Tips on Using E-Bay

I have spent a considerable amount of time on E-Bay as both a buyer and a seller. So, for those of you just getting started I am providing you with some tips on using it.

TIPS FOR THE BUYER: As a buyer using E-Bay costs you absolutely nothing other than what you decide to spend on an item plus its shipping cost and sales tax(if the seller is in the same state as you).

GENERAL TECHNIQUES:

• Don't bid on items until they are in the LAST DAY or within the LAST several hours unless it is something you are wanting to bid on but, do not think you will be able to bid on the last day. If you bid too early in the auction you will not really get an accurate impression of how high the auction will go. You could string out your time waiting for an auction to end in 5 days when you bid based on inaccurate assumptions as to how reasonable it was selling for. You may find after waiting 4 days that other people are willing to pay much higher than you for the item. Most people wait until the last day or so of an auction to bid.
• ALWAYS bid the MAXIMUM price you are willing to pay for the item LESS shipping. Make sure you read the auction carefully before bidding and take shipping costs into consideration. E-Bay will automatically bid ONLY the amount needed to make you the top bidder. It will then only advance your bid amount as neccessary to keep you in the top. If someone goes higher than your maximum bid you will receive an E-mail from E-Bay with your outbid notification. Usually, you will be outbid in the last couple hours of an auction and therefor it becomes apparent how important it is to bid your MAXIMUM amount. Don't play the ODDs game. Bid your maximum and let E-Bay try to get it for you at the lowest price it can.
• KNOW YOUR SELLER: The number in the parenthesis next to a Sellers ID is the number of positive feedbacks they have received. When a transaction occurs the SELLERs tend to leave POSITIVE, NEGATIVE, and NEUTRAL feedback for the BUYER and vice versa. This is one of the things that keeps E-Bay going. If you want to play it safe ONLY buy from people with good reputations.

OTHER TRICKS FOR BUYING:
If you know what it is you are looking for try narrowing down the categories by clicking through the categories in ebay. Once you are in the category most likely to hold the items you are looking for. Type a WORD or WORDS into the SEARCH box and CHECK the box that says search only in that category and click SEARCH. If it finds the item you are looking for great. You may want to use your BACK button on your web browser and try it again with different words. If you are still having no luck have it SEARCH the entire E-Bay site by not specifying a specific category.

TIPS FOR THE SELLER: Selling things on E-bay is a very quick way to rid yourself of excess inventory, come up with extra cash from things you don't really need, and more. It is not free. Items starting at under $10 will cost you $0.25 (they'll invoice you) to insert it. E-Bay also takes a % off the top of items that are successfully sold. I believe it is from 2% to 5% of the final sales price depending on what it sales for. You can check their rates information at their site.

