BANS and the webshit they produce
I’ve been seeing more and more of this so I thought I would chip in my 2 cents. There is a company out there called “build a niche store” or BANS. (No that’s not an affiliate link) They produce software that allows someone with little or no web experience to set up their own “niche store” using eBay’s affiliate program. Now, this in itself is not a bad idea. If you read my blog, you know I have several of these sites and push the ebay program in general. But the fact that it’s such a great program and so many people have done well off of it makes it easy to entice and exploit people trying to make a buck. Which I also don’t have a problem with, what’s that saying, “there’s one born every minute?”
Problem is, all these sites look like shit. I’m sure the owners are making some money, but come on. Take the site that inspired this post, Modified Car Auctions UK. Nice niche, nice idea, HORRIBLE site. These guys need to go pick up a php book and go visit the ebay developers site and save themselves some money and us some sore eyes.
Update: Ok, time for a little egg on the face. The site I used as my example above is in fact *NOT* a BANS site. Nevertheless, my point never was that BANS is a bad site or that the people that produce it are scamming people. My point is please don’t litter the web with MFA or in this case MFeB crap. Take your time, do it right, and make a ton of money.
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That has nothing to do with the script being bad though, there are some very good looking BANS stores.
I have actually seen some customized BANS stores that look pretty good after some work. Also the new stores that will be coming from phpNicheStore look really good:
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=526370
Kinda makes me wonder what affect all these new PIDs will have on our commissions:
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=542039
Hi Chris,
Kelvin here from BANS.
I just came over here from DP and thought I’d say a few words…
Firstly, the site that “inspired” your post ISN’T built with BANS:
http://www.modauctions.co.uk/
Secondly, I found a few of your own stores:
http://www.carsforagrand.com/
http://www.propertyforpennies.net/
http://www.motorcyclesforagrand.com/
http://www.boatsforagrand.com/
If you compare these to some sites built with BANS here:
http://www.buildanichestore.com/customer-stores.php
I fail to see in what way your own eBay affiliate websites are “better” than those built with BANS - especially since three of them use the exact same template (no color mods) and none have any additional content beyond the eBay listings.
Thirdly, you said “makes it easy to entice and exploit people trying to make a buck” suggesting that BANS is some kind of scam or false product which it blatantly is not.
We didn’t make up these reviews:
http://www.buildanichestore.com/reviews.php
You’re obviously free to post as you like but at least do some research before you start throwing mud.
Kelvin
Thanks for your comments - the site wasn’t designed to be beautiful - it was a proof of concept and its working well cheers - appreciate the linkage
There is another niche store company out there that makes some very nice looking eBay stores called As Was. They use coders and graphic design artist to make your site and have account managers to help you set up your store and make it look real nice. their site is http://www.aswas.com.