Below are the questions heard all the time from buyers.

* * * * *

Does eBay have a Customer Service Department I Can Phone?

eBay are notoriously hard to contact, should you ever need to – it sometimes seems like they expect the site to run itself. You can email them, as long as you don’t have your heart set on a coherent response: go to http://pages.ebay.com/help/contact_us/_base/index.html. You might have better luck in a ‘live help’ webchat here: http://pages.ebay.com/help/basics/n-livehelp.html.

Only eBay Power Sellers (sellers with a very high feedback rating) get to phone customer service. If you really want to try your luck, type ‘ebay [your country] phone number’ into a search engine and you’ll probably find something. Unfortunately, the chances are you’ll have gone to all that trouble for the privilege of leaving an answerphone message.

It might seem cruel, but imagine the number of people who would call eBay every day with the silliest questions if they gave out their phone number everywhere. Its Wild West nature is, in a way, part of its charm.

eBay Sent Me an Email Saying They’re Going to Close My Account. What Should I Do?

This email asks for your password, right? It’s a scam, an attempt to frighten you, make you give up your details and then steal your account. eBay will never ask for your password or any other account details by email. eBay say that you should only ever enter your password on pages that whose addresses start with http://signin.ebay.com/. They even offer a special ‘Account Guard’ as part of their toolbar, which lets you check that you’re not giving your password to a dodgy fake site. You can read more here: http://pages.ebay.com/toolbar/accountguard_1.html.

It Seems Too Good to be True. How Does eBay Make Money?

For you, the buyer, eBay is free. Sellers, though, pay all sorts of fees: a listing fee for each item they list, a final value fee (a percentage of what the item sold for). They can they pay optional fees for extra services, including Buy it Now, extra pictures, reserve prices, highlighting the auction, putting it in bold, listing it first in search results or even putting it on the front page. You can see a full list of fees at http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html.

It’s obviously worth it to the sellers, though, or they wouldn’t carry on using eBay. The system is quite efficient, and basically forces both eBay and the sellers to keep their profit margins as low as possible – otherwise prices will simply go too high and the buyers will stop buying.

How Safe is eBay?

Well, as it happens, that is the subject of the next posting! All of eBay’s safety services for buyers and sellers are in one place, called ‘SafeHarbor’. SafeHarbor handles fraud prevention and investigation, helps with dispute resolution and keeps rule-breakers in check. Read all about it next time, and be safe.

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Christer

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The simple answer is: you send payment to the seller, as quickly as possible. The quicker you pay, the more your seller will like you, and the sooner your item will arrive. But how you go about it? That all depends on how you are envisaging paying for the item.

PayPal.

PayPal is one of the most popular options for paying on eBay, to the point where eBay decided to buy the company. It allows instant electronic payment across the Internet. Money goes instantly from your credit or debit card to the seller’s PayPal account, where they can either use it for Internet purchases or transfer it out to their bank.

eBay offer incentives for using PayPal, and almost all sellers now accept it. Its instant nature makes sellers very happy, and means that they can have your item packed and sent and leave you some positive feedback within a few hours of the auction ending. When paying by PayPal, you will be covered by PayPal’s own insurances and guarantees, as well as any that your card might have.

Cheques and Money Orders.

This is payment the old-fashioned way, and will lead to a long wait to your item. You need to post the cheque or money order, then the seller has to take it to the bank and get it cleared, and only then do they send the item. The only reason to use this method is if either you or the seller distrusts electronic payment methods. If you are willing to go to the trouble with these sellers, though, you might get an item very cheaply, as most buyers just cannot be bothered.

When you pay by cheque or money order, make sure to print the eBay order confirmation page (it will be emailed to you) and put it in the envelope with your payment. Underline or circle key information like your mailing address and the item number. Finally, remember to be patient. Keep in contact with the seller, as it really can take a month or two before everything falls into place and your item turns up.

Money Transfers and Bank Deposits.

Some sellers may ask you to pay them using a wire service like Western Union, or simply give you a bank account number and ask you to pay money into it. Unless you really trust the seller, this is generally a bad idea – these methods are hard to trace and you are unlikely to get any money back if anything goes wrong. Paying in cash, it hardly needs to be said, is an even worse idea.

