eBay 101

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.

eBay provides a fair, level playing field for beginners and seasoned pros alike. If you’re already employed, you can begin your eBay business as a part-time venture, as I did. If your eBay profits grow bigger than your paycheck, you can quit your day job and enjoy one of the most rewarding experiences of your life: building a thriving business from scratch.

Nothing is more empowering than building your own business to support yourself and your family. You don’t need a store or a warehouse or delivery trucks to sell on eBay. You don’t need an MBA or inside connections with wholesalers or drop-shippers. The only requirements are a willingness to learn and a commitment to running an honest business.

No business is better suited to the one-person company than eBay. You can start small—perhaps with some of your own unwanted possessions—and you can invest your profits in new inventory and expand at your own pace. If you’d like to earn just a few hundred dollars a month to supplement your current income, you can keep the enterprise part time. If you want to take four months off during the summer, you can. If you decide to go full time, it’s certainly possible to earn more than $40,000 a year working on your own. Whether you begin as a home-based business or a sideline to an existing business, the opportunities are vast. Today is a good time to start.

I began my online selling career in 2001 by selling some of my old books on Half.com, now owned by eBay. I listed a couple dozen of my unwanted tomes and was amazed to see how quickly they sold. I couldn’t wait to find new books to list. Impulsively, I withdrew $80 from my meager savings to buy four bags of used paperbacks from a local shop. Several of the books turned out to be worthless, but one book sold immediately for $23, and within a few days, after selling just half of those books, I had doubled my $80 investment. I was hooked.

I immediately hauled a carload of books home from a library sale and worked straight through the weekend listing them for sale. I quit my job two months later and never looked back. In the meantime, I’ve expanded my business to eBay and other sites, racking up $1.4 million in sales to 130,000 customers in all 50 states and 31 foreign countries. With the profits, I’ve paid off my debts and moved from a cramped apartment to a nice house. I did it all myself, with no bosses and no employees. And it all started with that $80 I spent on that first batch of books and the impulse to see what was possible. Meanwhile, lots of people have been even more successful on eBay than I have.

All this would have been impossible just 10 or 15 years ago. To be a retailer before eBay, you had to first assemble a wide range of merchandise—enough variety to lure people in your door. You needed to lease retail space. You needed employees. You had to pay through the nose to advertise, and then you would pray some customers showed up with money in hand. If something went sufficiently wrong, you lost your shirt.

Today, you can market instantly to a worldwide pool of millions of ready buyers—even as a beginning seller—and you don’t need to advertise.

I can’t guarantee you’ll make money selling stuff on eBay. Most sellers don’t get rich, and some even go broke. This is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It’s hard work. But it’s a lot more satisfying to work hard at your own business than for someone else—you reap the rewards. And your odds of success will be much better by following the hard-earned advice in this book.

When I started, I knew nothing about online selling, but it’s amazing how fast you can learn by doing something you enjoy. A few people tried to talk me out of writing what you hold in your hands right now, saying I should keep what I’ve learned to myself. “Don’t help your competition,” they warned. But I don’t look at it that way. Since you’re reading this book, you’re either interested in selling on eBay or have already started. The ideas in this book will help make your business successful faster than trial and error. And if you run a good operation, that helps me; if you make your eBay customers happy, maybe they’ll buy from me next time. And those buyers will tell their friends about shopping at eBay, and so on.

My theory about selling online is that everyone can win. The more people who become buyers and sellers in this worldwide network, the more valuable it is for everyone to belong. It’s a virtuous cycle. Buyers can find more of what they want, and sellers have more buyers every day.

How eBay works

eBay is an Internet-based auction and shopping venue where people and businesses around the world buy and sell goods and services. Millions of items—baby clothes, toasters, pool tables, rare stamps, automobiles, and other paraphernalia—are listed and sold every day.

eBay also operates an online payment company, PayPal, which makes electronic payments fast, easy and safe. Buyers and sellers rate each other with “feedback,” allowing traders to check each other’s reputation before transacting.

And so for the budding entrepreneur, eBay provides the essential ingredients for a thriving business: a steady stream of customers and a safe trading environment.

Before you begin

Even if you feel ready to start selling on eBay, take a few weeks to get familiar with the marketplace:

• Buy something from 10 different sellers. If you haven’t yet participated on eBay, this will get your feet wet. You’ll start building your feedback record. And nothing teaches you the ropes faster than seeing a variety of eBay transactions from the buyer’s side.

Those 10 transactions will all be unique because each seller is different. Take notes on how each seller handles his or her business. Study their listing descriptions, their responsiveness, and their shipping practices. Ask yourself: Why did you buy from them instead of another seller? With each transaction, you’ll likely see room for improvement. Figure out how you can correct what those sellers are doing wrong and improve on what they’re doing right.

