eBay Sellers Want You to Know

   

Ten Important Things eBay Sellers Want You to Know

Have you ever had something that you wanted to tell someone that was so very important that you couldn’t stress it enough? Something really earthshaking?

(Like telling your kids that the sick they feel after they get drunk is really not worth it)? I wanted to name this part “Ten Things Sellers would like to tell Buyers while grabbing you by the shoulders and shaking you violently.” So now you know, these are important tips.

I emailed quite a few truly reliable sellers for suggestions for this list. Not necessarily the big sellers, but the sellers who know what they are doing. The ones with excellent feedback and quality customer service.

Identify Your Payment

Every eBay seller who has been selling on the site for any length of time has received payments that they couldn’t possibly identify. One of the sellers I spoke to about this part of the book just received a money order with no identification information. It was bought for $16.94 and never signed or filled out, no eBay item number. Nothing.

That’s why sellers suggest you print out their email, or a copy of the auction and send it in with your payment. Be sure that every payment you send out has the following information:

_ The item name and number

_ Your eBay User ID

_ The address the item is to be shipped to

_ Remind the seller if you want the item to be sent insured.

Without this information, a seller can’t be expected to send your item to you in a prompt manner. Also print your information; deciphering someone’s handwriting is a very specialized talent.

Check Feedback Before You Bid

eBay has a great tool, the seller’s box on the item page tells you the percentage of positive feedback a seller has; but that just gives us a summary. To get the complete picture, you must click on the number after the

seller’s name or the words read all reviews in the line below the seller’s ID.

Check to be sure that the leopard didn’t change his stripes (or was that the zebra)? Be sure that the last few feedbacks are not negative, and that the negatives are for dangerous situations. Look for red flags, such as references to non-shipment of items and non response to e-mail after a payment. This brings us to the most important step: If you are making a large purchase, be

sure you read the negatives.

If a seller has some negative feedbacks, be sure to go through them. See if the seller isn’t in the clear because the feedback is followed up with an update that says “oops sorry for leaving negative feedback, the item

arrived safely. Thank you.”

Take Time Out Before Leaving Negative Feedback

Has your package not arrived as yet? Did the item arrive and it wasn’t exactly as you expected it? Was the item damaged in transit, and is there no clue on the package that the seller purchased insurance for the shipment (as you requested?). Take a deep breath and count to ten. Better yet, e-mail the seller immediately. Don’t get overemotional; just state your case and give the seller the opportunity to make things right for you.

If e-mail is too slow, go to eBay’s search page and click on the link to find members (from the navigation bar at the top of the page). Scroll down to the contact info area. Input your transaction’s item number and the seller’s user ID — and click submit. eBay will e-mail you the seller’s telephone number, and your number will go to the seller.

Just as with our government, diplomacy will work for you. Most sellers (you did check their feedback before you bid, right?) will bend over backwards for their customers so as to protect their reputation on eBay.

Give the seller the chance to make your transaction a pleasant one. Don’t permanently ruin their online reputation because you got carried away with the moment.

Check for an eBay Store

When you’ve decided to buy a Buy It Now item, or bid on a seller’s auction, double-check to see if they have an eBay store. Look for the small red store tag after the seller’s name. If they have an eBay store, click on the red tag, and you’ll be taken to the seller’s store.

After you’re in the store, see if the seller has the items you want listed in their store as Buy It Now items. (You wouldn’t see these items listed on an eBay search.)

Just type a keyword from the item title in the search box in the store. Many sellers list the exact same items for less in their stores because the fee they pay to list in the stores is less.

You can save money by clicking your mouse, and taking an extra minute. It’s definitely worth it.

Purchasing Multiple Items from a Seller

If you’ve found an item you want to buy, or if you’ve just won an auction, be sure to click on the link in the seller’s box that says View Seller’s Other Items. Often a seller will sell other related items to the one you’ve just won, and you may just find something else that appeals to you. If the seller had the good taste to sell a certain type of item, perhaps they have other like interests as

you do.

If you see another item you want, be sure to e-mail the seller saying that you would like the items shipped together, and would they send you the combined shipping amount. Also, if you intend to pay via PayPal, ask the seller to send you a combined PayPal invoice. If you pay for each item individually, the seller will incur extra, unnecessary charges from PayPal for multiple transactions — rather than for one combined sale.