It is all a lot to take in, isn’t it? I am sure by now you have got a few questions, which is why the next posting will be a little eBay buyer’s FAQ. Let us hope we can solve any problems you might have.

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Christer

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Below are eBay’s three acceptable reasons for withdrawing a bid.

You made a typographical error
This means that you accidentally typed the wrong amount into the bid box, bidding a far higher price than you meant to. This can be scary: imagine bidding $100 and accidentally adding an extra ‘0′! You are entirely allowed to withdraw your bid in this situation, and bid again if you want to.

The item’s description changed
If you bid on something and then the seller updates the description, you have the right to withdraw your bid. It wouldn’t be fair, after all, to force you to take something that you now realise you don’t want.

The seller is “uncontactable”
If emails to the seller bounce and they don’t answer their phone, then the auction obviously can’t continue, and you can cancel it.

So How Do I Retract My Bid?

eBay hide away the bid retraction form a bit, because they do not like people using it. However, you can find it by going here:
http://cgi1.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?RetractBidShow.

Now all you need is the item number from your auction and this can be found on the item description page’s top right corner. If you cannot see it on the page, look in your browser’s title bar, and in any emails eBay have sent you about your bid on the item. Choose one of the three allowed reasons, click ‘retract bid’, and you are done.

Are There Any Consequences?

Well yes, there are. The more unethical among you might have considered that you could just cancel bids anytime you feel like it by saying that you accidentally entered the wrong amount. eBay are one step ahead of you. Each time you retract a bid, it is counted on your feedback page for all to see – and anyone with a lot of retracted bids looks more than a little dodgy. eBay also say that abusing the bid retraction feature could get you banned.

So is there a way to retract your bid without facing a penalty? There is if your seller is nice, and most are. Sellers can cancel bids on their auctions at any time, and if you email them with a half-decent excuse then most will be more than happy to do this for you. After all, it is not in their interest for their item to go to someone who will not like it, as you might leave negative feedback.

Of course, retracting your bid should still be a rare thing, as you will not win any auctions that way! If you have followed us this far, the chances are you have won an auction by now, or you are close – but you might be somewhat puzzled about what to do next.

The next posting will give you a few pointers.

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Christer

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Shop in the Summer.

This is simple, but effective. Summer is the quiet season on eBay – almost everything sells for less. While everyone else is out enjoying the sun, invest a little time to find some real bargains.

Beat Them by a Few Cents.

Outbid people by a few cents instead of a few dollars – if they do not check back before the auction ends, then you will be the winner. To avoid people using this tactic on you, though, always bid strange, hard-to-guess amounts instead of round numbers.

Play Dirty.

If you know when the auction ends, you can get in there at the very last second and outbid your rivals. The chances are that they will not have the time to sit in front of the auction waiting for it to end – as a rule, he who stays wins. If someone else does retaliate at the end of the auction, though, try not to get carried away in those last few seconds and end up paying too much!

Take Risks.

This is a strategy for the braver eBay buyer. All of the advice you will see for eBay beginners tells you to buy items that have good pictures, clear descriptions, trustworthy sellers and all the rest. If you are brave, why not take a risk and do the exact opposite?

Many buyers will not want that item from the seller with a feedback rating of 5, no picture and a one-line description. If you take a calculated risk and bid anyway, you might be able to make a tiny bid and win by default. There are people on eBay who make their living from winning auctions like these, taking good pictures of the item, writing a good description and then reselling it at a huge profit. Be careful, though. Do this for long enough, and you will inevitably lose your money at some point. It is especially unwise to try it with very high-value items.

Avoid Bidding Wars.

There are few things on eBay that are so rare that you will only see them once and never again. There are usually quite a few sellers who have an item. What’s more, they will generally have more than one to sell, even if they have not listed them all at once. Always check your seller’s history to see whether they sell your item all the time – and if they do, then wait for the next one instead of bidding to the skies.

Now, there may come a time in your eBay life when you realise that you have screwed up your bid, and you wish there was an ‘undo’ button. Here’s the good news for you. There is!

The next posting will be all about withdrawing your eBay bids.

* * * * *

If you seriously thinking of earning, not losing BIG money on eBay,  I definitely recommend a very successful product how to market eBay(R) auctions
eBay Fortune , The Definitive Roadmap To Auction Riches -
as a successful eBay Seller, you will need it!