Make no mistake, you’re about to enter a great competition. To achieve at a high level, you must offer good merchandise and great service. Your first step is studying your competitors. Don’t worry, there’s still plenty of room for more eBay sellers. You’ll find there’s an infinite number of ways to succeed.

Getting active on eBay might also dispel some preconceived notions holding you back. eBay isn’t just an online yard sale, and it’s not just for collectors or penny-pinchers. Virtually any kind of legal product or service can be marketed, so there’s a built-in market for practically everything—new, used and collectible items of every kind.

Becoming an active buyer on eBay also gives you a keen insight into precisely how shoppers find the stuff they buy on eBay. Armed with that knowledge, you’ll be a superior seller. For a thorough tutorial on searching and browsing eBay, see this page:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/find/find_ov.html

• Don’t go hogwild. Naturally, you want to get your new business off the ground as quickly as possible. But take a deep breath. Don’t blow $5,000 on a truckload of merchandise unless you know what you’re doing. If something looks like the “chance of a lifetime,” sleep on it. Read this book all the way through. Then read it again. To thrive over the long term, you need to develop a set of business practices—everything from inventory gathering to selling, shipping, and handling questions from buyers—that you can repeat time after time as efficiently as possible. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is any successful eBay business.

Get more help

Every once in a while, you might have a question or a technical problem. Fortunately, help is just a few clicks away with eBay’s “Live Help” feature.

Click Help at the top of any eBay page, then Contact Us. You can contact an eBay representative by clicking Live Help, which launches a chat window where you can ask your question. Representatives are on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

You can also use e-mail to contact customer support by clicking the Contact Us link that appears on most help pages, or visit this page:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/contact_us/_base/
index_selection.html

You may find the glossary and index in the back of this book helpful. And for further sources of help and advice, see the section called “More Great eBay Resources.”

To begin selling on eBay, you’ll need to register at eBay.com unless you’re already a member. Click the “Register” link at the top of the page. Becoming a seller is a free, one-time process where you verify your identity, confirm your e-mail address, and indicate how you’ll pay your seller fees. You must offer a way for buyers to pay you with a credit card service such as PayPal, which is a separate registration process you can initiate at PayPal.com. You can also accept checks and other forms of payment approved for use on eBay.

To verify your identity, you’ll need to provide a credit or debit card and in certain cases, you’ll need to provide your checking account details. Your card won’t actually be charged unless you use it to pay your eBay fees after you list and sell items.

If you don’t have a credit card or don’t want to put it on file with eBay, you can establish your identity with ID Verify, which costs $5.

Register your business

You can register at eBay as an individual or a business. It’s the same process, but registering as a business lets you add your business name to your account. If you’re already registered at eBay as an individual, you can change your account to a business account.

You should have a business account if you:

• Sell items you’ve purchased to resell.

• Sell items you’ve made yourself for resale.

• Sell a large volume of items regularly.

• Sell new items you haven’t bought for your personal use.

• Sell as a trading assistant.

• Buy eBay items for use in a business.

There are several advantages to registering as a business on eBay. Your business name will be displayed in all communication received by buyers, such as e-mails and invoices. Also, business sellers can display contact information, return policies, and terms and conditions in their listings. Business sellers outside North America can provide the value-added tax percentage when using the “Sell Your Item” Web form.

To change your eBay registration from personal to business, click My eBay at the top of any page. Then:

• Click Personal Information under the My Account heading.

• Click Edit next to Account Type.

• Select Business, then click Continue.

• Type your business name, then click Change to Business Account.

In registering with eBay, you agree to abide by eBay’s rules and regulations in its User Agreement, which stipulates, among other things:

• Your eBay sales and purchases are legally binding contracts.

• You agree to pay eBay fees resulting from your listings and sales.

• You won’t sell prohibited items.

For more information, see the eBay User Agreement:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/user-agreement.html

Sell your item

To list your first item for sale on eBay, click Sell to enter your title, description, price, payment method, shipping terms, and a photo. eBay’s Sell Your Item form guides you through these steps:

Build your listing

The Sell Your Item form guides you through the steps of creating a listing:

• Select a category.

• Write a title and description. Use facts and persuasion to interest buyers.

• Enter Item Specifics. This eBay feature helps shoppers find your merchandise.

• Upload pictures. You’ll sell at higher prices with photos of your item.

• Select a listing format. Auction, fixed price, or store inventory.

• Select a price. Start auctions low to draw in bidders.

• Select a listing duration. Auctions can last just one day or up to 10 days.