• KNOW YOUR MARKET: Before you even begin selling items SEARCH for similar items on E-Bay. Even look through the completed auctions as well. Find out what the items are selling for. You may be starting your item TOO HIGH to even sell it and will just end up being out $0.25 or whatever the insertion fee is. If you see something selling at prices you are willing to part with an item for then you should proceed. Otherwise, you just saved yourself some time and money just by performing this one step.
• FIND A CATEGORY: Find the category that best suits your item. The best category will be the category that A) has the most items similar to this in nature as that is where BUYERS will go to look for it and B) categories that are producing the most successful number of transactions(which indicates a lot of buyers are watching it).
• PRESENTATION: If you are going to just type in run together text and not show any pictures or anything then you can easily do this on E-Bay. Otherwise, you need to know some web page basics to even begin to get a friendly to the eyes presentation.
  Here I will give you some basic tools to make it easier to read but, they will not make the auction look fancy. If you want your auction to look fancy read the section at the end of this document. You can type the text into the description as you normally would but, you will need to type in some extra things as you go to make it look good. Here they are.
  <P> Typing this <P> into your document will cause a line break which will interrupt the wrap around effect.
  <BR> Typing <BR> into your document will create a hard line break which functions similar to <P>.
  <B> Typing <B> before words you want to appear in BOLD and then typing </B> where you want the BOLD to be turned off will allow you to add BOLD to your auction text.
  <U> Typing <U> and </U> as in the <B> above will give you UNDERLINE capabilities.
  <I> Typing <I> and </I> as in the <B> above will give you ITALICS capabilities.
  <HR> Typing <HR> will give you a break and will put a HORIZONTAL LINE across the screen at that point.
  It is recommended that you type your text into a text editor such as NOTEPAD and then COPY and PASTE it into the place where EBAY askes for it as needed. If you know the basics of web design you can actually use those tools to design FANCY Auctions with pictures, animated objects, links to web pages, and more. You just design it and COPY and PASTE everything between the <BODY> and </BODY> markers in the HTML into the spot where EBAY askes you to enter your description. DO NOT USE JAVASCRIPT ROLLOVERS and such... they will not work.
• Go ahead and place your item for auction through EBAY. Start the bidding as low as you can and ALWAYS target for under $10 and you will save yourself at least $0.25 if the item does not sell. In addition, if you want to start the bidding low but, do not want to SELL it for less than a certain amount which is higher than your starting bid then you will need to set a RESERVE PRICE. Some people do not like RESERVE PRICE auctions. This allows people to bid but, they will not actually be guaranteed the item unless it clears your reserve price. It should be noted that EBAY charges the INSERTION fee based on RESERVE PRICE. So, if you start bidding at $1 and you set the reserve price at $11 you will be charged a $0.50 insertion fee instead of $0.25. ADVANTAGE: Reserve prices can be annoying to the bidder (I speak from experience). There is really only one time to use them. If you have an item you are not sure will sell and are not sure you are willing to sell it. Set your RESERVE PRICE at what you would be willing to sell it for. If it does not sell you still can contact the HIGH BIDDER if you decide you would be willing to sell it for the amount he bid and you may make a sell afterall. However, sometimes the bidder will go on to bid on something else if they do not meet your reserve and by the time you get to them they are already in another auction.
• SCOUTING vs. SELLING: If you have an item or item you would like to move there is ANOTHER way to use EBAY as well. Scout out the items similar to yours... especially look in the COMPLETED auctions. If you find people who bid on the item for a price you are willing to sell your item for but, they did not win then CONTACT them by email and offer to sell it to them at their bid. This eliminates EBAY fees completely. It does not always work but, it can.
• LOST LEADERS: Many people have web pages devoted to selling the items they are auctioning. They start an auction at a LOW PRICE and have a FANCY LINK to their web page. This will draw people into their web page as they look at the auction. They MAY end up selling the item in the auction for FAR less than they wanted (unless they use a RESERVE) but, then again they will get traffic to their web site and if the prices are competitive at their web site then they may make many more sales. This happens a lot in Ebay. I see it in the computer section quite a bit. This can be a technique you may want to consider using if your prices are competitive and you have a web site selling items like it.

SERVICES OFFERED:Future Wave Computer Solutions offers services to EBAY USERS as well.

• BUYING: If you are not sure what you are wanting or want someone else to buy for you through E-Bay Future Wave Computer Solutions will be happy to use E-Bay to purchase the item for you. It DOES take time so, any such transaction will require that 20% markup be applied to the final bid. This has to be charged as it can be a lot of work and time consuming to get the good deals. Future Wave would operate within a maximum you specify. It is recommended you try to use EBAY for yourself as you will save that much more money. However, if you want someone with experience to do it feel free to contact us via EMAIL: fwave@rmi.net.
• SELLING: If you want the presentation of your auction to be premium and attractive Future Wave Computer Solutions will be happy to design the auction presentation for you and help you put it on E-Bay. The fees are as follows depending on what you would like.
  STANDARD FEE: $5 (for formatted TEXT ONLY)
  PER PHOTO ADDED: $1
  PER CUSTOM GRAPHIC: $2
  PREMIUM PACKAGE (Up to 10 pictures, Custom graphics as appropriate, formatted text, links to web pages, and more): $30 (same cost as a single page web page designed by Future Wave Computer Solutions).
  So, basically the cost is $5 to $30 depending on what you want done. If you wish to have multiple pages it will cost $30 per additional page. NOTE: These pages can be REUSED if this is something you will be auctioning frequently.
  If you are interested in having FUTURE WAVE perform selling services on EBAY for you then feel free to email us at fwave@rmi.net. The fees above are in addition to any charged by E-Bay.

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