eBay Tips

Sep 18
21:00

2004

Gillian Tarawhiti

Gillian Tarawhiti

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This might not seem ... but in terms of selling on eBay it’s ... to ... what you are doing and what you bidders are talking ... Tips•Be a ... Present yourself

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This might not seem important,eBay Tips Articles but in terms of selling on eBay it’s important to understand what you are doing and what you bidders are talking about.
Seller’s Tips

•Be a Professional: Present yourself as a friendly professional. Make sure your descriptions and policies are clear. Make sure your auction is inviting and friendly. Strive for efficiency in very aspect of what you do. If you’re lacking in a system of organisation your whole business is going to be threatened.

•Keep it Concise: Avoid lengthy descriptions or worded sales pitches. Although these approaches might work elsewhere, they have no place in online auctions.

•Include a Photo: Photos add to authenticity. Try to include one if you can. Remember to keep it focused and relatively compact.

•Answer Questions: Include an email address and answer questions promptly and thoroughly. People will buy from sources that they can trust.

•Finish It Up: Don't drop your buyers at the moment of purchase. Be prepared for follow up emails and inquiries. You may have the sale now, but you might not in the future.

•Don't Be a Stranger: Don't keep yourself too anonymous. Anonymity creates suspicion and suspicion is the auctioneer's worst enemy.

•Ship it Right: Don't rip people off in the shipping. Try to bundle items together and package them properly.

•Your auction headline and item description: Your headline is your advertising and your item description is your salesperson. On the web, how you’re potential buyer perceives you and your product is everything.

•Use Power Words: Be sure to use the power words in your auction title (headline) Rare, Unique, Powerful, New, Unusual, Stunning, Top Notch, First Class, etc. Just be sure not to exaggerate. Don’t call something ‘rare’ if it is not. Remember 65% of eBay bidders find what they are looking for by using the search function.

•Search Lising on eBay to see what is selling: Go to http://pages.ebay.com/buy/index.html to see what is being listed and sold on eBay. The number is parentheses after the category title is the number of auctions for a given item.

•Set up a PayPal Shop: PayPal offers a service to all of their users called PayPal Shops. A PayPal shop is nothing more than a link to your eBay

•Set up a web site and use eBay to drive business to it: Every eBay seller should have a web site. Remember sales you make from your web site do not incur eBay fees. eBay has cracked down on sellers using auctions to drive hits to their web sites, but there are still some loopholes and techniques you can use without running afoul of eBay. These details are explained in this book

•Learn to sell information products on eBay: People will pay good money for information they can use. If you can write reasonably well, and you have a topic you have some expertise in, you can probably write a reference guide or “how-to” manual and sell it on eBay.

•Create an Opt-in newsletter: Create an on-line newsletter for your customers. Instead of sending the newsletter out, just send out the table of contents with a link to a page on your web site where the newsletter is posted. This drives traffic to your web site, which is the whole point. Your newsletter should also include a link to your active auctions.

The most effective method to drive traffic to your auction, and ultimately to your own website.
eBay Keywords’ is a powerful online marketing tool that brings buyers right to your listings through targeted ads linked to "keyword" search terms

https://ebay.admarketplace.net/ebay/servlet/ebay
How eBay Keywords work?

If you have some internet background then you would have heard the term pay-per-click (PPC).

Here is a short lesson on PPC.

PPC is basically paying for traffic legally. You bid for the highest position on a keyword or phrase on search engine(s).

eBay Keywords are based on the same principle, in that you bid to be on the number one spot for your keywords.

You bid the maximum cost-per-click (CPC) that you are willing to pay when a user clicks on your banner ad.

I will not go into depth regarding this option but will say that driving people to your auction is a good thing. I would highly recommend doing so.

Auction Lingo

•"As Is": Also known as "as is, where is" and "in its present condition." Typically, this is a sign that no return privileges will be granted.

•Bid Cancellation: The cancellation of a bid by a seller. During online auctions, sellers can cancel a bid if they feel uncomfortable about completing a transaction with a particular bidder.

•Bid History:: A historical list of all the bids made on a particular auction during or after the auction.

•Bid Increment: The standardized amount an item increases in price after each new bid. The auction service sets the increment, which rises according to the present high bid value of an item.