• Provide shipping and return information.

• Select listing upgrades. Pay more to get more attention.

Each of these elements is explained in detail in subsequent sections of this book.

Nail down details

In listing your item for sale, your main task is to inform buyers exactly what is for sale, present your merchandise in the most favorable light, and generate competition among buyers. Pay particular attention to these elements of your listing:

• Item Title. Your title is the single most important element of your auction, so give it careful thought. You can have the most dazzling photo, eloquent description, and other doodads, but none of it will matter without a compelling title that makes buyers click to find out more.

Your title can use up to 55 characters, so use as many as possible to maximum effect. Sixty-five percent of eBay buyers find their item by searching with keywords such as “Kodak digital camera.” Each character you use is precious, so follow these tips:

• Include general keywords such as “DVD player.”

• Include descriptive words. For example, the title for your DVD player auction could include the brand name and DVD formats it supports.

• Avoid unusual abbreviations.

• Look for popular words likely to be searched by shoppers for that item.

• Include important attributes and promises such as “New” or “Free Shipping.”

• Use verbs when possible such as save and buy.

Item description. Use descriptive, short sentences. Where appropriate, use bold text and bulleted lists to make the text easy to scan. Be sure to include these basic elements:

• Type. Model number or style. (Dell 1660 Laser Printer).

• Brand. Manufacturer or label. (Wrangler jeans).

• Condition. New, used, reconditioned, vintage, etc.

• Value. Original manufacturer’s suggested retail price, estimated or appraised value (Originally retailed for $50).

• Technical details. Size, measurements, technical specifications (100-watt speaker). Year of model.

• Spell check your listing. Before submitting your listing, use the spell-check feature in the Description section of the Sell Your Item form. Misspelled words will be highlighted, along with a list of suggested corrections. After the spell check, you can save or cancel your changes, then continue with the Sell Your Item form.

Plan your auction

eBay sellers have a multitude of selling options illustrated in the following table.

How It Works

Length

Auction

Sell to the highest bidder. You may also include a Buy It Now price.

Quantity: One or multiple items.

Where: Your listing appears in the eBay category (or categories) you choose and in search results.

1, 3, 5, 7, or 10 days. Real estate auctions may run for 30 days.

Note: 1-day listings are not available for eBay Motor Vehicles categories in the U.S. or Canada.

Fixed Price

Buyers can purchase immediately without bidding.

Quantity: Offer one or multiple items.

Where: In the eBay category (or categories) you choose and in search results.

3, 5, 7, or 10 days.

Real estate auctions may run for 30 days.

Best Offer

You can designate listings to consider “Best Offers” from buyers (for example, “$50 or Best Offer”). Buyers who make an offer might be able to purchase at their price.

Fixed Price or Buy It Now

Store

List at set price, no bidding. Longer duration but limited visibility.

Quantity: Offer one or multiple items for one Buy It Now price.

Where: Your store, store searches, regular eBay search and browse results if there are 30 or fewer Online Auction and Fixed Price listings

30 days

Good ’Til Cancelled – Renews automatically every 30 days until the item sells or you end the listing. Insertion fees charged every 30-day period.

Classified Ad

Enables sellers to make contact with many interested buyers, not just the highest bidder. There’s no obligation for buyers who contact a seller.

Where: Ad appears in the eBay category of your choice, for supported categories.

Varies by category. Options include 30 days and Good ’Til Cancelled.

Real Estate has various listing durations.

Make a picture worth $1,000

Buyers are much more likely to bid and buy when they can see a photograph of the item. Since your customer can’t physically pick up and inspect your merchandise, you’ve got to make up for it with illustration. Would you spend much money on something if you didn’t know what it looked like? Probably not. (There are a few exceptions—if you’re selling an inexpensive book or video, you can probably get by with using eBay’s “stock” photo of the cover artwork—but even then, you’re at a disadvantage with other sellers if you don’t back it up with a good description.)

If you don’t display a picture of your item, buyers may wonder whether you really have the item in stock, or are hiding some horrible defect. If you don’t already use a digital camera, now is the time to get one and learn to use it. An inexpensive used camera with two megapixels will work just fine for eBay pictures. You should be able to find a suitable camera on eBay for $25 or less.