Take Action – Click Here to Download “eBay Fortune , The Definitive Roadmap To Auction Riches”

* * * * *

Another viable and most  recommendable option, when starting up an eBay business, is to make use of the drop shipping concept, which you can read about in the post  – eBay and Drop shipping – What Is It All About?

Click here to find out more about drop shipping.

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Stay tuned,

Christer

BTW
Do you also remember to FOLLOW ME on Twitter?

If you find the information useful, don’t hesitate to Tweet or email the post to your friends and colleagues and set up a link on your own blog!

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So should you use that ‘Buy it Now’ button or keep on trying to outbid everyone else? It is all a question of weighing up the advantages and disadvantages.

Buy it Now.

- The Advantages.

When you use Buy it Now, you know the asking price and you can take some time to decide whether to pay it or not – you can even negotiate. You do not have to keeping your eye on the auction, or get caught up in the last-minute bidding frenzy that is now inevitable on any popular item. Not only that, but the seller will be happy to get a fixed price for their item, and they are likely to nicer to you than usual. Some sellers can be a little resentful when they feel that you got a little too much of a bargain on their item.

- The Disadvantages.

You will almost certainly pay more for the item, especially with more expensive items. Also, it takes some of the fun out of eBay. Are you not there for an auction, after all? If you want to pay a fixed price then there are thousands of online stores you could be visiting. It is like pressing ‘collect’ instead of ‘gamble’ on a fruit machine. It is the boring option. But anyway, maybe that is what you want.

These rules are relatively constant. There are few instances when using ‘Buy it Now’ would allow you to get something cheaper or when bidding would be an easier way to do it. In the end, as with so many things in life, it is a simple question of price versus convenience. It is up to you.

There are those times, though, when the strategic use of the ‘Buy it Now’ button can be a useful tool to help you outwit your competition. If the current bid is almost as high as the Buy it Now price, then why bid higher and keep the contest going? Clicking that button is a no-brainer. The same goes for times when a seller has, for some reason, set the Buy it Now price only slightly higher than their starting price for bids. Why bother to go through all the hassle of bidding?

You might also find that there are times when you should leave the ‘Buy it Now ‘ button as a last resort. It can be a useful way of ending last-minute contests with a decisive ‘this is mine’ gesture.

In fact, there are all sorts of tricks you can use on eBay, if you want to get ahead of the game. Remember that most buyers on eBay are casual, and do not know what they are doing. A little knowledge can go a long way in getting you an advantage. Our next email will have a few tips and tricks for you.

* * * * *

If you seriously thinking of earning, not losing BIG money on eBay,  I definitely recommend a very successful product how to market eBay(R) auctions
eBay Fortune , The Definitive Roadmap To Auction Riches -
as a successful eBay Seller, you will need it!

Take Action – Click Here to Download “eBay Fortune , The Definitive Roadmap To Auction Riches”

* * * * *

Another viable and most  recommendable option, when starting up an eBay business, is to make use of the drop shipping concept, which you can read about in the post  – eBay and Drop shipping – What Is It All About?

Click here to find out more about drop shipping.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Stay tuned,

Christer

BTW
Do you also remember to FOLLOW ME on Twitter?

If you find the information useful, don’t hesitate to Tweet or email the post to your friends and colleagues and set up a link on your own blog!

http://twitter.com/christerfolke

Technorati Tags: Asking Price, Auction, Auctions, Bargain, Bid, Bidding Frenzy, Brainer, Convenience, Current, eBay, Fruit Machine, Fun, Instances, Many Things, Tool

There are many people who do not like the idea that their item might sell for a much lower price than they intend. Equally, there are people who have hundreds of the same item and do not want to sell them individually. This email gives you an overview of the different kinds of auctions and how to spot them.

Normal Auctions.

These are the bread-and-butter of eBay, the auctions everyone knows. You bid, others outbid you, you outbid them, and the winner gets the item. Quite simple.

Reserve Auctions.

Reserve auctions are for sellers who do not want their items to sell for less than a certain price, a concept you will know about if you are familiar with real auctions. They work just like normal auctions on eBay, except that you will be told if your bid has not met the reserve price set by the seller. If no one is willing to meet this price, then the auction is cancelled, and the seller keeps the item.

