POSTED BY
on 10:42 am
under
Hi everyone
Following is an article I read re: eBay
For anyone who has used eBay for a while there isn't much new in it
But fir those of you new to eBay there is some good advice
The actual article is here at ninemsn
Cheers
MATT
Bidding in eBay auctions (www.ebay.com.au) is fast, fun and frequently addictive. No matter what your interests are, there’s probably something on eBay that will tickle your fancy. However, almost 5 million new items get listed on eBay every day, so with such an overwhelming volume of choice, finding the best bargains (or making a bit of money yourself after the spring cleaning) can sometimes be a challenging task.
If you’re keen to save money, one good general principle is to buy Australian where possible. On the most basic level, this can save you a lot of money on postage costs, and also ensures that you don’t get saddled with an item that can’t be easily used locally (a particular problem with electrical and electronic items). By default, searches on the eBay Australia site show items from Australian sellers first.
While anyone can browse through the eBay site, to make bids or sell goods you need to register. This is a free and relatively painless process. Possibly the most difficult aspect is choosing a unique username — with more than 160 million registered users, the odds are very good that the first option you think of will be gone!
An additional advantage of registering is that you can make use of the My eBay feature. This provides a full summary of all your recent activity on the site, including auctions you are bidding in, items you are watching, goods you have to pay for and reminders to leave feedback for items you’ve already purchased. You can also save your favourite searches and categories for easy access.
Buying intelligently
While there’s a basic search incorporated into most pages of the eBay site, finding the exact items you want requires a more strategic approach. Imagine you’re trying to purchase a replacement ink cartridge for your printer. Typing ‘ink cartridge’ into the search box will produce thousands of results, many of which won’t be relevant to you. Entering the brand name of your printer will immediately help reduce the number of results to a more manageable level.
eBay’s Advanced Search (accessible from the top-right corner of most eBay pages) offers additional options. Ticking the ‘Search title and description’ option here can often be helpful. By default, eBay only searches the main title, which produces faster results, but won’t always deliver what you’re looking for. For instance, if you collect magazines featuring articles about Princess Mary, the full contents of the magazine are unlikely to be featured in the title, but may be outlined in the description.
In some cases, you may get better results by browsing through to a specific category (using ‘Browse category’ on the main Buy page) rather than performing a broad general search. Take our ink cartridge example. eBay includes a category Computers—>Printer Accessories & Supplies—>Ink Cartridges - Black, with sub-categories for popular manufacturers. If you only want to replace the black cartridge in your printer, browsing these lists will be easier than a general search. You can also elect to search within a particular category, allowing you to refine results further without considering irrelevant entries.
Ensuring you make intelligent purchasing decisions is largely a matter of common sense. In the heady rush of an online bidding war, you can easily end up paying more for an item than you intended. If you’re not careful, you may even end up paying more than you would for a new item from a traditional retailer!
Price research is an essential element of intelligent eBay shopping, especially for common items such as electronics. As well as looking through as many listings as possible, make sure you check retail prices, using a search tool such as Google and by visiting retail store Web sites.
An often neglected element of price research is checking recent eBay sales of similar products. Select the ‘Completed listings only’ option in eBay’s Advanced search screen to see what similar items sold for in recent weeks.
When comparing individual bids, be sure to factor in postage charges, as these can vary widely between sellers. Read the item description carefully, and email the seller if you have any questions. And make sure you’re happy with the payment options offered. PayPal is generally the quickest and most secure option, but not all sellers support it.
Be sure to check the feedback rating for the seller. As well as looking at the overall feedback rating, read some of the individual comments, as these will help you decide if the seller is trustworthy.
Take full advantage of eBay’s proxy bidding system. This lets you set a maximum price you’re prepared to pay without being forced to continuously rebid. For items that are frequently listed, establish a sensible maximum price, enter that as your proxy bid and then leave the auction alone. For rarer collectible items where you’re less concerned about price, you may want to use sniping software to maximise your chances of winning.
Another way to eliminate concerns over winning auctions is to use the Buy It Now option if it’s offered. Buy It Now allows users to set a fixed price at which you can automatically win the auction. If the price seems reasonable, you may wish to select Buy It Now, but if there doesn’t appear to be much competition or there are lots of other competing listings, it may not be worthwhile. (Buy It Now is a standard feature of eBay Stores, where items are sold for a fixed price rather than via auction.)