• eBay Picture Manager. eBay allows you to add one picture to each of your listings for free. As many as 11 more photos can be added to a listing but extra fees apply. Picture Manager is a subscription service offered by eBay for $9.99 per month. Instead of uploading pictures one at a time, you can add multiple pictures to listings and easily change and remove pictures. For more information, see:

http://pages.ebay.com/picture_manager/

Get free image hosting. You can save a lot of money by opening an account with Photobucket.com and using its free service to display photos in your eBay descriptions. Here are instructions for linking your images to your eBay descriptions:

http://tutorials.photobucket.com/tutorial_50.html

There are several other popular image hosting sites:

http://www.myeasypics.com/

http://www.auctiva.com/

To make your pictures effective, keep it simple. Focus in closely on the item to eliminate distracting backgrounds. Using a piece of poster board or cloth as a backdrop can improve your image. Use natural lighting when possible to reduce the shadows that result from a flash, or augment your natural lighting with one or two lamps. A couple of student desktop study lamps can produce adequate lighting.

Take great eBay photos

By Camera Jim

• Use natural light. If you had to choose just one light to use for product photography, it should be the light coming from a bright window without direct sunlight. That’s because this light is both large (which is what makes it diffuse and soft) and it is directional, which can help show off the shape and texture of your subject.

• Use a tripod for sharp photos. A solid support for your camera is another important tool because it prevents blurring due to camera motion. Most “out of focus” shots aren’t really unfocused, they’re blurry because the camera moved slightly during exposure.

• Create a second light with a reflector. Add light to lighten or fill shadows on the other side of the subject. Your fill light can be simply a flat piece of poster board, propped up and used as a reflector. This controls the highlight and shadow values in your scene. If the main light is too strong in relation to the fill light, the highlights will be washed out and the shadows will be too dark. If the fill light is too strong, you might wipe out the shadows completely and lose the sense of shape they give your subject. Fortunately, digital cameras allow an immediate review of your results, so you can easily experiment with your fill light.

• Use basic artificial light. If you don’t have a handy window or you need to shoot at night, you can use plain old tungsten (incandescent) lights. These are regular household bulbs, the kind you use in table lamps. Two 150-watt bulbs are enough, as long as you remember to use that tripod. You can use these bulbs in photographic reflectors with light stands (available on eBay or from a camera shop) or simple clamp-on reflectors of the sort sold at home centers for $10 or less. For best results, preset your camera’s “white balance” control to “tungsten” or “incandescent.”

• Diffuse lights for window-like softness. You can turn those artificial lights into soft, window-like sources by aiming them through translucent white material (a sheet of tracing paper, a piece of white plastic, etc.) or by bouncing them off reflectors.

• Use a light tent. This lighting tool is used often by professional product photographers, and commercially made light tents have become popular with eBay sellers. Search on eBay for “light tent” and you’ll find hundreds for sale in the Cameras and Photos category. These are small, white, cube-shaped tents with one open side where you insert your camera lens.

• The milk jug light tent. The simplest and cheapest form of a light tent for small objects is a plastic milk jug with the bottom cut off. The white plastic diffuses the light inside the jug. Shoot through the neck or a hole cut in the side.

Camera Jim is a longtime eBay seller of photography supplies at http://stores.ebay.com/CameraJim. For more information on how to enhance your auctions with photos, see Jim’s free tutorials at http://www.camerajim.com.

Get specific

During the listing process in some eBay categories, you have the opportunity to give more details about your item, such as its color, size, style, or other information. For example, in the “camera” category, you could specify the brand, lens size, resolution, and condition (new, used or refurbished.) In the illustration below, you can see the column of Item Specifics in the left column of this eBay camera category, which helps buyers narrow in on exactly what they’re looking for. The feature helps buyers find your item, since they can search or sort listings based on these criteria.

Item specifics also appear within your listing, augmenting your item description. You should use the Item Specifics feature whenever it’s available during the listing process, since it’s free, creates more exposure for your item and draws more bidders, helping you sell at higher prices.

• Use Pre-filled Item Information. It’s faster to list standardized media items like books, videos, music and video games by typing in their product codes, known as ISBNs or UPCs. These numerals usually appear above the barcode on the back of the product.

Listings created this way are automatically populated with eBay’s stock images and specifications. This pre-filled item information saves listing time and makes your listing look professional. To find pre-filled information, click Find your product under the Pre-filled item information section on the Sell Your Item form.

• Find your listing. You can review your listings in My eBay or by searching for the Item Number you receive at the end of the listing process. You’ll also receive an e-mail confirming your listing with a link to your item page. It may take buyers a while to find your item—listings don’t show up on eBay’s pages immediately, and sometimes don’t appear in search results for several hours.

• Revise your listing. If you’ve made a mistake or change your mind about your listing, it’s sometimes possible to change the title, description, price or shipping terms. Which elements you can change depend on how much time is left on the listing an d whether it has received any bids. From My eBay, click on Selling and scroll through your list of items. On the item you want to change, click the pull-down menu in the Action column and click Revise. You can make changes on the Revise Your Item page. Sections in gray can no longer be changed.