•Bid Retraction: The legitimate cancellation of a bid on an item by a bidder during an online auction.

•Bid Rigging: Fraudulent bidding by an associate of the seller in order to inflate the price of an item. Also known as shilling and collusion.

•Bid Shielding: Posting extremely high bids to protect the lower bid of an earlier bidder, usually in cahoots with the bidder who placed the shielding bid.

•Bid Siphoning: The practice of contacting bidders and offering to sell them the same item they are currently bidding on, thus drawing bidders away from the legitimate seller's auction.

•Bulk Loading: Listing a group of different items in separate lots all at once using an online auction site's bulk loading tool.

•Buying Up Lots: The practice of buying all quantities of an item during a Dutch auction. This is typically done for resale purposes.

•Caveat Emptor: The Latin phrase meaning "let the buyer beware."

•Cookie: A piece of information sent from a web server to a web browser that the browser software saves and then sends back to the server whenever the browser makes additional requests from the server.

•Deadbeats: High bidders who fail to pay for the item they won.

•Dutch Auction: The seller is offering multiple, identical items for sale.

•Escrow: Money held in trust by a third party until the seller makes delivery of merchandise to the buyer.

•fdbk/fk: Feedback. One user's public comments about another user in regard to their auction dealings. Feedback comments cannot be removed or changed once submitted to an auction service.

•Featured Auctions: Auction listings placed prominently on the home page and category pages of an auction service. Sellers pay for this prime placement.

•Feedback Padding: One user posting fraudulent positive feedback about another user and his or her auctions.

•Final Value Fee: The commission charge the seller pays to the auction service after his or her item sells.

•FVF Request: Final value fee request.

•Grading: The process for determining the physical condition of an item. Different items have different grading systems.

•Initial Listing Price: The opening bid price a seller attaches to his or her auction.

•Insertion Fee: A fee paid by the seller to the auction site in order to list an item for auction, calculated as a percentage of the opening bid or reserve price.

•Lot: A single auction listing.

•Market Value: The highest price a property will bring in the open market.

•Maximum Bid: The highest price a buyer will pay for an item, submitted in confidence to an online auction service's automated bidding system to facilitate proxy bidding.

•Minimum Opening Bid: The mandatory starting bid for a given auction, set by the seller at the time of listing.

•NARU'd: A auction user term to describe users whose memberships have been discontinued. NARU is the acronym for "not a registered user."

•Neg: Short for "negative user feedback."

•Net Cops: Auction users who actively attempt to report instances of fraud, such as shilling or bid shielding, to online auction sites.

•NR: Short for "no reserve." This indicates in the item description line that the auction has no reserve price specified.

•Opening Bid: The seller's opening bid, which sets the opening price.

•Outbid: To submit a maximum bid that is higher than another buyer's maximum bid.

•Proxy Bidding: Decide the maximum you're willing to pay and enter this amount. eBay will confidentially bid up to your maximum amount. In this way, you don't have to keep an eye on your auction as it unfolds. If other bidders outbid your maximum at the end of the auction, you don't get the item. But otherwise, you're the winner--and the final price might even be less than the maximum you had been willing to spend!

•Registered User: A person who has registered as a member of an online auction service. All online auction services require registration prior to buying and selling.

•Relisting: The relisting of an item by a seller after it has not received any bids or met its reserve price. Typically, the first relisting is free.

•Reserve Price: The minimum price a seller will accept for an item to be sold at auction. This amount is never formally disclosed.

•Retaliatory: The user term for retaliatory negative feedback, posted by one user in response to another user's negative feedback.

•S&H Charges: Shipping and handling charges.

•Secondary Market: The buyer market for second-hand goods. Online auctions serve the secondary market.

•Shilling: Fraudulent bidding by the seller (using an alternate registration) or an associate of the seller in order to inflate the price of an item. Also known as bid rigging and collusion.

•Sniping: Outbidding other buyers in the closing minutes or seconds of an auction.

•Starting Price: The mandatory starting bid for a given auction, set by the seller at the time of listing.

•Terms of Service: A legally binding agreement that outlines an auction site's operating policies. All registered users must agree to a site's terms before using the service.

•User Info Request: A request for a user's background information, which provides personal information, such as a phone number.