Getting the Word Out on Your eBay Store - By Jason Griffith

Your eBay store is a nice little useless piece of virtual real estate if there are no visitors to the store. Needless to say, it also does not generate the income you want or thought it would generate, which was the primary reason why you had put up the store in the first place and continue to pay the store fees every month.

Having your store listed in the eBay stores category pages has its uses. However, realistically, your store is probably tucked away on page two hundred, never to be found because no eBay buyer has the patience to wade through all those screens.

Sure, you can pay a pretty penny to have your store listing bumped up to a more readily findable position.

However, there is a way to attract a lot of targeted attention to your eBay store that will cost you absolutely nothing.

It is called press releases.

There are services on the web that send out press releases to hundreds of news services and also email the press releases to thousands of journalists who opted in to receive press releases for a particular industry or niche.

Two of the more popular press release sites are pr.com and prweb.com. There is a host of others as well. Just do a search for "free press release" and you will see.

Now, please do not put out a press release that says, "Woohoo, there is yet another store on eBay that sells DVDs, or clothing, or whatever." Nobody will take any notice of such a press release.

You either need to find something newsworthy about your eBay store, or intentionally create an event that is newsworthy.

Perhaps you've decided to broaden the line of whatever you are selling, perhaps you are offering a seasonal discount, or perhaps you decided to offer free shipping on all your items.

Better yet, perhaps your eBay store has been reviewed by BestAuctionStores.com, where I contribute eBay store reviews. That is a one-time newsworthy event in the life of your store's history, if you have ever wanted to find one.

The press release sites are very helpful in terms of guidance and advice on how to write a press release, if you have never done one before. You could employ an advertising agency to craft the press release for you, but if your store is not yet profitable, I wouldn't advise spending extra money on the press release.

Just get the word out on your store. Sometimes you will make a boo-boo and put out a press release that is really not that newsworthy, but who cares. Nobody is going to break your fingers over it.

The key is, don't put out a press release about your eBay store, put out a press release about an event related to your store. You might get visitors and buyers from sources you didn't even know existed.

Jason Griffith writes eBay Store reviews for BestAuctionStores.com, a site dedicated to providing eBay Buyers with the ability to review and rate eBay stores.