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GLA eBay
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GLA eBay
Sales Group |
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Some Tips On How To Present Your Items |
eBay was founded in September 1995, now claims more than 20 million registered users. In 2001, the eBay community transacted over $6 billion in annualized gross merchandise sales. eBay is the premier online auction site on the Internet.
Everyone's talking about how much money they made selling "stuff" from their attics or stockrooms on eBay. From musical instruments to screwdrivers, from ashtrays to automobiles, from audio equipment to books, you can sell any conceivable item on eBay. Think of eBay as a massive electronic swap meet, garage sale, flea market, thrift shop, antique store and super sales center rolled into one. eBay provides the site and the bidding system and you provide the items.
eBay is totally geared towards making money and the transactions take place between individuals, and eBay has nothing to do with these transactions other than to host them. eBay is open for business around the globe 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, this unique online auction house boasts an inventory of about three million items, a billion-plus browsers per month, and billion of dollars of merchandise moved annually. With a few choice keystrokes, sellers can make a bundle. But it's not a game of chance: eBay most profits sellers who do their homework.
Selling on eBay can be as simple or as sophisticated as you want to make it and that's what this introduction is all about. In addition to this selling primer you can learn a lot about eBay by reading our FREE, "Introduction To Buying On eBay."
According to eBay's CEO Meg Whitman, the popular website was created for the purpose of building online communities essentially by giving strength back to the individual buyer and seller in a world that's become over-commercialized by massive chain retailers.
But eBay has actually expanded far more than many people realize. The online trading community now offers a Business-to-Business Exchange, Chat, Forums, and hundreds of forums for specialized needs like AutoTrader.com, Barbie Collectibles, and Elvis-O-Rama.
The basic principle is that eBay creates a virtual environment for millions of buyers and sellers to come together to broaden the market for their goods and their money.
We've outlined the basic process of buying and selling items on eBay below.
Sellers list available items: The seller pays a nominal fee of $.25 to list his/her item, fills out a quick form, often gets a picture of it, and that's it. Additionally, the seller can pay another $2 to have his or her item listed in bold print or $99 to get it on the list of "Featured Auctions" which appear at the top of the page.
Buyers search through items: From there, the buyers search for the item they're looking for in over 15,000 categories and place their bids.
Bidding process: Like a traditional auction, the bidder who places the highest bid in the allotted time wins, except that, unlike a traditional auction, the bidding does not extend at the end of the time period regardless of how many people bid right at the end of the auction.
Most of the bidding on eBay is called proxy bidding. This means that when bidding, a buyer can enter the maximum amount he's willing to pay for an item. But instead of instantly putting your high bid on the item listing, eBay will list your lower bid. If anyone makes a higher bid, eBay will automatically increase your bid for you until it hits your maximum.
After the auction closes, the seller and the buyer contact one another by email and arrange for shipment. The buyer sends the seller a check or credit card number. The seller sends the merchandise. At that point eBay charges the seller's account a small percentage of the final sale price.
After delivery of the item, the buyer inputs feedback on the transaction at eBay, which serves as a reference for future buyers who might want to get other things from the seller. High ratings can be very important for future sales.
Here’s a basic scenario to illustrate how eBay might be of value to you if you want to sell some of your personal items:
Your children are grown and you’re living in a house too large for your needs. You are thinking about moving but know that you would first have to sell a good portion of your accumulated possessions. An estate sale will bring strangers walking through your home and will oblige you to change your schedule to be present during the sale. Estate-sales companies can be costly, and their purchase prices typically low. Newspaper ads may not reach the right people. eBay provides a way to sell things quickly, at good prices, anonymously.
You might consider making a trial run on eBay by listing one or two items at a “reserve price” to test the response (a “reserve” is the lowest dollar amount the seller agrees in advance to accept for the item). If you receive an acceptable offer, you can request that a check be sent to you immediately and, when it clears, mail the item to the buyer.
Another seller might be an established retail store or a company that has outdated, obsolete, returned or end-of-life merchandise. S/he can sell those "unwanted" items to buyers on eBay because when listed on eBay you're selling to buyers all over the world and they often look to buy exactly those type items.
