Do you have a question? Has something gone very wrong and you do not know what to do? Well, fair enough.
Below are the questions heard all the time from buyers.
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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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Stay tuned,
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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Over the years, eBay has introduced all sorts of different auction types, in an effort to give people more options when they buy and sell their things on eBay.
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
Your reputation as a buyer (or ‘feedback rating’) is the most important thing people see when they deal with you on eBay.
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.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
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
When you buy things on eBay, you pay the seller before they send you anything. This means that you, as a buyer, are vulnerable to all sorts of problems. You might not get the items you have paid for, or they might be damaged or faulty.
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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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
Most of the people who make money from eBay do not actually make all of that money on eBay. There are all sorts of ways you can use eBay to give your existing businesses a helping hand.
The Supply Side.
If you have any leftover stock or used items from another business you run, then why not sell them on eBay? You can make this a regular thing, using it to get rid of things that will not sell for the premium you ask for in a shop, or items that are no longer in demand in the town or city where your business is based.
You can really make a lot of money this way, if you know what you are doing. Of course, you will already have to be an expert in the items you are about to sell, as you use them in your business, and you do know that the items are of high enough quality to be sellable. This is a whole new market for your old inventory!
However, it is not only the selling aspect. Bear in mind that your good eBay reputation will make you a great buyer! If there is ever anything you want to get for your business, the chances are you will be able to get it on eBay for a discount.
The Sales Side.
Here is where the true power of eBay lies. eBay give you an ‘About Me’ page, where you can write anything you like and link anywhere you like. This means that you can get traffic to your business’ website by linking to your website from your About Me page and linking to your About Me page from each auction.
To create an About Me page, just click on ‘Community’ on the toolbar, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click ‘Create an About Me page’. You then get the option to either enter your own HTML or let eBay guide you through the process. All you need to do is write a little about your website, link to it, and you are done. You will notice that more people start to come to your site straight away.
There are thousands of people who swear by this technique to drive traffic from eBay to their website. With a little persuasive sales copy on your site, they say, you can sell directly to buyers, cutting out the eBay middleman. Additionally, all the traffic you will get will be targeted, as the people who click through were interested in your auction to begin with.
This can be a really powerful technique, even for affiliate marketers, especially if you have already got an e-commerce site. Even if you have not got one, you might find it worthwhile to set up a website that does nothing but list your eBay inventory with a few dollars off each item, with a PayPal ‘Buy Now’ button for each item. Then simply make the link to your About Me page read ‘Visit my website for even more bargains!’, and you are done.
Now that you have seen how to drive visitors to your website, maybe you would like a little help getting your auction in front of buyers.
The next posting will show you the secrets of taming the eBay search engine.
* * * * *
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