referral Credit is equal to 75% of the standard Final Value Fee.

Store Referral Credit requirements
To qualify for the credit, a sale must meet all of these conditions:

The buyer must go to your eBay Store directly from a location outside of eBay
For Web sites, "outside of eBay" means that ebay.com does not appear in the URL.

You can direct buyers to any of the following parts of your Store:
- Your Store's main page
- Your About Me page
- Your internal search page
- A Store category page within your Store
- A search results page within your Store, based on keywords you've set
- A custom or landing page you have created within your Store
The buyer must go to your Store because of your promotion outside of eBay
eBay's system interprets any of the following events as caused by your off-eBay promotion:
- Buyers type in the Web address (URL) to your Store in their Web browser.
- Buyers click a saved bookmark to your Store in their Web browser.
- Buyers click a link to your Store that you've placed on another Web site or in an email. To notify eBay's system that your link led the buyer to your Store, you must add a referral code to the end of the URL (?refid=store or &refid=store, depending on which part of your Store you direct buyers to). Learn more about Store Referral Credit.
The buyer's Web browser must accept cookies
A cookie is a small text file placed by a Web site on a buyer's computer. eBay's system temporarily places a cookie on a buyer's computer to identify that the buyer came from an off-eBay promotion. However, some buyers configure their browsers not to accept cookies. In this case, eBay's system cannot track that a buyer came from an off-eBay promotion. Learn more about cookies.
The buyer must purchase the item during the same Web browser session used to enter your Store
If a buyer enters your Store but then closes their Web browser, the cookie eBay uses to track a promotion-driven sale will be deleted. In this case, eBay's system can no longer track that a buyer came from an off-eBay promotion unless the buyer again enters your Store from outside of eBay.
The item sold must be in Store Inventory format
Sales of auction-style and regular Fixed Price format items will not earn Store Referral Credits, even though these items appear in your Store.
Emailed links to buyers qualify for credit if there is a referring ID in the URL that you send to a prospective buyer
If a seller emails a buyer with a link to an item or search in a Store, you must add a referring ID code to the end of the URL (?refid=store or &refid=store, depending on which part of your Store you direct buyers to). Learn more about Store Referral Credit.

When you include a link to your eBay Store on other Web sites or anywhere online including emails, you must include a referral code at the end of the URL. The referral code tells eBay's system that a buyer came to your store from your Web site promotion outside of eBay. For example, if you include a link on another Web site to your Store's main page, the URL should include the referral code (shown in bold):

http://stores.ebay.com/yourstorename?refid=store

Here are some examples to illustrate these requirements:

Situation/Sequence of Events	Store Referral Credit?
Buyer goes to your Store by clicking on a link that you included on a non-eBay Web site. Buyer purchases one of your Store Inventory items.	Yes.
Buyer goes to your Store by copying and pasting a link (that includes the referral code) from a promotional email you've sent. Buyer buys one of your Store Inventory items.	Yes.
Buyer goes to your Store by clicking a link you've included on a non-eBay Web site. Buyer goes to the main eBay site and looks at other items. Buyer comes back to your Store. Buyer buys one of your Store Inventory items.	Yes. The buyer originally entered your Store from a location outside of eBay.
Buyer goes to the main eBay site from a link on a non-eBay Web site. Buyer views one of your auction-style listings. Buyer goes to your Store by clicking a link you've included in the listing. Buyer buys one of your Store Inventory items.	No. The buyer entered your Store from a location within eBay.
Buyer goes to your Store from a non-eBay Web site. Buyer shuts down his Web browser. Buyer starts his Web browser again. Buyer goes to the main eBay Web site. Buyer goes to your Store. Buyer buys one of your Store Inventory items.	No. The buyer originally entered your Store from a location outside of eBay, but shut down the browser, opened it, and entered your Store again from a location within eBay.
Buyer goes to your Store from a non-eBay Web site. Buyer goes to the main eBay site and looks at other items Buyer comes back to your Store. Buyer buys one of your items in Auction-style format.	No. The item sold is not in Store Inventory format.
Buyer goes to your Store from a non-eBay Web site. Buyer goes to another eBay Store. Buyer buys a Store Inventory item from the other Store	No. Neither you nor the other Store seller receives a credit because the buyer came from a promotion for your Store.