To get started selling in eBay's online auctions, you must first become a registered user.
eBay requires all registered users submit the following information:
- Name.
- E-mail address.
- Mailing address.
- Phone number.
- Credit card number. This last criterion is new as of October 22, 1999, and doesn't apply to everyone. For example:
There is also optional information that you can also provide for your user profile. Just remember to review the information to make sure that it is accurate.
For 30 days after you REGISTER you are given a "shades status." This is where a small picture or icon of sunglasses
is placed next to your item for sale. During the first month, this may make some buyers cautious of dealing with you. So, after 30 days of registration, your shades are gone and you don't look "shady" anymore!!!
The sooner you register, the sooner your shades will disappear! So REGISTER NOW! - It takes less than 1 minute! Click here to register NOW
Once you have registered, you can begin searching eBay for how others are selling the items you wish to put up for bid. As you're searching be sure to check out some brilliant eBay features you'll find on every page of auctions. For example, clicking on "Items You Are Watching" allows eBay to remind you of an auction that interests you. You'll also be able to save your "Favorite Categories," "Favorite Searches" and "Favorite Sellers"!
Let's say you collect ukuleles and you want to see if anyone is already selling some of the ones you plan to sell. On eBay's home page, click on he "Browse" button and enter the word "ukulele" (type case doesn't matter -- the entry word can be in any combination of upper and lower case) in the search box (found near the upper right hand corner of eBay's Home Page. Then click on the "Search" button.
Almost immediately the search will yield all the ukuleles listed on eBay where you can see their descriptions and what kinds of prices people are paying for them.
TIP: While most auctions usually last seven days, most of the bidding takes place in the last hour or so. So the minimum acceptable bid and the bids early in an auction are no indication of what these things sell for.
Before you sell your first item, be sure to read the many pages of information that eBay provides explaining the process and its costs. There is a non-refundable fee for placing an item for sale, which depends on the minimum price the seller is willing to accept.
As an eBay beginner, you are probably wondering how you can protect yourself from being taking advantage of by a fraud. While this is a real concern, eBay takes many precautions to insure that all theft and fraud is kept to a minimum.
The following features and tools are provided by eBay for your safety.
Because there are millions of people on eBay, people who have never met each other, eBay established a clever way for people to build an online reputation. This feedback system lets users comment on each transaction and on each other's activities. In his/her respective comments, the user either assigns a positive, neutral or negative ranking to his/her description. For example: When you sold something and the buyer paid you quickly, then you’d give them positive feedback.
Every eBay user has a Feedback Profile made up of comments from other eBay users - an official "reputation." By looking at the user feedback, a user's reliability can be determined easily by their rankings, with a high positive ranking meaning that the user received a large number of positive comments.
This feedback is extremely helpful in indicating if a buyer will pay for the purchase, if a buyer is recommended by others, and if a buyer submits his/her payment quickly.
Next to any eBay member's User ID, there is a Feedback Rating number in parentheses ( ). For example: Metoo2 (133) means that this member's User ID is Metoo2 and s/he has received positive feedback comments from at least 133 other eBay members. This feedback is extremely helpful in indicating if a buyer is honorable, recommended by others and pays promptly without any negative issues.
eBay's Feedback Rating system is easy. You too will receive:
- +1 point for each positive comment
- 0 points for each neutral comment
- -1 point for each negative comment
- A star icon for 10 or more comments
- While on an eBay auction page just click the colored star to see what each star color means.
You can also leave neutral feedback for transactions that were just so-so, and more importantly, negative feedback for transactions that didn’t go well for whatever reason. Say the auction winning buyer never paid you — you’d leave them negative feedback.
Before you decide to sell to the winning bidder, it’s wise to get in the habit of looking at the buyer's feedback. You do this by clicking on the numbers in parentheses after their name. S/he may have a history of being a less-than-reputable buyer – someone you might not want to sell to.
On the off chance that a transaction goes bad and you can’t resolve it with the other party, eBay has a Fraud Protection Program that covers each transaction up to $200 (minus a $25 deductible).
eBay's online police force of sorts, works to maintain the integrity of the company's web auctions and transactions. It is basically a service that allows eBay to monitor its users.