You can spot these auctions by looking out for ‘Reserve not met’ or ‘Reserve met’ written next to the current bid on an item’s description page.

Fixed Price (’Buy it Now’) Auctions.

‘Buy it Now’ auctions can work in one of two ways. A seller might add a Buy it Now button to a normal auction, meaning that you can choose either to bid normally or to simply pay the asking price and avoid the whole bidding process. Some sellers, though, now cut out the auction process altogether and simply list all their items at fixed price. Recently, eBay added a twist to fixed price auctions. They introduced the ‘best offer’. This implies that you can negotiate a price to someone who offers their items using ‘Buy it Now’, which could be a great way to get a bargain on things that don’t seem to be selling.

Fixed price auctions are easy to spot, as they have a little ‘Buy it Now’ logo either next to or instead of the current number of bids on the search listings page.

Multiple Item (’Dutch’) Auctions.

These are auctions where a seller is selling more than one of a certain item. Dutch auctions can be done by bidding. Buyers bid a price and say how many items they want, and then everyone pays the lowest price that was bid by one of the winning bidders. If you have trouble getting your head around that then do not worry, everyone else is having the same problem! These auctions are very rare.

What is more common is when a seller has a lot of one item, and lists it using a combination of two auction types. A multiple-item fixed price auction. This just means that they say how many they have, and offer them at a fixed price. You can enter how many you want and then just click ‘Buy it Now’ to get them.

After all this, you might find yourself facing a dilemma. When you have the option, should you bid, or should you just use ‘Buy it Now’ and save yourself the hassle?

This is what the next posting will be about.

* * * * *

If you seriously thinking of earning, not losing BIG money on eBay,  I definitely recommend a very successful product how to market eBay(R) auctions
eBay Fortune , The Definitive Roadmap To Auction Riches -
as a successful eBay Seller, you will need it!

Take Action – Click Here to Download “eBay Fortune , The Definitive Roadmap To Auction Riches”

* * * * *

Another viable and most  recommendable option, when starting up an eBay business, is to make use of the drop shipping concept, which you can read about in the post  – eBay and Drop shipping – What Is It All About?

Click here to find out more about drop shipping.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Stay tuned,

Christer

BTW
Do you also remember to FOLLOW ME on Twitter?

If you find the information useful, don’t hesitate to Tweet or email the post to your friends and colleagues and set up a link on your own blog!

http://twitter.com/christerfolke

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However many guarantees of safety eBay might make to you, nothing is certain. If you just give your money to scammers all the time without doing any checks then the chances are you will not get all of that money back.

That is the reason why you should always check the seller’s reputation, or ‘feedback rating’. This is a quick and easy-to-read summary of their history as an eBay seller, which gives you some idea of whether or not you should trust them with your money. Buying anything is a calculated risk: you want to minimise that risk.

How to Check Feedback Ratings.

On each item’s description page, there is a box in the top-right hand corner about the seller, with the title ‘Seller information’. This contains the seller’s name, their feedback score, and their positive feedback percentage, as well as any stars they have earned.

Different coloured stars are given to eBay sellers depending on their rating, in this sequence: yellow, blue, turquoise, purple, red, green, shooting yellow, shooting turquoise, shooting purple, shooting red. Anyone with a ’shooting’ star is an experienced eBay member who you should be able to trust.

If you click on the seller’s name, you can get to a more detailed view of their reputation – their ‘member profile’ page. This page shows the total number of people who gave them a positive or negative rating, as well as a breakdown by time. You can also see a complete history of all the comments that have ever been left about them, with the most recent first.

What to Look For.

You might assume that anyone with a very high number can be trusted, but that isn’t always true. It is more important to look at their positive feedback percentage – and you should really consider anything below 99% to be a red flag and investigate further.

Take a look through the first visible page with the most recent transactions: are there any negative comments? What do they say? Take others’ experiences into account, as they could happen to you if you deal with this person. Be careful not to punish sellers unfairly, however, if they did bad things in their past on eBay but have improved since. You should look at the breakdown by time and ignore any negative feedback that was left a long time ago. Equally, though, you should sit up and pay attention if a seller seems to have been left an out-of-character amount of bad feedback in the last month or so.

