eBay 101: Selling on eBay For Part-time or Full-time Income, Beginner to PowerSeller in 90 Days [Kindle Edition]

Here is the Kindle version of this top ranked book and how to sell on eBay.

Editorial Reviews From Amazon.com

Product Description

With today's rocky economy and unsteady job market, there's never been a better time to earn extra cash online. And now there's a new book that guides you each step of the way: eBay 101: Selling on eBay For Part-time or Full-time Income, Beginner to PowerSeller in 90 Days. Access the world's biggest marketplace, right from your own home.

You'll learn how to:

-- Register at eBay and PayPal
-- Start part-time and expand your income when you're ready
-- Find great inventory at low prices
-- Auction to the highest bidder or sell at fixed prices
-- Identify niche markets for big profits
-- Get tax deductions for your eBay home-based business
-- Guard against scammers and rip-off artists

Starting a business on eBay is perhaps your fastest route to the American Dream. The payoff can be high, and the barriers to entry are low.

The world's most popular online marketplace, eBay has millions of registered buyers waiting to do business with you. For less than $100 and very little risk, you can start an eBay venture with profit margins rivaling those of any business. Exactly how much money you earn depends mostly on how much effort you put into your new enterprise and how efficiently you operate it.

In this new eBay guide, you'll see:

How eBay works ... Register your business ... Sell your item ... Build your listing

Timing, planning your auction ... Make a picture worth $1,000 ... Use Pre-filled Item Information ... Price your item ... Reserve Pricing ... Multiple Item (Dutch) Auctions ... The auction alternative: fixed prices ... Best Offer listing option ... Upgrade your listings ... The best time to list

Profit with a niche ... Start with used merchandise ... Win with niche selling ... Cash in on collectibles ... Autographed items ... Trust, but authenticate ... How to recognize fake autographs

Get more great inventory ... Estate sales ... Bankruptcy sales ... Thrift shops ... Local artisans ... Close-out merchandise ... Library sales ... Overstock distributors ... Find overlooked gems at estate sales ... Live auctions ... Postal Service auctions ... Treasury Department auctions ... GSA Auctions ... Government Liquidation ... Law Enforcement Auctions ... Classified ads ... Get merchandise on eBay ... Get merchandise on consignment ... Become a trading assistant

Expand your business ... Create your `About Me' page ... Cross-promotions ... Open an eBay store ... Set up shop ... Promote your store ... eBay Express ... Using eBay's Half.com site ... Google Base ... Why many would-be PowerSellers fail

Prevent problem customers ... Set Buyer Requirements ... Be a feedback fanatic ... Completing sales ... Communicate with a packing slip ... Respond to feedback ... Mutual Feedback Withdrawal ... Feedback policies ... Handle customers right ... Unpaid item disputes ... Work with PayPal

Avoid scams and fraud ... Spot shady buyers ... Recognize predators ... Avoid phishing e-mails ... Beware of hoax e-mails ... Avoid drop-ship, wholesale scams ... Recognize crooks and middlemen ... Warning signs of bogus wholesalers ... Know a fake from the real McCoy

Ship efficiently ... Choose a shipping company ... Communicate when you ship ... Pare shipping costs to the bone ... Sell Get It Fast Items ... Handle delivery snafus ... Print online postage ... Organize your inventory ... Design your SKU system

Get efficient with fulfillment software ... TurboLister ... Selling Manager ... Software for media sellers ... Research prices wirelessly

More eBay rules ... Prohibited and restricted items ... Shill bidding ... Keyword spamming ... Fee Circumvention ... Sales taxes ... Income taxes ... Business use of your home ... Hiring employees

eBay Has Major Search Outage Over Weekend

During this critical shopping period, with the economy in the doldrums and retailers of all sizes needing to make as many sales as possible eBay experienced a world wide search system failure on Friday, November 21st.

AuctionBytes.com by Ina Steiner has complete details and many comments by eBay users.

CNN.com is reporting on the incident in an article titled EBay Apologizes for Web Site Glitch

Online auction giant eBay apologized Sunday for a daylong glitch that inactivated the search function on its Web site, and said it will compensate sellers for their losses.

The Wall Street Journal.com is reporting about the problem in an article titled EBay Search Glitch Damps Sales where they state;

A search glitch at eBay Inc.'s main e-commerce sites over the weekend damped sales in the run-up to the crucial holiday shopping season.