Whenever users log into the system, eBay's servers record their Internet addresses. Although users cannot view this information, SafeHarbor personnel will respond to complaints by users and will determine whether, for instance, an eBay user is using multiple usernames in order to manipulate auction prices.
Not only does SafeHarbor promise full customer support, but it also provides a number of useful features to members like: Feedback, Escrow Services, verification of users, and insurance for bad transactions.
Users may also view each other's bidding histories. A bidding history shows which auctions a user has bid on, and also lists the other users who have bid in those same auctions. This can be especially helpful in determining whether users are playing by the rules.
eBay has a few different types of auction formats. Here is a brief description of each of these types that you as a seller become familiar with:
Standard Single-Winner Auctions
Is simply where you will offer one item (or a group of items sold together) to be sold to the highest bidder. Most of the listings on eBay use this format.
Is where you the you will offer more than one of the exact same item. These auctions can have multiple winners, all of whom are bidding on the same item.
Dutch auctions also allow buyers to bid on multiple quantities of an item. The great thing about Dutch auctions is that, specific to eBay, the lowest winning bid for any user is the amount that all users will pay. Dutch auctions are complicated, so please read the complete rules as shown below.
EXAMPLE 1: A seller has 10 sterling silver teaspoons that he wants to sell, starting at $15.00 per spoon. This means that 10 people could go and bid on an individual spoon and each would win one of those spoons.The Dutch Auction format is perfect for sellers with many identical items to sell. In order to use the Dutch format, sellers must: 1) Be ID Verified OR 2) Have a Feedback Rating of 30 or above and be registered on eBay for 14 days or more.These seller requirements help protect bidders and help eBay maintain an open, honest and safe environment for online trading.
Sellers start by listing a minimum price (greater than $0.99), or starting bid for one item, and the number of items for sale.
Bidders specify both a bid price and the quantity they want to buy.
All winning bidders pay the same price per item — which is the lowest successful bid. This might be less than what you bid!
If there are more buyers than items, the earliest successful bids get the goods.
Higher bidders are more likely to get the quantities they've asked for.
Proxy bidding is not used in Dutch Auctions.
Bidders can refuse partial quantities. For example, if you place a bid for 10 items and only 8 are available after the auction, you don't have to buy any of them.
The only exception to the requirement that all items be identical relates to trading card listings. Lots of trading cards need not be identical due to the nature of these sales in the trading card arena.
Multiple quantity listings (Dutch auction, fixed price or store) may offer a choice of color in otherwise identical items. However, the seller must be able to fulfill the entire quantity of every listing in any offered color even if every winning bidder makes exactly the same color selection. This exception for choice of color does not apply to single quantity listings.
Here are some more examples of how Dutch Auctions work:
OR
A seller has 10 pens for auction at $1 each. 10 people bid $1 for one pen each. In this case, all 10 bidders will win a pen for $1.
Let's say that 5 people bid $1.25 for one pen each and 10 others bid $1. The minimum bid for the pen will be raised to $1.25 because demand exceeds supply. Because the $1.25 bidders bid higher than the $1 bidders, they will be guaranteed a pen. The other 5 pens will go to the earliest $1 bidders. The final price for each pen will be $1 (even though someone placed a high bid of $1.25) since all winning bidders pay the same price — which is the lowest successful bid.
It might sound complicated, but the majority of Dutch Auctions are simple: Most users win the items they bid on at the minimum asking price. However, there are some special instances you might want to know about:
If you are the lowest bidder in a Dutch Auction and you specify a multiple quantity, you may not get to purchase all that you specify. Why? Because there may be little left over after the high bidders get their share.
In other words, if the lowest bidder requests a quantity of 3 pens, she may only get one since the first 9 pens have already been allotted to the higher bidders. The only way to avoid this problem is to make sure you are not the lowest bidder!
In Dutch Auctions (Multiple Item Auctions), successful high bids are displayed when you click on the 'High bidders' link. The complete bidding history (including any unsuccessful bids) is displayed when you click on the 'Bid history' link.