Be Vigilant When Using Escrow

Most eBay transactions go through without a problem. But sadly, one of the easiest places for fraud to occur when you’re buying online is when you are purchasing the most expensive of items. Buyers and sellers can

often save themselves a bunch of grief if they run their high-dollar transaction through an escrow company.

Here’s the rub. The Internet has been inundated with make-believe escrow companies. Unscrupulous sellers will set up a Web site with information copied from a real escrow site, and act as an escrow company. They take your money and keep the merchandise (if it even ever belonged to them).

Since you are doing business on eBay, double-check on the eBay site which escrow service they are recommending at the time. Go to the eBay site, http://pages.ebay.com/help/confidence/payment-escrow.html.

Escrow.com is currently the escrow site of choice for eBay transactions.

Be especially wary if a seller insists on using an escrow service because it’s usually the buyer that insists on escrow — not the seller.

If You Worry about Receiving Packages

A sad result of the problems in this day and age is that we are often uncomfortable receiving unmarked packages. Even though you may be expecting an eBay purchase in the mail, you may look with worry at a

particular package. Ask the seller to e-mail you when they ship the package with information as to how the package is being shipped. If they are using delivery confirmation, ask for that number to be sent to you in the shipping confirmation e-mail.

Please, Read the Description

When you are interested in an item, be sure to read the description. Some sellers do have overly long descriptions, and it’s a pain to read the entire thing. But if you are interested in buying an item, you must slog through

the entire thing to be sure you know about the item and are comfortable with the shipping and terms of sale.

Many times sellers get e-mails (I am guilty of sending these e-mails too!) asking questions that are answered in the item description. Buyers often miss out on great deals because they were waiting for an answer that was

right in the description.

Also be sure you are comfortable with the shipping amount. If the shipping amount is not listed, e-mail the seller by clicking on the Ask the Seller a question link. Ask the seller how much shipping would be to your zip code. Shipping cost is part of the cost of your item and you have a right to decide whether you feel it is reasonable, before you place a bid.

If you have more questions about an item’s condition or value (or that photographs are accurate) be sure to get confirmation from the seller via the email link.

Know What You’re Bidding On

Unless you don’t care about wasting money, be sure you know about the item you want to buy.

_ If it is an item you can currently buy at a local store, but buying on eBay is more convenient, be sure you’re not paying too much of a premium for

having it delivered to your door. Call your local store and see if they have it and how much it is.

_ If the item is an article of clothing, be sure it is the size you require. You can ask the seller if that brand runs large or small, but it’s best to buy

brands with whose sizes you are familiar. Also, if you don’t like going to the dry cleaner, e-mail the seller to see if the item is washable.

_ Don’t assume the item is new unless the seller says so.

_ If the item is a collectible, be sure that it is as rare as you think it is. Run an eBay search on completed items to see how many sold within the last two weeks on eBay, and see how much other buyers paid.

Refurbished Goods

 

Getting the Skinny on Refurbished Goods

You can find great deals on refurbished electronic merchandise on eBay. Unfortunately, refurbished merchandise gets an unnecessarily bad rap. Very smart people may tell you to be wary of refurbished merchandise.

Great advice . . . I guess. I tell people to be wary of all merchandise.

The way I figure it, refurbished merchandised has been gone over by the manufacturer twice — new merchandise has been gone over only once! I buy refurbished merchandise all the time.

Let me explain what refurbished merchandise is, andwhy it can be such a bargain. Refurbished merchandise can fall into one of these categories:

Canceled Orders: This is merchandise that’s in perfectly good shape. Say a customer makes a special order and then changes his or her mind, or the order is somehow mucked up (“I ordered a PC. You sent me a Mac!”), something has to be done with the merchandise. Enter you, the savvy shopper.

Evaluation Units: An evaluation unit is a piece of equipment that is sent to a member of the media or to a corporation for testing or review purposes.

Evaluation units must be returned to the manufacturer, and the manufacturer may decide to unload it for a couple of extra bucks.