Although auctions continued to function, sellers began noticing problems with eBay's search system Saturday morning that prevented users from finding products on the U.S. and some international eBay sites. EBay said search functions were fully restored Sunday morning.

The overall consensus is that EBay is a victim of it's on success. The number of buyers that flocked to the site over the weekend crashed the search function. This however begs the question, "Didn't EBay realize this would happen in this climate where many shoppers would be searching for bargians?"

Books About EBay @Amazon.com

eBay Announces Lay Off of 10 Percent

According to an article on the New York Times.com Technology page, eBay "is both tightening its belt and expanding its reach in preparation for the coming economic storm."

On Monday, eBay announced it would lay off 10 percent of its 16,000 workers, including 1,000 permanent employees, and pay $1.35 billion to acquire the Web payment firm Bill Me Later and the Danish classified advertising companies Den Bla Avis and BilBasen.

You can read the full article here, EBay Trims Its Work Force And Makes Acquisitions.

More Changes From eBay

Various news organizations are reporting new changes in eBays pricing policies. Check out Some eBay sellers frustrated with rule changes from the Associated Press.

According to the article;

Even with the rancor, some sellers clearly have benefited from eBay's changes. Steven Holt and his wife, Crystal, who sell DVDs from Denison, Iowa, say they've seen record sales since the spring, when eBay search results began favoring vendors who, like them, have high feedback ratings.

Changes are coming in the following five areas:

• Pricing, - All fixed Price listing fees will be lowered to 35-cents and the listing period will expand for 30 days, and one listing fee will cover an unlimited number of items. This will also be accompanied with an increase in final value fees by categories.


• Search, - The new search will treat auction and Fixed Price listings more fairly. Fixed price listings and auction listings separately for best match and then combine them in the final listing. The new search algorithm will look at the success rate of an item. The fixed price listings that have a higher sales rate will rank above those that don’t.


• Seller Standards, - One of the recent changes to the changes that eBay made was to stop counting neutrals in your feedback score. There will probably be more changes made in this area as eBay is serious about getting rid of problem sellers.


• Shipping, - Soon eBay will set a maximum shipping & handling charge for items listed in the media categories (books, DVDs, CDs, etc.). They also indicated that maximum shipping charges may be set in other categories in the future. This will be accompanied by promotions for buyers that will help with your item rankings.


• Electronic Payments, - eBay will go to an all-electronic payment system soon. Checks and Money Orders will not be accepted for payment. This change has been in the works for a while, and it will be interesting to see how it pans out.

As always with eBay things remain fluid. Most of these changes will be implemented in late October, if they do not change their minds between now and then.

eBay Software Pirate Sentenced

In yesterdays post I gave suggestions on how all online sellers can go about increasing the trust that buyers have for us as a whole.

Today I want to point out a recent news story that shows what not to do to foster trust in online selling.

You can read PCMag.com's coverage of the story Software Pirate Sentenced to Four Years.

The Software and Information Industry Association said this week that a key seller of fraudulent software on eBay, Jeremiah Mondello, had been sentenced to 48 months in federal prison.

Mondello pled guilty in May to counts of copyright infringement, mail fraud and aggravated identity theft. He was also sentenced to three years supervised release after the conclusion of his sentence, as well as 150 hours of community service.

The Onion's Take On Why Meg Resigned

This is old news, but I still think it is kind of funny.

eBay CEO Resigns.

In this Economy Online Shopping is the Way to go.

In this economy where;

• Gas prices are on the rise.


• Housing cost are going up.


• Credit is difficult to get.


• Job losses are on the rise.

Shopping on line is the way to go. It will save on gas and some of the other cost of shopping at brick and mortar stores.

The real good news, is that the number of places that you can shop on line is at an all time high. The purpose of this post is to give those interested in saving money a list of options from shopping on line.

Two of my favorite places to shop online are eBay and Amazon.com. Between these two online shopping sites most of your electronics, books, video game, and other entertainment needs can be fullfilled.