Steps for Store Sellers to qualify for the Store Referral Credit
Draw buyers to your eBay Store or your Store Inventory items by promoting them outside of eBay. For example, include a promotional message ("See more great items at my eBay Store!") and include your Store's URL (http://stores.ebay.com/yourstorename?refid=store) in email communications. In printed communications you can include your Store URL (stores.ebay.com/yourstorename) without the referral code to be eligible to receive the credit.

You can direct buyers to the following parts of your Store to qualify for the credit:

Your Store's main page
The item page of one of your Store Inventory items
Your About Me page
A Store category within your Store
A search results page within your Store, based on keywords you've specified
A custom page you have created within your Store

Learn more about creating links and qualifying for the Store Referral Credit.

How the Store Referral Credit is calculated
Like the Final Value Fee, the Store Referral Credit is based on the closing value of the item sold. It is equal to 75% of eBay's standard Final Value Fee.

For more information on the Stores Final Value Fees, see the Stores Fees page.

Note: For listings with multiple items, the credit will still appear as a single line in your monthly invoice ("Store Referral Credit"), even if more than one item is sold to a buyer.

Reasons for not receiving a Store Referral Credit
You did not receive a Store Referral Credit on an item for one or more of the following reasons:

The item sold was not in Store Inventory format. Items with other formats appear in your Store, but they do not qualify for the Store Referral Credit.
The buyer originally went to your Store or Store Inventory item from a location within eBay (such as from one of your auction-style listings) rather than from outside of eBay.
The buyer may have come to your Store from a link you posted on an off-eBay Web site or from an email. However, you did not include the referral code (?refid=store or &refid=store, depending on which part of your Store you linked to) in the URL of the link. When you place links on other Web sites, including the referral code is necessary to signal eBay's system that the buyer came from your promotion. Learn more about Store Referral Credit.
The buyer shut down his Web browser and started it again before purchasing your item. This may have canceled eBay's ability to track that the buyer came from an off-eBay promotion.
The buyer's Web browser settings do not allow cookies, which are small text files Web sites place on a buyer's computer to store information. eBay's system needs to place a temporary cookie on a buyer's computer to track that he came from an off-eBay promotion.

If you're still sure you should have received a Store Referral Credit for an item, you can contact us.

Credit for multiple item listings
You get a Store Referral Credit for each qualifying item, but this will appear as a single line ("Store Referral Credit") in your monthly invoice.

Where Store Referral Credits appear on your monthly invoice
The credit will appear as a "Store Referral Credit" in your monthly invoice, just below the "Final Value Fee" line for the item. You can also check your most recent account activity by selecting the Accounts tab of your My eBay page and clicking the "View account status" link. As soon as a buyer purchases a qualifying item, the Final Value Fee and Store Referral Credit for the item appear in the list of your most recent account activities.

Tips for using printed marketing materials

If you promote your eBay Store in printed materials, such as business cards, packing slips, or printed advertisements, continue to show the URL of your Store's main page (www.stores.ebay.com/yourstorename). You will only receive the credit if a buyer types in your Storefront URL. Typed in URLs to other pages in your Store or listings, will not qualify for the credit. You do not need to add the referral code described previously.

Users who see your promotion in printed materials will need to type the URL to your Store in their Web browser. eBay's system automatically detects when this happens and interprets the buyer as coming from your off-eBay promotion, thus making you eligible for the Store Referral Credit.

Note: If a buyer clicks a bookmark to your Store that they've saved in their Web browser, this will also make you eligible for the credit.

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