Write a top-notch item description

By: thedugout

• Stick to the facts, not fluff. Don’t act like a used car salesman. Write a thorough, factual description of your item and its condition. This gives buyers the confidence to bid.

• Put yourself in the buyer’s place. Anticipate the questions they’ll have, and answer them in your description. Is your item new or used? Are there scratches or other defects?

• Don’t over-promise. Listing at least one flaw, even a minor one, bolsters the confidence of bidders. It makes a statement: “I’m not hiding anything.”

• If in doubt, don’t leave it out. Unless your item is brand new, you’ve got to explain the condition. Even if a flaw is barely noticeable, it’s best to mention it in your description. Including a close-up photograph of the flaw is a good idea, too. Collectors are especially interested in the condition of the items they buy, since it affects the value.

• Maintain a professional tone. State your terms of sale firmly, but in a positive light. Give bidders reasons they should bid, not why they shouldn’t bid. If you list a series of negative or demanding statements in your auction, buyers will click right on to the next seller.

Thedugout is a longtime eBay seller of sports memorabilia and many other items. See: http://myworld.ebay.com/thedugout

Sell like a pro

The key to the salability of any item is its condition. For collectibles especially, as much as 90 percent of the value depends on the condition. So in most cases it’s best to pass up merchandise with major, ugly flaws.

Buyers understand that used items will show some wear, but nobody wants an item that looks abused. No matter how many precautions you take to warn a customer about an item’s defects, you run the risk of ending up with an unhappy buyer who didn’t read the description or forgot the details.

Sometimes condition problems will escape your attention and the customer will receive an item with a seemingly obvious flaw that you didn’t explain in your eBay listing. Don’t be shocked if the customer accuses you of fraud. Lots of eBay buyers assume you were the original user of the item and were intimately familiar with it. And so, the reasoning goes, if you failed to mention the condition problem, you’re obviously untrustworthy.

If this happens, or I should say, when this happens, calmly explain that you weren’t aware of the flaw. Offer a partial refund if the buyer is interested in keeping the item, or a full refund upon the return of the item, including shipping costs.

When you list a new item for sale, take the opportunity to give it a thorough inspection and spruce up its appearance. Sometimes a few moments spent polishing up an item brings in a higher selling price and results in a happier buyer. If possible, clean the surface with a spray detergent such as Fantastik. Stubborn dirt, ink, stains, and price tags can be removed with a solvent like Goo-Gone or Goof Off.

Grading the condition of used items. Here’s a collection of terms used by sellers of miscellaneous new, used and collectible merchandise:

• Mint. This is as good as it gets. The item is new or good as brand new. If the item has ever been out of the box or handled, there’s no evidence of the handling.

• Near mint. Practically as good as new, but it’s evident the item has been out of the box or handled. Perhaps it’s a stamp or a coin that has never been used, but has been handled.

• Fine. This is perhaps the lowest condition grading appropriate for a good collectible. Often you’ll see a description like “Mint item in fine box.”

• Good. This is below the collectible category, and is appropriate grade, for example, for a decorative vase with a small crack. This is a subjective grading, but mainly used to describe an item that is serviceable but has one or more obvious flaws.

• Fair or Poor. It’s not very often that an item in fair or poor condition can be expected to draw bidders on eBay. Usually the item must have been very valuable when in original condition. For example, a piece of sculpture or other artwork by a famous artist that has significant damage might still fetch a nice price if it can be repaired or restored.

Price your item

Search eBay for listings of similar and identical listings to see the prices of your competitors. To see what the item has sold for previously, you can search eBay listings of auctions and listings that have already ended:

At the top of any page, click Advanced Search.

Enter keywords for your listing and, if appropriate, select a category.

Check the checkbox for Completed listings only.

This shows the prices buyers have paid in the past, so it’s a good guide to how much your item is likely to sell for. However, you might fare better or worse, depending on the details of previous transactions. On those completed transactions, check seller feedback, condition issues, and the competency of the descriptions.

Where should you set your price? If you want to sell your item at the highest price possible, it’s essential to create competition among buyers. Many sellers believe that buyers respond best to auctions with low starting prices and no “reserve” price.

Having a low starting price makes it easier for you to attract the first bid. Once your auction has an initial bid, more bidders are likely to jump in. The more bids you have, the higher the final price is likely to be, simply because more bidders are watching your auction and ratcheting up the price. Many eBay buyers scan for items with lots of bids simply because they believe it’s a sign of a bargain.

Following this strategy, many sellers start their auction at a price far below the true value of the item. Some sellers even start all their items at 1 cent. This can result in a bidding frenzy, drawing more attention to your auction.