Some of the most popular eBay catagories that can also save you money by allowing you to buy from the comfort of your home are;

Car, boats, vehicles and parts

Cellphones and PDAs

Collectibles

Computers & Networking

Consumer Elcectonics

DVDs and Movies

Music

Real Estate

Sporting Goods

Toys and Hobbies

Travel

Video Games

Amazon.com also sells much more than books and CDs. Below you will find various departments that can save you money by reducing your cost of shopping. One of the most interesting areas is their Grocery, Health and Beauty departments;

Books

Movies & TV

Video Games

MP3 Downloads

Computers & PC Hardware

Electronics

Home Improvement

Grocery

Toys & Game

Baby Store

Apparel & Accessories

Sports & Outdoors

Power Tools

Amazon.com is offering customers to save an extra 15% plus get automatic reorders and free shipping on items they use frequently, including coffee, shampoo, and laundry detergent, when they order through Amazon's new Subscribe & Save program. Click link to learn more about the program.

eBay Ordered to Pay Millions to High End Fashion Company

A court in France on Monday ordered eBay Inc. to pay a high-end fashion company to pay $61 million due to the sale of counterfeit goods on the auction site.

Yahoo news reports in an atricle titled eBay told to pay $61M to fashion brand for fakes.

"If counterfeits appear on our site, we take them down swiftly," eBay spokeswoman Sravanthi Agrawal said. "But today's ruling is not about counterfeits. Today's ruling is about an attempt by LVMH to protect uncompetitive commercial practices at the expense of consumer choice and the livelihood of law-abiding sellers that eBay empowers every day."

There Are Many New Changes Coming to eBay

Just received the below message in my eBay inbox;

Big changes to Feedback start this month

Important changes to Feedback are slated to be live in May. Since sellers can now leave only positive Feedback for buyers, we've added important new protections for good sellers:

• Provisions for removing negative and neutral Feedback from
  suspended members.


• Credit for repeat Feedback from your loyal buyers.


• New reminders to encourage buyers to communicate with
  their seller before leaving negative or neutral Feedback.


• Shorter window of time to leave Feedback.


• 7-day wait period for buyers to leave negative or neutral
  Feedback for PowerSellers that have been on eBay for
  at least 12 months.


• Increased ability for sellers to block buyers with
  non-payment history.

Some of this I like and some of it I'll just have to wait and see.

I've always thought that feedback from repeat buyers should be counted in your overall score so I like that one.

But the changes to negative feedback for buyers kind of has me steamed. And I also don't care for counting neutral feedback as negatives in your overall feedback score.

I am sure we will visit all of this again soon.

McCree's Antique Store an Example

Here is another example of a blog being used in conjunction with eBay to sell items. I built this blog McCree's Antique Blog for a friend of mine to help him sell his items and to get more exposure for his eBay store; McCree's Antique Store.

Feel free to send me an email if you have any questions about how to do this or just watch along as we make more entries into his online store and update his blog.

I hope my readers get some ideas from this one. The advantages of having a blog that mirrors your eBay store are;

1. You get better search results. People who are searching for your product can find it through your blog.

2. It allows you to focus on what it is you sell. You can do extended write ups on your items and use different key words that you did not use in your eBay ad.

3. You can have as many photographs as you want. This is one of the neat things about having a blog, you can have unlimited photos for your item. There can be as many different pictures as there are post that you can think up.

4. You can also use your blog as a platform for affiliate marketing that supports the items you sell. You can join eBay's affiliate marketing program and post these links to your blog. There by having a secondary income stream for your store.

Another Example of What Sellers Have to Put Up With

A person on Yahoo Answers ask;

Ebay question....?.

I bought something off ebay like 10 mins ago I have already paid for it through paypal but I don't want it anymore because I don't really trust the seller. How do I get the Money put back into my account since it was only 10 mins ago and I know it hasn't been shiped or anything. Would I have to call paypal?

-----------------

My answer;

It is always best to check the seller out very good before you buy.

When you buy an item on eBay you are entering a legal contract with the seller.

This will cause the seller problems because you have purchased the item and now decided that you no longer want it.

One of the problems you are causing them is now some of their inventory that they could have sold to some else has been taken off of eBay. Also they were charged fees to list this item, and will probably apply to eBay to get their fees back. And you will be labeled as a non-paying bidder.

If you do not trust a seller, then you should not buy from them.

Thoughts on eBay's Feedback System

I've been meaning to put my thoughts down about eBay's feedback system. But I have such mixed feeling about the whole system that I can't seem to get them all out at once.

A couple of articles by Washington Post.com writer Rob Pegoraro titled "On eBay, A Little Less Conversation" and "Feedback, And Pushback, On eBay's Feedback Changes" prompted me write this post. I really like the question posed at the end of the second article, and many of the comments are very thought provoking.