Store Returns: This is probably pretty obvious to you, right? Joe Customer buys something in a store, takes it home, and opens it, only to decide that he doesn’t really want it so much. By law, as soon as the box is opened, a piece of merchandise can never be sold as new again, even if the merchandise was never used.

 

Defective Units: A piece of merchandise that is deemed defective either by the store or by the user, is returned to the manufacturer.

Overstocks: When a manufacturer comes out with a new model, it may take back the older models from retailers in an effort to encourage them to stock more of the newer, faster, cooler model.

Whenever an item is returned to the manufacturer for any reason and the original box has been opened, the item (whether it’s a television, a computer, a camera, or some other technical device), must be reconditioned to the manufacturer’s original quality standards.

Any parts that are nonfunctioning are replaced with functioning components and the item is repackaged.

The manufacturer usually gives refurbished items a 90-day warranty.

You can purchase an extended warranty that completely covers (yep, 100 percent) parts and labor on refurbished electronics you buy on eBay (with no deductibles). After your purchase, go to http://pages.ebay.com/help/warranty/buyer_overview.html

Even after purchasing an extended warranty. The savings on refurbished name-brand merchandise can be substantial.

When buying refurbished goods, be sure the original manufacturer was the one doing the reconditioning. I’m sure that some technical geek can fix things just fine in his or her garage, but you don’t have the same level of protection

(as in, you don’t have a warranty from a reliable source at all) if you buy a piece of equipment that wasn’t fixed up by the manufacturer.

Shopping eBay’s Bargain Basement

Shopping eBay’s Bargain Basement

One of the reasons I originally gravitated towards eBay is that I dearly love getting a bargain. Getting merchandise of quality and saving money at the same time is right up there on my top ten list of favorite things to do.

I used to have the time to spend a day at an outlet mall and shop. But as life got busier, I would only go to outlet malls at sale time to get merchandise to sell on eBay. Now, alas, I don’t even have time for that — but luckily, eBay has plenty of sellers who work just like the outlets you love in the bricks-and-mortar world. The trick is knowing how to find them!

Wandering Around eBay’s Outlet Mall

I like to think of eBay’s stores as a quick and easy outlet mall. In this part, I give you a little close-up of the types of retailers who have their “outlets” on eBay.

Start your spree by clicking the eBay Stores link in the Specialty sites area of the eBay home page. From the eBay Stores page, shown in Figure 3-1, use the search box in the upper right-hand corner to search eBay’s store names and descriptions, and you’ll quickly discover your favorite brands and stores

Major retailers who’ve set up shop here include Sears, Kodak, Sharper Image, Motorola, Ritz Camera, Dell, and more.

Do a search of eBay stores using words like outlet and liquidation and you’ll find some excellent buys.

Home Base Business

Home base: Your Web site

eBay offers you a free page — the About Me page — that’s the most important link to your business at eBay.

The About Me page is part of your eBay store if you have one. You can insert a link on your About Me page that takes bidders to your auctions. You can also link to your own Web site from the About Me page — if you have one. If you don’t, I recommend that you get one, especially if you’re serious about running an eBay business.

Your own Web site can have your complete inventory and information on your company. Relying on an eBay store to be your main base of operations isn’t prudent. And you’ll more than likely be selling items from your Web site as well. Remember that there’s no listing or final value fee when you have repeat customers on your Web site. You can keep your complete inventory of items on your Web site and list them as auctions or in your eBay store as their selling season comes around.

Setting up your shop

Office and storage space are a must if you plan to get big. Many a business was started at the kitchen table, but to be serious with a business, you must draw definite lines between your home life and your online ventures.

Concentrating when you’ve got a lot of noise in the background is difficult, so when I say draw a line, I don’t just mean an environmental one but a physical one as well.

Your dedicated office

You must first separate the family from the hub of your business. Many eBay sellers use a spare bedroom. I started my home business in a small 10-x-12-foot room. But as time progresses and as your business grows, you’re going to have to move. I chose to sacrifice my detached two-car garage. I guess I could have made it into a one-car garage, but I decided to take over the whole thing instead. Here’s what I did:

Zoning laws in Southern California require me to have a garage, so I put a false office wall in the back so that the garage door could open normally. I used that area for extra storage. My garage had been wired (for some guy who was going to use big-time power tools, I suppose) and had its own breaker box. I hired an electrician to come in and place outlets around my office and had a large window cut into the wall overlooking my backyard (to remove the claustrophobic feeling and for ventilation). I now had a window and electricity.