Keep careful records of all auction transactions. eBay will store correspondence between you and sellers in its My Messages system. If you use a non-electronic method of payment (eg. a cheque or money order), keep all supporting documentation. If an item is particularly valuable, ask the seller to send it registered mail or by courier, and consider using an escrow service.
As a trading community, eBay depends on the good behaviour of buyers and sellers. Make sure that you pay promptly for successful auctions, and leave feedback once you’ve received your goods. Sellers should also leave feedback in return, improving your reputation in the community. (Some sellers are wary of selling goods to people with low feedback scores.)
When you want to sell
Hundreds of thousands of people make a living through selling goods on eBay, and millions more use it for the online equivalent of a garage sale, getting rid of old and unwanted items. Listing items is a straightforward process, and there’s a detailed tutorial available at http://tinyurl.com/7nus9 to guide you through the process. The following tips will help you maximise your profits if you decide to sell through eBay.
- Make sure your listing includes all relevant information about what you’re selling, and include a photograph if at all possible.
- Spend some time choosing the most appropriate category for your item, since this will increase the chances of its being seen by potential buyers.
- Research postage costs — at the very least for Australian buyers — before listing the item, so you can include an accurate estimate. Practical household goods are likely to mostly attract local bids, but if you are selling an unusual collectors’ item, you can also expect queries from international bidders.
- Set a minimum price for the item that you’ll be happy to accept, and which is realistic. Research what other similar items have sold for. Unlike most global eBay sites, eBay Australia no longer offers the option of setting a hidden ‘reserve’ price (other than for cars), so the choice of starting bid is particularly important. Setting a lower starting price also reduces the insertion fee (the basic listing charge), which can help make your auctions more profitable.
mulligroup@miltonulladulla.com
Contact Information
This email is brought to you on behalf of the Mulligrubs - Milton Ulladulla Internet & Computers Users Group
http://mulligrubs.shoalhaven.info/
The Mulligrubs meet on the last Thursday of each month at the Ulladulla CTC - Top of the Town Complex, Ulladulla NSW 2539
Send comments, suggestions, or questions about this newsletter to mulligroup@miltonulladulla.com
You can subscribe or unsubscribe from this discussion group at any time.
Simply send a request to mulligroup@miltonulladulla.com
All names and addresses will be kept confidential and will never be sold or used for any other purpose than forwarding of this newsletter
Following is an article I read re: eBay
For anyone who has used eBay for a while there isn't much new in it
But fir those of you new to eBay there is some good advice
The actual article is here at ninemsn
Cheers
MATT
eBay tips and tricks
If you’re keen to save money, one good general principle is to buy Australian where possible. On the most basic level, this can save you a lot of money on postage costs, and also ensures that you don’t get saddled with an item that can’t be easily used locally (a particular problem with electrical and electronic items). By default, searches on the eBay Australia site show items from Australian sellers first.
While anyone can browse through the eBay site, to make bids or sell goods you need to register. This is a free and relatively painless process. Possibly the most difficult aspect is choosing a unique username — with more than 160 million registered users, the odds are very good that the first option you think of will be gone!
An additional advantage of registering is that you can make use of the My eBay feature. This provides a full summary of all your recent activity on the site, including auctions you are bidding in, items you are watching, goods you have to pay for and reminders to leave feedback for items you’ve already purchased. You can also save your favourite searches and categories for easy access.
Buying intelligently
While there’s a basic search incorporated into most pages of the eBay site, finding the exact items you want requires a more strategic approach. Imagine you’re trying to purchase a replacement ink cartridge for your printer. Typing ‘ink cartridge’ into the search box will produce thousands of results, many of which won’t be relevant to you. Entering the brand name of your printer will immediately help reduce the number of results to a more manageable level.
eBay’s Advanced Search (accessible from the top-right corner of most eBay pages) offers additional options. Ticking the ‘Search title and description’ option here can often be helpful. By default, eBay only searches the main title, which produces faster results, but won’t always deliver what you’re looking for. For instance, if you collect magazines featuring articles about Princess Mary, the full contents of the magazine are unlikely to be featured in the title, but may be outlined in the description.