The reserve price is another feature of single winner auctions. Reserve price auctions allows sellers to have a hidden reserve price that the bidding must exceed before the seller is required to sell the item. When a bidder's maximum bid is equal to or greater than the reserve price, the item's current price is raised to the reserve price amount.
The "Reserve" therefore is the minimum amount you as the seller are willing to sell your item for. Here's an example.
A seller puts his toy car collection up for auction, starting at $1.00. The seller is concerned that only one person may bid on the collection and that he would therefore have to sell the entire collection for $1 (much less than s/he is willing to sell them for).So the seller puts a reserve on the auction of $350. This means that until someone bids $350.00 or over $350, s/ he doesn't have to sell the collection. If someone only bids $99, the seller will get a report at the end of the auction stating that the reserve was not met and that the highest bidder offered $99. At this time, if the seller is willing to sell the collection for $99, he may contact the buyer and offer it to the buyer for $99. However, the buyer has no obligation to buy the car collection since the reserve was not met.
The purpose of a Reserve Price auction is to interest bidders with a low starting price and at the same time protect the seller from letting the item go for too little.
Tip: Most bidders are wary of participating in reserve price auctions. It is very frustrating to come back again and again over the duration of an auction (typically 3-7 days), to finally enter the winning bid, and then to discover that there was a reserve which is higher than your final bid, which means you don't win at all.
Is a free service that lets auction sellers post a price for the immediate sale of an item. Buyers willing to pay the price do not have to wait for an auction to end.
This new option is very popular among many eBay users, because buyers love the convenience of an immediate transaction, particularly when shopping for gifts. Sellers also have benefited from faster auctions and the option to offer another way to buy."
As required by eBay, the Buy It Now price must be greater or equal to the minimum bid price or the reserve price. Buy It Now is only available before the first bid is placed on the item. As soon as a bid is placed, the item is sold through the normal process.
BASIC EBAY SELLING REQUIREMENTS
The following contains a brief list detailing some needs to be a successful seller on eBay thereby tapping you into its money machine.
- Register yourself on eBay for FREE click here
- Create an eBay Seller's Account FREE click here
- Thoroughly familiarize yourself on how eBay works click here
- Learn how to use HTML authoring software (Hyper Text Markup Language - The Language of the Internet)
- Learn how to use a digital camera
- Learn how to use photo editing software
- Learn ad design and "Keyword" dynamics
- Learn how to write truthful effective ad copy (truthfulness goes a long way on eBay)
- Be realistic in your price expectations
- Decide the type of auction you'll use to sell your items (Standard, Dutch, Reserve, BIN)
- Conform to eBay's listing policies click here prohibitions and exceptions click here
- Carefully think out your Terms Of Sale
- Respond quickly to bidder's email questions
- If you're going to sell small items, decide how you're going to pack those items and where you're going to get your packing materials (boxes, peanuts, wrapping paper, labels, etc).
- If you're going to sell items (furniture, appliances, etc.) decide how you're going to pack and ship those large items.
Some Tips On How To Present Your Items
Like any other search system, you have to be careful about the keywords you use in your auction title — as this is the way most people will find your items.
The amount of money you will get for your item is influenced by the professionalism of your text and graphics. The better your item description and photos, the better your price.
You'll need a host for your digital pictures/images. You can host them on your own Website or server or let eBay host your images.
Use professionally designed HTML page templates for your auction page design that you can easily drop your content into.
Spend the 25 cents it costs for a “gallery” item, as this gives you a thumbnail image that people can use to browse items visually.
Carefully check the spelling within your entire Item Description especially your "Keywords."
Use a good digital camera—shoot pictures at higher resolution than you need. You can use a scanner for smaller items.
Make sure to use enough JPG compression so that the file sizes are small and the pictures download quickly.
Use the “resample” feature in your graphic program to resize your graphics and keep them sharp and clean.
Provide multiple views of the item you’re selling, different angles and distances. Close ups help, but make sure to provide a good overview picture.
Get close—don’t show a lot of the room around the item, we don’t want to see your living room or kitchen.
Make sure your backgrounds are clean and simple