The phone man came by and brought a line into the garage; a friend installed double jacks all around to accommodate the two phone lines. I picked out some reasonably priced paneling and hired workmen to install it and to drop a paneled ceiling with florescent lights. Finally, I bought furniture from my local Goodwill store. Presto-chango — I had successfully transformed what was once a dark garage into a bright, gleaming 18- x-20-foot private office. And here I successfully ran my advertising and marketing business for over ten years.

So you, too, have adjustments and decisions to make, just as I did, because you’re going to need office space and storage space, too.

Your eBay room

If you’re able to set up an office similar to mine, you should have your storage space covered for a while. For a real business, a closet just won’t do, even though most sellers begin their eBay careers with an eBay closet. You’re going to have to seclude your stuff from your pets and family. Move it into another room. You’ll also have to get shelving and plenty more supplies to organize things.

One power seller that I know moved all the junk out of his basement and set up shop there. He now has three computers and employs his wife and a part-time lister (who put his auctions up at eBay) to run the show.

His basement office is networked and is as professional as any office. You’ve got to do this if you want to hit the big time.

Merchant Account

Your own merchant account

As you may or may not know (depending on the amount of spam in your e-mail), thousands of merchant credit card brokers are out there guaranteeing that they can set you up so that you can take credit cards yourself. These people are merely middlemen. You have to pay for their services, either in an application fee or as part of a hefty percentage for the processing software. Some of these brokers are dependable businesses and others are nothing more than hustlers. But if you have decent credit, you don’t need these guys:

You can go straight to your bank!

Your bank knows your financial standing and credit worthiness better than anybody. It’s the best place to start to get your own merchant account, an account in which your business accepts credit cards directly from your buyers. You pay a small percentage to the bank, but it’s considerably less than you pay to an online payment service. Some banks don’t offer merchant

accounts for Internet transactions because ultimately the bank is responsible for the merchandise related to the account if you fail to deliver the goods. Remember that your credit history and time with the bank play a part in whether or not you can get a merchant account.

The costs involved in opening a merchant account can vary, but you’ll need between $300 and $2,000 to get started. Here are some of the possible costs you’ll face:

_ A monthly processing fee if you don’t reach the monthly minimum set by your bank

_ The discount rate (your bank’s cut) of 15–30 cents per transaction

_ An average of $700 for software that processes your transaction costs

_ A monthly gateway fee of as much as $40 This is quite an investment in time and effort.

Manage Your Auctions

Manage Your Auctions

Making Your Auctions Run More Smoothly

In this section, I discuss a few more things that you’ll need to round out your eBay home base. The following things are important, but you must decide which tools you’ll use. Some people prefer a totally automated office while others prefer the old-fashioned way. One of my favorite eBay power sellers works with file folders, a hand-written ledger book, and hand-written labels. If it makes you happy, do it your way. I’m just going to suggest a few options to ease the pain of paperwork.

Software you can use

These days, software is available on this planet to accomplish just about anything. It would seem fitting that an all-encompassing software exists that can help you with your auction, right? Well, maybe. It depends on how much you want your software to do, and how much of your business you want to fully control.

Throughout the following subsections, I go through some software examples that you may find useful.

Auction management

Auction management software can be very helpful for automating tasks and making record-keeping easy. You can keep track of inventory, launch auctions, and print labels all by using just one program. Unfortunately, most of these programs can be daunting when you first look at them (and even when you take a second look).

But after you’ve mastered one, you’ll more easily manage your auctions.

You have choices to make regarding software: How much are you willing to spend, and do you want to keep your inventory and information online?

Maintaining your inventory online enables you to run your business from anywhere; you just log on and see your inventory. Online management software is tempting and professional, and may be worth your time and money.