If you're an eBay seller, do you trust this company to police the marketplace in place of you? Would you accept such a "we'll take things from here" proposition from the management of any online community?

1. No other form of retailing has such a system. When you go to the corner seven-eleven or the nearby Wal-Mart store, you have no idea of what their feedback is. They do not have to announce to you what problems they have had with other buyers.

This is a big deal for the small online seller. And I don't think that eBay understands what a burden this is.

Can you imagine a big sign on the front of every retail establishment telling how many customers had a positive experience and how many had a negative experience?

2. The idea that sellers can not leave feedback for buyers is crazy. And I chose that word because it describes it best to me. But it also speaks to the question, how can I trust an organization that is not fundamentally fair.

Why harm sellers like this. You can see by this decision that eBay does not truly care for sellers (I suspect this is out of ignorance as opposed to being out of malice).

There are sellers who are bad and need to be removed from eBay, but this move hurts all sellers.

And this really gets to the heart of the question, "Do you trust eBay to police the market place?" When you consider the harm that this could potentially do the sellers, the answer has to be NO!

Sellers can not trust an organization that continues to hurt them.

3. The feedback system is unique and it gives eBay an interesting social network feel. But it also has too much weight in the overall eBay experience. eBay should work to put feedback in perspective.

Many of the new changes to the system do not do this. They highlight the problems with the system and make small things that are not important stand out, which causes problems for sellers.

4. It is also apparent that the new changes were done by someone who does not fully understand the buyer population. I have made this point earlier but here I want to focus on the fact that all buyers are not the same, and so a one size fits all approach does not work for them all.

Some sellers will not be hurt as much by these changes because they sell items that are in high demand, and the buyers will buy them regardless of their feedback. You have always had this situation on eBay. The changes will not change this.

As opposed to trying to regulate the interactions between buyers and sellers eBay should understand that they do not know the details of every seller and do not know what is best for all sellers either.

5. Some of the changes seem to be made with eBay's bottom line in mind. As I have mentioned before, some sellers use shipping as a cost center. eBay does not get a cut of the shipping cost. So some of the changes, i.e. Detailed Seller Ratings, seem to be made to make sellers conform to a model that works in eBay's favor as opposed to either the buyer or the seller.

And again this does not make me trust eBay more.

6. With some of these changes eBay has made the difficult job of customer service even more difficult. I don't think the decision makers at eBay understand how much time the feedback system requires. An unfair system will now take even more time and energy to make customers satisfied with what they perceive as short comings in a sellers processes.

And here is the rub on this one, eBay itself does not give very good customer service. And yet it wants to put this burden on sellers. You can seldom speak to a real person when you call and if you do get a person it is typically someone who is clueless. And yet eBay wants to allow customers to grade sellers on their communications.

I'll end this with a story about a buyer who gave us a negative because we did not email him to tell him that we had shipped his item. He got the item, it was in good condition and was exactly what he wanted, but he felt that we owed it to him to send him an email letting him know that we had shipped his item.

For this we got a negative. We were able to convince this buyer that we had not harmed him and that we would like to have the negative removed. But with the new changes this will probably be happening more often.

I probably would have eaten it.

Many national news outlets are reporting about the strange eBay auction of a Illinois shaped cornflake.

Two sisters from Virginia sold their Illinois-shaped corn flake on eBay Friday night for $1,350.

"We were biting our nails all the way up to the finish, seeing what would happen," said Melissa McIntire, 23. "There's a lot of relief involved."

You can read all about it at Google News.

I have to start taking a closer look at my breakfast cereal before I eat it. LOL.

eBay says No more confirmed addresses with PayPal

According to an email that I just received, eBay is doing away with the requirements for confirmed addresses with PayPal.

From the email;

Selling is now safer and easier on eBay with PayPal

PowerSellers like you asked us to improve our seller protection measures. You told us confirmed addresses sometimes kept buyers from buying, and that annual coverage limits weren't high enough.

So we listened, and eliminated them both. Then we added coverage for buyers in 190 countries--and now you're invited to try it out. The new measures include the same coverage as the Seller Protection Policy, PLUS:

• No more confirmed addresses: Makes it easier for people to buy from you
• No more annual coverage limits: Don't sweat it... you're covered
• Coverage in more places around the world: Take payments confidently from buyers in 190 countries

I'm not sure that I like this. I personally have had problems with buyers who did not know that their PayPal address was different from their eBay address. The confirmed addresses allowed for a check and gave the seller a chance to make sure they were shipping to the correct address.