In some cases, you may get better results by browsing through to a specific category (using ‘Browse category’ on the main Buy page) rather than performing a broad general search. Take our ink cartridge example. eBay includes a category Computers—>Printer Accessories & Supplies—>Ink Cartridges - Black, with sub-categories for popular manufacturers. If you only want to replace the black cartridge in your printer, browsing these lists will be easier than a general search. You can also elect to search within a particular category, allowing you to refine results further without considering irrelevant entries.
Ensuring you make intelligent purchasing decisions is largely a matter of common sense. In the heady rush of an online bidding war, you can easily end up paying more for an item than you intended. If you’re not careful, you may even end up paying more than you would for a new item from a traditional retailer!
Price research is an essential element of intelligent eBay shopping, especially for common items such as electronics. As well as looking through as many listings as possible, make sure you check retail prices, using a search tool such as Google and by visiting retail store Web sites.
An often neglected element of price research is checking recent eBay sales of similar products. Select the ‘Completed listings only’ option in eBay’s Advanced search screen to see what similar items sold for in recent weeks.
When comparing individual bids, be sure to factor in postage charges, as these can vary widely between sellers. Read the item description carefully, and email the seller if you have any questions. And make sure you’re happy with the payment options offered. PayPal is generally the quickest and most secure option, but not all sellers support it.
Be sure to check the feedback rating for the seller. As well as looking at the overall feedback rating, read some of the individual comments, as these will help you decide if the seller is trustworthy.
Take full advantage of eBay’s proxy bidding system. This lets you set a maximum price you’re prepared to pay without being forced to continuously rebid. For items that are frequently listed, establish a sensible maximum price, enter that as your proxy bid and then leave the auction alone. For rarer collectible items where you’re less concerned about price, you may want to use sniping software to maximise your chances of winning.
Another way to eliminate concerns over winning auctions is to use the Buy It Now option if it’s offered. Buy It Now allows users to set a fixed price at which you can automatically win the auction. If the price seems reasonable, you may wish to select Buy It Now, but if there doesn’t appear to be much competition or there are lots of other competing listings, it may not be worthwhile. (Buy It Now is a standard feature of eBay Stores, where items are sold for a fixed price rather than via auction.)
Keep careful records of all auction transactions. eBay will store correspondence between you and sellers in its My Messages system. If you use a non-electronic method of payment (eg. a cheque or money order), keep all supporting documentation. If an item is particularly valuable, ask the seller to send it registered mail or by courier, and consider using an escrow service.
As a trading community, eBay depends on the good behaviour of buyers and sellers. Make sure that you pay promptly for successful auctions, and leave feedback once you’ve received your goods. Sellers should also leave feedback in return, improving your reputation in the community. (Some sellers are wary of selling goods to people with low feedback scores.)
When you want to sell
Hundreds of thousands of people make a living through selling goods on eBay, and millions more use it for the online equivalent of a garage sale, getting rid of old and unwanted items. Listing items is a straightforward process, and there’s a detailed tutorial available at http://tinyurl.com/7nus9 to guide you through the process. The following tips will help you maximise your profits if you decide to sell through eBay.
- Make sure your listing includes all relevant information about what you’re selling, and include a photograph if at all possible.
- Spend some time choosing the most appropriate category for your item, since this will increase the chances of its being seen by potential buyers.
- Research postage costs — at the very least for Australian buyers — before listing the item, so you can include an accurate estimate. Practical household goods are likely to mostly attract local bids, but if you are selling an unusual collectors’ item, you can also expect queries from international bidders.
- Set a minimum price for the item that you’ll be happy to accept, and which is realistic. Research what other similar items have sold for. Unlike most global eBay sites, eBay Australia no longer offers the option of setting a hidden ‘reserve’ price (other than for cars), so the choice of starting bid is particularly important. Setting a lower starting price also reduces the insertion fee (the basic listing charge), which can help make your auctions more profitable.
mulligroup@miltonulladulla.com
Contact Information
This email is brought to you on behalf of the Mulligrubs - Milton Ulladulla Internet & Computers Users Group
http://mulligrubs.shoalhaven.info/
The Mulligrubs meet on the last Thursday of each month at the Ulladulla CTC - Top of the Town Complex, Ulladulla NSW 2539
Send comments, suggestions, or questions about this newsletter to mulligroup@miltonulladulla.com
You can subscribe or unsubscribe from this discussion group at any time.
Simply send a request to mulligroup@miltonulladulla.com
All names and addresses will be kept confidential and will never be sold or used for any other purpose than forwarding of this newsletter
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