A good many sellers prefer to keep their auction information on their own computers. It’s convenient and allows sellers to add a closer, more personal touch to their auctions and correspondence. Some folks say that keeping the information local, on your own computer, is more suited to the small-time seller. I really think it’s a matter of personal preference.

HTML software

You may want to try some very basic HTML software to practice your ad layouts. Templates are available, but you’ll want to preview your auctions before you launch them.

You can either check out your auctions in these templates with full-blown Web page software (such as FrontPage), or you may want to keep it simple. I use some software called CuteHTML all the time because it’s about as simple as it can get. Go to www.globalscape.com where you can download a 30-day free trial. If you like it, buy it for only $39.99.

Spreadsheets and bookkeeping

Many sellers keep their information in a simple spreadsheet program such as Excel. It has all the functionality that permits inventory management and sales info. For bookkeeping, I like Quickbooks, which is as complete as it gets. It’s straightforward, but only if you have a basic knowledge of accounting.

Collecting the cash

Credit cards are the way to go for the bulk of your auctions. Often, credit cards make the difference between a sale and a no sale. People are getting very savvy (and more comfortable) about using their credit cards online because they’re becoming better informed about the security of online transactions and guarantees against fraud when certain credit cards are used for those transactions. So although you might truly love and adore money orders, you need to take credit cards as well. In this section, I discuss another decision you

need to make: Do you want your own private merchant account or would you rather run your credit card sales through an online payment service? For more about these options, read on.

Online payment services

If you want to accept credit cards for your eBay sales, you may want to go with the services of an online payment service such as Paypal. Paypal offers excellent services and their rates are on a sliding scale, depending on your monthly dollar volume. When online payment services accept credit cards they

charge you a small fee and process the transaction with the credit card company. The auction payment is then deposited in an account for you. Unless your sales go into tens of thousands of dollars a month, an online payment service can prove to be more economical than your own merchant account.

Ebay Money Maker

Budgeting Your Time: eBay as a Part-Time Money Maker

A part-time eBay business can be very profitable. You can spend as little or as much time as you want at eBay, from a few hours a week to a full-time job. One thing that I stress in this book is that the more time and energy you spend on your eBay business, the more money you can make. That said, I now move on to the lowest possible level of time that you can devote to your business.

Maybe you enjoy finding miscellaneous items to sell at eBay. You find these items somehow in your day-to-day life. So you can figure that you spend at least a couple of hours (maybe three) a week at eBay. That’s already in your schedule; now, you must figure in the time it takes to write up your auctions. If you’re not selling the same thing every day, you need to allow approximately twenty minutes to write your auction, to take your picture or to scan your image, and of course, to upload it to a photo-hosting site.

How much time it takes to perform these tasks varies from person to person, and will improve according to your level of expertise. Regardless, every task in your eBay auction business takes time, and you must budget for that time.

Only you can decide how much time you want to spend researching going rates for items at eBay and deciding when your item will sell for the highest price. You can take great photos and write brilliant descriptions, but cashmere sweaters won’t go for as much in the heat of summer as they do in winter. Doing your research can take up a good deal of time when you’re selling a varied group of items.

You also have to consider how much time it takes to shop for your merchandise. You may have to travel to dealers, go to auctions, or spend time online discovering new ways to find your auction merchandise. Many sellers set aside a full day each week for this undertaking.

Your merchandise is what makes you money, so don’t skimp on the time you spend identifying products. The time you spend on this comes back to you in

higher profits. Here’s a list of various activities that you must perform when doing business at eBay:

_ Setting up and photographing item

_ Cleaning up and resizing image in photo editor

_ Uploading image to host

_ Weighing item and determining shipping cost

_ Choosing auction title with keywords

_ Writing a concise and creative description

_ Listing your auction at eBay

_ Answering bidder questions (average per day)

_ Sending out EOA e-mails

_ Banking

_ Bookkeeping

_ Packing

_ Addressing labels and affixing postage

_ Going to the post office

Take the time to perform each of the tasks; watch the clock and time yourself to see how long it takes you to accomplish each of them. The time varies when you list multiple items, so think of the figures that you come up with as your baseline, a minimum amount of time that you must set aside for these tasks. This information can help you decide how many hours in a month you need to devote to running your part-time eBay business.