Reserve Pricing. Your starting price isn’t necessarily the lowest price you’re willing to sell at. You can also set a Reserve Price, which is a secret minimum price you’ll accept. The buyer can’t see the reserve price, only an indication of whether the reserve has been met. You’re not obligated to sell if no bids exceed the reserve. This enables you to set a lower starting price to jump-start bidding while ensuring the item doesn’t sell at an unacceptably low price.

However, a reserve price can discourage bidders. They may quit watching an item if they bid and discover they haven’t met the reserve. They may abandon the auction and look for other auctions where they expect to have a better chance of winning. For this reason, many sellers of high-value items include the words “No Reserve” in their auction title. Then shoppers know they will win the item with the high bid.

Multiple Item (Dutch) Auctions. If you have a group of identical items, you can auction all of them at the same time using a Dutch auction. Bidders can bid on any quantity, from one item up to the total number for sale. Winning bids are based on the highest bid per item.

For example, imagine you have 25 identical T-shirts you want to sell for at least $5 each. You’d enter a quantity of 25 for your listing and a starting price of $5. Bidders state their maximum price per unit and the quantity they want.

Winners are determined in order of bid price for an item. A bid for 10 units at $7 ranks above a bid for 9 units at $6 per unit. In case of two bids with the same price per item, the earlier bid gets priority. Winning bidders pay the same price per unit as the lowest winning bid. So if the lowest winning bid is $5, the buyer who bid for 10 units at $7 pays only $50.

The auction alternative: fixed prices

You can sell items at a fixed price by adding a Buy It Now price to your listing. Fixed prices are often preferred by sellers who are selling commonly available, inexpensive items. For example, if you’re selling a copy of a current bestselling book, it might sell faster with a Buy It Now fixed price because the buyer won’t have to wait for an auction to end. Auctioning the book is unlikely to bring a high price because bestsellers are in plentiful supply, and the item’s value is no secret.

You can use Buy It Now with the Fixed Price listing format, or you can add a Buy It Now option to an auction listing. A feedback score of at least 10 is required for fixed-price listings.

• Immediate Payment Required. If you add a Buy It Now price in a listing, you can require the buyer to pay immediately using PayPal. The first buyer to complete a payment wins the item. This eliminates the possibility that you will waste time urging a reluctant buyer to pay. If you use the immediate payment feature, PayPal is the only payment method accepted for the listing.

• Best Offer listing option. When listing an item at a fixed price, if you use the Best Offer listing option, you are able to negotiate with buyers who are interested in your item but don’t want to pay the full Buy It Now fixed price.

Best Offers are most commonly used for high-value items, but you can use it on any listing by checking the appropriate box on the listing form. Best Offers are good for 48 hours and are binding, just like a bid.

After receiving a Best Offer, you have these options:

• Decline. If you wish, you can explain your decision to the buyer.

• Make a counteroffer. If a buyer fails to respond within a reasonable period, the counteroffer can expire.

• Allow the offer to expire. The offer can expire after 48 hours or at the end of the listing, whichever is first.

You can set your eBay preferences to automatically accept or decline Best Offers based on price limits set by you.

Upgrade your listings

The more you can differentiate your listings from the competition on eBay, the more sales you’re likely to get. For additional fees beyond the basic Insertion Fee, eBay offers a multitude of ways to highlight your item.

Shelling out the money to list upgrades is a gamble. The more you expect your item to sell for, the more likely the listing upgrades will pay off. For example, if you were selling a run-of-the-mill copy of a “Harry Potter” book and expected it to fetch $7, you wouldn’t want to spend much on listing upgrades. But if your copy of “Harry Potter” was signed by the author and worth perhaps $5,000, the upgrade fees would be more likely to attract more bidders and ensure a higher selling price.

Fees are subject to change without notice, and some of the fees are different for eBay Motors. Keep on the lookout for special promotions when eBay periodically offers discounts on upgrades:

• Gallery. When shoppers browse categories or scan search results, Gallery pictures are visible alongside the item title. Because these small photos attract more attention than plain-text auction titles, adding a Gallery picture increases your chances of making a sale. According to eBay, items with Gallery pictures sell at a price 14 percent higher than those without the picture. Many sellers won’t even consider listing an auction without using the Gallery feature because it’s so inexpensive and a photo is so important to many buyers. A Gallery image lets eBay browsers know there’s a photograph of your items, so it almost always results in more looks and bids.

• Gallery Plus. This feature displays a larger picture of your item in search results. When buyers place their mouse over your listing in search results, a larger image of your item is shown in a pop-up window.

