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It is estimated there are 60 million Internet users with thousands more logging on daily. In April, eBay alone had 1.5 billion visitors. If you own a retail storefront, chances are you don't see that many people walk through your door in a year.
So how do you determine how many are actually finding your auctions? With counter programs!
Counter programs are similar to those turnstiles you go through at the subway or when entering a stadium for a football game. It keeps a count of how many people enter a location on a given day.
The most visible page counter is free, compliments of Honesty (a division of Andale). Honesty's counters can either report the number of times an auction is viewed OR the number of visitors. Meaning, if the same person views your item several times in a day, it will only count that as one visitor instead of several. This gives you a more accurate idea of how many individual users are interested in your item.
If you don't want visitors to know how many times your auction has been viewed, try a hidden counter.
So how much do counters cost? You'll love this part - they are FREE! If you know HTML coding, you can create your own! If not, your ISP or Honesty can provide one for you.
Honesty creates counters automatically in a matter of moments. You simply complete a small form online, and the counter is automatically generated. Note: if you had an Honesty account but haven't used it in a while, you will have to update your profile, but it doesn't take long. Go to http://www.andale.com/corp/products/track.jsp and sign in.
As this holiday season approaches more users will be surfing the Internet searching for great merchandise. Will you be watching? We're counting on it!
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Reyne Haines founded auction site Just Glass http://www.justglass.com and is owner of Haines Galleries http://www.tias.com/RHA. She is author of The Auction Book, Guide to Online Auctions Vol I and II, both of which sold out. Reyne is also a regular appraiser for the Antiques Roadshow television program on PBS.
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