Now that you know who to trust, it is worth learning a little more about how the different kinds of auctions work, so that you do not accidentally slip up and make yourself and your feedback page look bad.

The next posting will be about the different kinds of auctions you can expect to encounter during your time on eBay.

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Stay tuned,

Christer

BTW
Do you also remember to FOLLOW ME on Twitter?

If you find the information useful, don’t hesitate to Tweet or email the post to your friends and colleagues and set up a link on your own blog!

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It is on the basis of this little number that they will decide whether they can trust you or not.

Each time you buy or sell something on eBay, people can leave feedback for you, and you can leave feedback for them. This feedback can be positive, negative, or neutral, along with a comment. Your feedback rating, then, is worked out using a very simple summary: the numbers of positive feedback comments people have left for you, minus the number of negative ones. This means that someone with a feedback rating of 28, for example, might have 30 positive ratings and 2 negative ones.

If you are a considerate buyer, then you should find that positive feedback will just appear next to your username, without you needing to do anything. If you want to help it along, though, there are a few things you can do.

Always leave feedback for others: People will feel an obligation to leave feedback for you if you leave it for them (eBay will send you an email after each transaction to offer you the opportunity). Take the time to write a positive comment about sellers who do what they should and the chances are they will do the same for you.

Pay promptly
Sellers love nothing more than to be paid promptly – paying as soon as the auction ends saves the seller all sorts of worry, especially if you pay by credit card or another electronic method. You will often find that your positive feedback appears within a few minutes of you paying if you pay as soon as the auction ends.

Don’t be a difficult customer
Understand that your seller might take a day or so to respond to you, and perhaps a few days to send your item – harassing them is nasty and unnecessary, and won’t get you good feedback.

Build relationships
If a seller sells a lot of a certain kind of thing you like, buy from them a few more times. They will be very happy to find a regular customer, and will go out of their way to leave positive feedback like ‘a joy to deal with as ever’. Also, they might offer you a few special deals!

Sellers will not generally be reluctant to sell to buyers without much of a reputation, simply because it is the buyer who takes most of the risk in a transaction. It is worth remembering, however, that transactions where you are the seller and where you are the buyer are counted towards the same feedback total – so if you ever want to start selling, being a good buyer is especially worthwhile.

On eBay, people pay far more attention to sellers’ ratings than they do to buyers’ – most sellers cannot be bothered to check their buyers’ feedback, while bad feedback on a seller can (and should) be a dealbreaker. When you are buying, then you need to worry more about the seller’s reputation than you do about your own, and that is why the next email will be all about sellers’ feedback ratings.

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Stay tuned,

Christer

BTW
Do you also remember to FOLLOW ME on Twitter?

If you find the information useful, don’t hesitate to Tweet or email the post to your friends and colleagues and set up a link on your own blog!

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Luckily, you have two very important rights when you buy on eBay.

The Right to Receive Your Item.

Maybe the seller never sent the item, or maybe it got lost in the post. Whatever happened, you paid for the item. If it does not arrive in the post as described, you have the right to a replacement or a refund, whether it is the seller’s fault or not.

The fact that you bought something on eBay does not mean that you do not have the exact same rights that you would have if you bought it in a shop (these rights are pretty much the same all over the world). Plus, under eBay’s rules, the seller is not allowed to change their mind about selling you the item: once the auction ends, it becomes a contract – you must buy and they must sell, or face eBay’s penalties.

The Right for Your Item to Be as Described in the Auction.

Sometimes sellers do not wrap items properly, and so they get broken. Occasionally they write descriptions that are misleading or just plain wrong to begin with, leaving out vital details that would have caused you to change your mind about buying. If this happens to you, you again have the right to a replacement or a refund.

So How Do I Use My Rights?

First, you should take it up with the seller as most will be responsive, and do not want to have their reputation damaged when an upset buyer leaves negative feedback for all their future buyers to see. If that does not work, report them to eBay.

While eBay does not have many people handling complaints, they do have a relatively effective set of automatic process to handle common problems buyers and sellers have with one another.

Finally, if that does not work, then you should seek advice from consumer groups in your country, and as a last resort from the police. However, you should never have to get this far. Problems on eBay that cannot be resolved easily are extremely rare.

