I have been using Ebay.com for several years now with mixed results. After a few hundred transactions in both selling and buying, I still have a lot still to learn, but have a few inside tricks to suggest to the newbies that I have learned the hard way.
I am of course assuming you are somewhat familar with the workings of Ebay.com. It is simply the worlds largest online auction site. If you can imagine it, chances are Ebay sells it. From A to Z, New to Old, Mint New to Used Old, Ebay has had it. From Bibles to Adult XXX (though I am glad Ebay requires adult certification to view the bad stuff). It is like the worlds largest flee market to me. I can sell and buy items all over the world from my own house. Ebay does require registration to partisipate. It is simple process, but it gets more complex if you want to sell items. A credit card is required to sell. If you want to use the Paypal ( http://www.paypal.com) payment options, there is multiple safety checks required to become a member. These are good processes to go though, as it filters out a lot of the kids (who like to disrupt) and bad people who jump at a chance to make a fast buck at your expense.
The best safeguard is the Feedback program. Each seller and buyer can be graded on their honesty by the seller and buyer. Each is allowed to make comments on how the other person preformed. If a person has a feedback rating with a lot of negatives, don’t do business with them. There is probable a lot of people selling the very same item you want at close to the same price, so be picky and pick ones with excellent feedback ratings. I perfer to do business with people with a feedback of more than 98% positive and look at their negatives (if they have any) and see if they respond nasty to them. Everyone that sells a lot of items on Ebay (over 500) will get one negative every now and then, but if they are rude about it, they don’t get my business. I always try to be kind when I sell and buy and wish to do business with those likewise.
Now there is even more ways to be choosy on whom to buy from on Ebay. Feedback speed is another good tell tell on a seller’s character. If I sell an item I leave their feedback as soon as I am paid. Bad sellers don’t do that, they wait until the buyer leaves first feedback to them. They do this to sorta hold a threat against the buyer not to report a bad transaction on them because they will recipiocate and leave bad feedback on them in return. Sorta like if you leave a bad review on a person on MS and they in turn leave bad back on you. Tit for tat, but dishonest in my opinion. The SELLER should leave fast first feedback when paid as a show of good faith. If you are looking at an very expensive item, you might want to check the sellers feedback speed. Bad sellers don’t often leave first feedback, they wait.
Before you buy anything, be sure to ’’READ ALL THE FINE PRINT’’. Lets say you buy a CD of your favorite musical group. Perhaps you might win the bid at $1.00 (cheap) but if you later look at the ad and it says you have to pay $10.00 (expensive) in shipping, then you are not doing good. Shipping costs are often a way the sellers makes a profit (at your expense). They will often send the item as cheap as possible to you and charge you way too much for it. So it is better to pay a higher winning price and less in shipping a lot of the times. I charge actual shipping most the time and ship priority mail so my buyer gets their item fast and cheap. That is the way I would like to be treated. So read the fine details, a lot of sellers do NOT ship overseas and you better make sure they will if you bid on an item. I do not sell overseas myself because international mail is very often lost and I don’t want bad feedback because of the mail service.
Some sellers will take numerious forms of payment, some will not hardly take anything. Paypal is the fastest way to pay, but not everyone likes it. Money Orders are sometimes costly/time consuming to get. Personal checks usually take a long time to clear the back before they will ship to you. Cash is dangerious to mail via the mail and lost money is not ever recovered.
Selling items is a whole different game than just buying. You had better be honest in your description if you value your positive feedback. I have 100% positive feedback and want to keep it that way. I list as many details as I can and try to take a good picture of the item. A digital camera is very nice, but you can scan your own photos with a scanner if you don’t want to buy one. I used a scanner for more than a year and did fine with it. If a potential buyer wants more pictures, I gladly email them more pictures. I have learned to host my own pictures on my own web space to avoid paying Ebay more money when I sell items. Ebay will give you ONE free picture, but if you want to post more using their picture service, they charge you for it. Ebay makes it’s money. They charge the sellers a percentage of the final price and they charge the sellers a listing fee (even if the item does not even sell at all). One learns to list items at $9.99 instead of $10.00 because you get charged more for every ten dollar increment. That one penny less listing price is worth 35 cents to Ebay. You will notice a lot of items starting out one penny less that 10, 20, 30, 40, ect dollars because the sellers knows Ebay takes money if you list it higher.
Now if you are wanting to learn more, there is alway more to learn, terms like Sniping is when you wait to the very last second to bid on an item hoping not to get in a bidding war with another person. You can really want an item and if another person wants it just as bad, you can end up paying a lot more money for it in a bidding war. Best thing to do is not bid until the last second and then only bid what you are confortable paying for an item. Snipe it at the last second is a good game plan. There is numerous programs that do this for your without you sitting and watching the item. Some are even free (to a point)...
Shilling or Shill bidding is another game played unfortunately on Ebay. It is illegal, but still goes on at times. Shilling is when a buyer secretly registers another name on Ebay and bids on his own items trying to get other people to bid higher on it. This will not work on you if you take my advice and Snipe the item paying only what you feel confortable paying for it. Do not go for bidding wars unless you really really want the item bad. Chances are you can get it later cheaper when not in a bidding war and you will not get shilled by a bad seller. I have only seen this occur one or two times to me personally, but it does happen.
BTW... I also go by the same name on Ebay as I do here. Check my ’’ME’’ page out on Ebay if you want a good laugh.
https://members.ebay.com/aboutme/lowoil/
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