I wonder if this is going to cause more items to be shipped to the wrong address?

eBay Announces Changes to Affiliate Program

According to an email that I received yesterday eBay plans to change its Affiliate Program.

From the email;

We are excited to announce eBay’s new global affiliate platform: the eBay Partner Network.

The new platform will go live on April 1st, 2008 PST, at which point eBay will no longer be running its affiliate program through Commission Junction. Beginning April 1st, affiliates should register with eBay Partner Network and migrate their links from CJ to the new platform.

While CJ and ValueClick have been valuable partners to eBay throughout the years, we’ve decided to give our affiliate community a customized experience for eBay affiliates.

All the great tools and benefits of working with the eBay program will remain the same – access to the Editor Kit and affiliate API, the flexible destination tool, the great payout structure. In addition, the eBay partner network will provide several new features:

• Easy global registration to multiple countries simultaneously
• New, targeted banners and rich media creatives
• New landing page optimization and geo-targeting capabilities
• More detailed reporting capabilities for eBay’s programs

The eBay Partner Network and Commission Junction will run in parallel for one month through this process, so please plan to complete your migration by May 1st, 2008.

ITworld.com has the following article; EBay to take over affiliate program's management

"ValueClick's Commission Junction does a fairly good job, but the product over the years has grown a bit stagnant and hasn't been keeping up with the demands affiliates have had," said Ron Stewart, GetItNext's CEO.

For example, GetItNext routinely has to manually "dig out" data it feels is essential about its referrals, sales and commissions from the ValueClick reports, Stewart said.

eBay's new search feature.

If the eBay forums are any indication, people are not happy about eBay's new search function.

I noticed it when I wanted to look at a list of my own completed auctions, which I could not figure out how to do. And that is something that was very valuable about the old search function. You could see the completed auctions for a given item, a given seller or your own items. I don't understand why eBay would remove that feature.

If you want to see the reaction of other sellers check out the search discussion board.

And if you really want to know what people think read this VOTE here if you DO NOT Like the New Search thread.

CNN Money Report on eBay Boycott Winding Down

EBay boycott winds down, but anger remains

A weeklong boycott by some sellers hasn't prompted eBay to reconsider a slew of fee and policy changes. Now comes the wait to see if community anger eventually takes a toll on eBay's bottom line.

Read the full article here; EBay boycott winds down, but anger remains

EBay reaches settelment with MercExchange

EBay Inc. settled a seven-year patent dispute that it had with MercExchange LLC which prompted an important intellectual-property ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, according to an online article at Yahoo News from the Associated Press.

EBay said that it bought the three MercExchange patents that it had been accused of violating, for an undisclosed price. EBay added that the figure would not materially affect its financial results.

The Great Falls, Va. based MercExchange sued eBay back in 2001, saying that eBay's "Buy It Now" option, which lets sellers make items available at set prices, infringed on MercExchange patents.

See EBay Ends Patent Suit With MercExchange for the full article.

Mashable Blog on the Power Seller Boycott

Mashable has in interesting article concerning the eBay Power Seller Boycott. According to the article written by Mark Hopkins

It was widely reported that the decrease in sales and listings reached a measurable percentage for the week - 3%. The problem with this measureable percentage was that it coincided with a week containing a national American holiday, and thus was easily explainable to be partly due to that, instead of the strikage by the top sellers. Several Mashable tipsters sent us an article the other day in the USA Today saying that the decrease in listings had reached lowered levels of 13%, or down to 13 million items.

The article questions if the effects are caused by the holiday week, or if the boycott is really making a difference. According to this article the boycott has been extended to March 9th.

An interesting question.

Kim Peterson ask the question Should eBay's Meg Whitman resign? in her TopStocks Money Blog over at MSN. And it got me to thinking, is it time for Meg to go.

I think I have been hearing for calls for her to step down for a long time now.

And I think one of the key quotes from the article is

The company is undoubtedly an auction powerhouse. The problem is that it hasremained just that, despite numerous attempts to expand to new areas.

Try as it might under Meg Whitman eBay has yet to become more than just an auction house. It may be time to allow someone who has a different vision to take the helm. I mean we may see something better than the purchase of Skype or the introduction of eBay neighborhoods.