• Value Pack. With this option, you choose a set of basic listing upgrades. It combines a Gallery picture, item subtitle, and listing designer at a discounted price.

• Gallery Featured. This promotional option causes your item to appear in the Featured section above the general Picture Gallery. The position of your listing depends on the time of your listing and the number of other Gallery Featured items currently in the category. When new, your listing will appear at the top of the page, but as more listings are added, your listing will be bumped down.

• Highlight. This option adds a colored band to your listing, adding emphasis compared with the white background on most other listings.

• Border. This surrounds your listing with a colored band.

• Gift Services. If your item would make a suitable gift, you can use this option to add a small icon to your listing of a gift-wrapped package. With Gift Services, you can offer any of these features: gift wrap, gift card, express shipping, and shipping to a gift recipient. Remember to explain these options in your item description and list any additional fees you charge.

• Item Subtitle. Adding a subtitle to your listing lets you add important descriptive words and phrases that buyers will see under your title while viewing search results or browsing categories. For example, if you’re listing a camcorder with some additional equipment, your subtitle could be “Includes carrying case and 10 blank tapes.” According to eBay, listings with subtitles are 18 percent more likely to sell.

• Bold. Bold makes your listing stand out among other listings using plain text. According to eBay’s research, items with bold titles sell for 25 percent more than comparable listings. So if you expect your item to sell for more than $10, the bold feature is likely a wise investment.

• Featured Plus. This option gives your listing priority placement in the Featured Items section of the category list. Also, your item is emphasized at the top of the search results pages.

• Pro Pack. This option gives you a combined package of other listing upgrades at a discount. You receive Bold, Border, Highlight, Gallery Featured and Featured Plus.

• Home Page Featured. Your listing has a chance to rotate into a display on eBay’s home page, although this is not guaranteed. Your item gets placement in eBay’s Featured Items section. For most items you’ll be selling, it’s very, very, unlikely that the Home Page upgrade will be worth it.

• 10-day Duration. This feature allows you to obtain the longest exposure for your listing for a nominal extra fee.

• Listing Designer. This feature enables you to create a professional-looking listing by adding themes and layouts without knowing HTML coding.

• Scheduled Listings. This allows you to list items up to three weeks in advance and control exactly when they begin and end. To schedule a listing, on the Sell Your Item form, select a start time from the Scheduled pull-down menu of How you’re selling.

The best time to list

You’ll increase your odds of selling at a good price by timing your auction so it’s seen by the greatest possible number of eBay buyers. The busiest time on eBay is Sunday evening, simply because more people are at home with some spare time. Television ratings are generally better on Sunday nights, and so are the results on eBay.

Try to schedule your auctions to end between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Sundays. Activity on eBay tails off on Monday evenings, then begins rising again on Thursdays.

There are exceptions. Consider the likely buyers of your item. If your market is teenagers, you might want to end your auction on a weeknight instead of a Friday night, when many teens are distracted by after-school activities and dates. If your likely buyer is a business customer, it’s best to time your auction to end during a Tuesday afternoon, when the buyer is likely to be in the office and near a computer.

Avoid ending your auctions on holidays or during big events like the Super Bowl. When most people are outside their usual routine, they probably won’t be shopping on eBay.

The news service AuctionBytes has an interactive auction calendar that can help you schedule your listings:

http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/pages/calendar

Top 10 reasons your auction stinks

By Jim Cockrum

Want more bids on your auctions? Even though there are 1.5 billion page views per month on eBay, you still have to do several things right to attract bidders. Here are the most common reasons some auctions gather dust:

1. You’re in the wrong category. While it’s true that most shoppers on eBay use keyword searches to find what they’re looking for, more and more shoppers are using the category search feature. This means you must have your item in the correct category when launching your auction. To quickly determine what category is best, search for items similar to yours, and see what eBay category was used by those sellers. The assigned category of any auction item is always at the top of the listing auction just below the 10-digit item number.

2. Your auction is ugly. You don’t have to be an artist with a college degree in marketing, but pay attention to your auction’s appearance. Consider the overall color scheme and layout to improve your results. If you don’t use HTML or pictures in your auctions already, it’s time to start.

3. It’s unclear what you’re selling. For nearly any item you’re selling, you’ll need a nice photo in your listing. That’s the best way to make it obvious to shoppers what is for sale. Be descriptive in your listing and tell the reader immediately what they’re buying. Don’t distract buyers with cute animations or musical effects in your auction listings.

4. Your feedback rating is too low or negative. If you are new to eBay and still have a (0) next to your eBay ID, it means you don’t have any feedback yet. You can get some feedback and experience by buying anything (and paying for it) or by selling some in-demand items. Each transaction provides the opportunity to give and receive feedback. Too much negative feedback is a huge red flag to most buyers.