Don’t Be Too Quick To Complain.

Remember not to get too annoyed and be unfair to the seller. Nice sellers have agreed to give me refunds for undelivered items, only for me to find out a few weeks later that they were being held for me at the post office! Always try your best to communicate and think of everything that might have gone wrong. eBay works best when buyers and sellers sort out their problems together, instead of reporting each other to the authorities straight away.

More often that not receiving what they paid for, buyers have an altogether different problem. T hey knew what they were paying for, but did not realise that what they were paying for was overpriced, low quality or a scam.

The next posting will give you a list of tips on how to avoid being ripped off on eBay.

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Christer

BTW
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If you find the information useful, don’t hesitate to Tweet or email the post to your friends and colleagues and set up a link on your own blog!

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Technorati Tags: All Sorts, Auction, Buyers And Sellers, Consumer Groups, eBay, Ebay Buyer, Face, Handling Complaints, Last Resort, Leaves, Negative Feedback, Reputation, Vital Details

Have you noticed that whenever you open a newspaper, watch the TV or have a conversation, people seem to be talking about eBay?

If you never have used it and you have no idea what it is all about, then the chances are that you’re starting to feel a little left out. But don’t worry! This email contains everything you need to know about the basics of bidding and buying on eBay.

So What is eBay?

eBay is an online auction website – and not just any auction site, but the biggest one in the world. If you know how an auction works, then you already know how roughly eBay works. Someone adds something they want to sell to the site, and then buyers come along and place bids on it. The highest bid wins the item! It is that simple.

eBay being an online auction makes a big difference, though. Buying and selling are not reserved for any elite. eBay accept almost any item, no matter how small, and will then advertise it on their sites all over the world. It is a powerful combination of an auction and a slightly chaotic marketplace.

What is Bidding?

Bidding is when you say how much you will pay for an item in an auction. Bidding on eBay, however, does not work in exactly the same way as a normal auction, at least in theory. On eBay, you tell the site what the maximum you are willing to pay for each item is, and then eBay places the bids on your behalf. That means you could say you were willing to pay up to $100 for something and only have to pay $50, if that was the highest maximum bid anyone else placed.

It is not as complicated as it sounds – the best way to get used to it is to give it a try. First, the best thing to do is to go to the eBay website designed for your country. If you don’t know the address for it, just go to www.ebay.com and it will tell you there. Now, on the front page you should see a big box marked ’search’: just type in anything that you’d like to buy there.

Wasn’t that easy? Now you should have a list of items for sale in front of you, along with how much people are currently bidding for them and the time when bidding ends for each item. If you click one of these, you can read the description, and then – if you are happy with the item and happy to pay more than the current highest bidder is – you can bid!

How Do I Bid?

Go ahead and scroll down to the bottom of an item’s description page, and type the maximum you are willing to pay (your maximum bid) into the box. Then simply press the ‘place bid’ button – you will need to sign in once you press the button, or go through a quick registration process if you don’t have an eBay username).

If someone else’s maximum bid on that item is higher than yours, then eBay will tell you and give you the opportunity to bid again. Otherwise, you are now the new highest bidder! All you need to do now is wait until the end of the auction – if someone else outbids you, then eBay will email you and you can bid again.

All sounds great, doesn’t it? But by now you might be wondering whether a site as chaotic as eBay can really be all that safe to buy from.

That is why the next postingl in this series will be about your rights when you buy from eBay.

* * * * *

If you seriously thinking of earning, not losing BIG money on eBay,  I definitely recommend a very successful product how to market eBay(R) auctions
eBay Fortune , The Definitive Roadmap To Auction Riches -
as a successful eBay Seller, you will need it!

Take Action – Click Here to Download “eBay Fortune , The Definitive Roadmap To Auction Riches”

* * * * *

Another viable and most  recommendable option, when starting up an eBay business, is to make use of the drop shipping concept, which you can read about in the post  – eBay and Drop shipping – What Is It All About?

Click here to find out more about drop shipping.

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Stay tuned,

Christer

BTW
Do you also remember to FOLLOW ME on Twitter?

If you find the information useful, don’t hesitate to Tweet or email the post to your friends and colleagues and set up a link on your own blog!

http://twitter.com/christerfolke

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