Promoting your eBay Store in emails, printed materials, and other Web sites can really boost your sales. Now the rewards are even greater! For a limited time, 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:

1. 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, etc.
2. A user sees your promotion and goes directly to your eBay Store or one of your Store Inventory items.
3. The user purchases one of your Store Inventory items.
4. 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 roughly equal to 75% of the standard Final Value Fee.

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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 Web address (URL).
  
  You can direct buyers to any of the following parts of your Store:
  • Your Store's main page
  • The item page of one of your Store Inventory items
  • Your About the Store page (your About Me page)
  • A custom category page within your Store
  • A search results page within your Store, based on keywords you've set
  
  
• 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:
  • The buyer types in the Web address (URL) to your Store in their Web browser.
  • The buyer clicks on a saved bookmark to your Store in their Web browser.
  • The buyer clicks on a link to your Store that you've placed on another Web site. To notify eBay's system that your link drew 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.
  
  
• The buyer's Web browser must accept "cookies."
  A "cookie" is a small text file placed by a Web site on a user's computer. eBay's system will temporarily place a cookie on a user's computer to mark that the user came from an off-eBay promotion. However, some users configure their browsers not to accept cookies. In this case, eBay's system cannot track that a buyer came from an off-eBay promotion.
  
  
• The buyer must purchase the item during the same Web browser session used to enter your Store.
  If a user 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 user again enters your Store from outside of eBay.
  
  
• The item sold must be in Store Inventory format.
  Sales of Online Auction and regular Fixed Price format items will not earn Store Referral Credits, even though these items appear in your Store.

Here are some examples to illustrate these requirements:

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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 your Store's URL (stores.ebay.com/yourstorename) in email communications or in printed materials.

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 the Store page (your About Me page)
• A custom category within your Store
• A search results page within your Store, based on keywords you've specified

When you include a link to your eBay Store on other Web sites, you must include a referral code at the end of the URL. The referral code tells eBay's system that a buyer came 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 look like this, with the referral code (shown in bold) at the end:

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

Here's how the referral code should look for links to the different parts of your Store:

Learn more about how to create links to these pages and insert the referral code.

The more you promote your Store outside of eBay, the more you'll bring visitors to your Store and make yourself eligible for the Store Referral Credit. The rest is up to your visitors!

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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. 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.
  
  
• The buyer shut down their 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," small text files Web sites place on a user's computer to store information. eBay's system needs to place a cookie temporarily on a user's computer to track that they 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.

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Here's how you calculate your Store Referral Credit for the sale of a single item:

• If your item sold for $25 or less, your Store Referral Credit is 9.00% of the final sale price.
• If your item sold for more than $25, please follow the next steps:

1. Take 9.0% of the first $25 of your final sale price.
2. Take the additional amount from $25.01 to $100, and calculate 6.0% out of that amount. If your item did not sell for more than $100, please add your calculated results from steps 1 & 2. This will be your Store Referral Credit.
3. If your final value was more than $100, take that additional amount and calculate 3.0% of the remaining amount. Add this to your calculated results from steps 1 & 2. This will be your Store Referral Credit.
4. If your final value was more than $1,000, take that additional amount and calculate 1.5% of the remaining amount.
5. Add the amounts together, from steps 1, 2, 3 and 4, and you have your Store Referral Credit!

Here's how you calculate your Store Referral Credit for sales of more than one item (for listings with multiple items):

Take the Store Referral Credit from step 5 above and multiply by the number of items sold. For example, if a buyer purchases 5 of the same candle listed at $10 each, eBay will credit you $0.90 times 5, for a total of $4.50. 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.

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When a user goes to your Store or one of your Store Inventory listings from a location outside of eBay, (either through a bookmark, by typing in the URL, or from a link with the appropriate referral code added), eBay temporarily places a "cookie" (a small text file) on the user's computer. This cookie stays on the user's computer, no matter where the user goes in their browser, until the user shuts down their Web browser.

When a user purchases a Store Inventory item from you, eBay checks to see whether this cookie is on the user's computer. If it is there, eBay gives you the Store Referral Credit.

Note: If a user's Web browser settings do not allow cookies, then eBay cannot track that the user came from your off-eBay promotion. No credit can be given in this case.

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