Anything Points (AP) are an incentive eBay has created as a way for
sellers to motivate buyers. An AP is worth one penny towards anything
on eBay, including: fees, items, etc. Since it is a straight
one-to-one trade (one penny from the seller to the buyer), there is no
money "created" for this incentive.
The way it works is very simple. As a seller, you ad incentive to
your item listings by offering so many APs per dollar of bidding. In
other words, if you were to offer, say, one point per dollar spent and
if the item ends at $6, the buyer gets six APs. The APs are only
collected if the auction is paid via PayPal. When the APs are
rewarded to the buyer, the seller is charged one penny per AP given.
I've been trying this out on my own auctions for about two weeks now.
Adding the AP offer to your auction is easy: you log into the AP
Offer Manager (via your seller screens) and choose how many to give
per dollar and which auctions (or all) to ad them to. Easy!
Once the auction is over, if it is paid via PayPal, the APs are
transferred (charged to you and given to the buyer).
During the past two weeks, I noticed a slight increase in the number
of visitors to my auctions, but no noticeable increase in sales. I
have, however, had a number of "thank you" notes sent to me by buyers
who liked the little extra.
A couple of them said they "thought it was cool." Another said they
purchased only because of the extra incentive (the item was identical
to several others being sold, at the same price, etc.). One even said
he thought I should "make a bigger deal of these Anything Points" in
my auction listings.
So if your auctions aren't already strapped for profit and you have a
little leeway to allow a few cents to go, Anything Points could be a
great extra incentive. In my opinion, though, I don't think they're
critical to success.
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