Table Of Contents

• Introduction
• Installation/Activation
• Configuration
• Testing
• Per-Post/Per-Page Settings
• Geo-Targeting
• Making The Images Clickable
• Replacing WordPress Search With eBay Search
• Inserting phpBay Code Into Theme Files
• Buy phpBay Pro (20% off coupon: DA9CD69F42)
• From Picking A Market To Building/Managing Your phpBay (Or BANS) Site

Setting Up A Campaign On eBay Partner Network:

Setting up a unique campaign per site rather than using the default is a good idea because you will be able to track the sites that are making you sales and how much they are making.

1. Click ‘Campaigns’ from the top menu.
2. Click ‘Create Campaign’ from the secondary menu.
3. Enter a Campaign name and click ‘Create’.
4. Make note of the newly created ‘Campaign ID’.

Configuring phpBay:

Go to Settings > phpBay Pro

1. Enter your license number in the top box and click ‘Update Options’.
2. In the ‘Affiliate Settings’ section enter the Campaign ID that you just created, and in the ‘Custom ID’ box, enter the name you gave the Campaign. Click ‘Update Options’.

The rest of the options are a matter of preference but I will go through the settings that I usually choose.

1. Choose the country that you are targeting mainly. This setting won’t matter much later because we will be setting up geo-targeting and the country will automatically be selected based on your visitors location.
2. Under the ‘Basic Options’ I always turn on the following: ‘Use SEO URLs’, ‘Display Items with Images Only’, ‘Use mod_rewrite on eBay Images’.
3. Under the ‘Visual Display Options’ I always turn on the following: ‘Display the eBay Logo?’, ‘Create Clean Product Titles?’, ‘Display Sort Options?’. You can turn on ‘Display Listings in Columns?’ if you want. I do sometimes. Most themes usually fit 3 columns. If the theme won’t fit 3 columns, you may want to turn off the eBay logo and the sort options too because they likely won’t fit either. You’d have to test it to be sure.
4. Under the ‘Advanced Options’ I always select ‘Time: ending soonest’ from the ‘Select Sort Order:’ drop down box. This setting won’t matter if you didn’t turn on ‘Display Sort Options?’ under the ‘Visual Display Options’ though. This is also the section where you can turn on ‘paging’ and set the max number of listings if you wish, but those values can be overridden on a per-page/per-post level.
5. Don’t forget to change the URL to your affiliate URL in the ‘Enter your affiliate link:’ box, under ‘phpBay Pro Affiliate Settings’, or just remove the text altogether.
6. Click any of the ‘Update Options’ buttons and go through to make sure all your settings have been saved correctly.

If you turned on either ‘Use SEO URLs’ or ‘Use mod_rewrite on eBay Images’ under the ‘Basic Options’ as suggested, after saving your settings, you will see a box at the top called ‘.htaccess Code’. That code will need to be copied and pasted into your .htaccess file. Use the steps below:

1. Click inside the textbox and the code should all be highlighted. Right-click and click ‘Copy’ to get the code to the clipboard.
2. Go back to FileZilla. Go to the root of your WordPress install. You should see a .htacess file near the top. Download it to your desktop. If it’s not there, press F5. If it’s still not there, it may not have been created yet. A quick way to create it is to change your permalinks. You probably should change them anyways. Go to Settings > Permalinks and change the ‘Custom Structure’ to something like:

   /%category%/%postname%/
   OR
   /%postname%/

   and click ‘Save Changes’. Now go Refresh (F5) FileZilla and download the .htaccess file.

3. Open the file in a text editor. Be careful, some text editors jumble this file and therefore screw it up when re-saved. I use TextPad which displays/saves it correctly.
4. The code from the phpBay Settings page should be still on your clipboard. If not, go back and grab it and paste it (right-click > paste) at the very top of the .htaccess file and Save it.
5. Upload the .htaccess file back to your server and overwrite the existing one.

phpBay is now configured and ready to be dropped into posts and pages. Now let’s test it out…

More info: phpBay Pro: The Extended Manual – Configuration