5. Your item is not in demand. Before listing anything on eBay, check the completed auctions for the same item. What was the final bid on the successful auctions? This helps you determine the likely results. If nobody else is selling what you have, there could be a very good reason: Nobody buys it.

6. Your item is off-season. Christmas items don’t sell in July (except to bargain sharks).

7. Your title is lousy. You have to fill your title with vivid, descriptive keywords. “WOW” and “L@@K” are not good keywords. Don’t use keywords that intentionally mislead or oversell your item. You may get more attention than you bargained for.

8. Your shipping policies are vague. Put yourself in the bidders’ shoes. They want to know when and how their purchase will arrive. In competing with other sellers, your job is to be the “path of least resistance.” Make everything easy for your customer. Make sure the customer understands as clearly as possible what the final total will be in addition to their bid. Whenever possible, offer free shipping. The increased bids will more than cover your shipping costs.

9. You have unclear or few payment options. Offer your customers as many payment options as possible. PayPal is preferred by most buyers, so you’ll have fewer bidders and lower selling prices if you don’t accept PayPal.

10. Your opening price is too high. Consider listing with the lowest possible opening bid. Many of my most successful auctions started with an opening bid of 1 cent. This often creates a bidding frenzy. Once a bidder places even the smallest bid on your item, they begin receiving e-mail reminders from eBay whenever they’re outbid. This is automatic, free advertising for you. Remember, it’s an auction! Start the bidding low!

A popular Internet marketing and auction expert, Cockrum is author of The Silent Sales Machine Hiding on eBay and How to Turn Auction Traffic into Cash. For more information and to subscribe to Jim’s free newsletter, see http://www.SilentJim.com.

Use My eBay

My eBay is a central place on eBay’s Web site where you can view all your selling and buying activity. There’s a link to My eBay at the top of every eBay page. There you can manage your settings for selling, payments, e-mail and other features:

• Set Notification preferences. Determine how and when eBay sends you alerts or notifications.

• Set Seller preferences. Manage your settings for picture hosting, receiving payments, shipping, and other features.

• Set Member-to-Member Communication preferences. Specify whether buyers can contact you via Skype.

• Set General preferences. Adjust displays for recently viewed items and searches, My eBay preferences, third-party authorizations, keeping yourself signed in, and showing your buyers’ e-mail addresses with User IDs.

Even if selling on eBay isn’t your full-time occupation, it’s a good idea to check for new announcements and messages at My eBay on a daily basis. You’ll find new opportunities and early warnings of potential problems. Pick a time of the day— first thing in the morning, or perhaps lunchtime—to check in at My eBay.

Are you an expert on vintage board games? Antique clocks? Used printers? Consider making this your eBay specialty. The more you deal with a certain type of item, the better you’ll learn how to find it at a bargain and resell it profitably.

Perhaps you already have a hobby or interest that would make a good eBay niche. Or perhaps it will occur to you a few months after getting your feet wet on eBay. But once you begin focusing on your niche, the more proficient you’ll be in recognizing valuable items for resale and in locating new sources of inventory. You’ll learn the market better than other sellers, and you’ll benefit from repeat business from your satisfied customers.

• Start with used merchandise. Selling used items is a good way to gain experience on eBay without risking lots of cash. It’s easy to find bargains at yard sales by snapping up the right books, clothing, glassware, electronics, or magazines. To be sure, building an inventory of used items is more laborious than buying new products from a wholesaler—with used items, you’ve got to drive from sale to sale, then haggle over items. But your profit margins are usually higher with used merchandise, and you can start small.

You can start gathering merchandise from your own attic, basement or closet. Used clothes, books, or even unwanted gifts can bring you valuable sales, feedback, and experience on eBay. Some items in particular can prove valuable:

• Old radios, stereos and electronic equipment. Don’t assume that old cassette or 8-track tape player is worthless. eBay is populated by all sorts of collectors, and you might be surprised how much some of your old “junk” is worth.

• Old sports equipment such as fishing rods, baseball bats, basketballs, exercise devices and uniforms.

• Unused wedding, anniversary and birthday gifts. Turn that deadwood into cash and build your track record on eBay.

• Old books, videos, CDs and video games you don’t plan to use anymore. Out-of-print items are particularly valuable.

• Old clothes, bathing suits, and shoes. Everything comes back into style sooner or later, and “vintage” clothing has never been hotter.

• Contents of thrift shops and charity marts run by Goodwill, Salvation Army, etc. Can you make good money by marking up the items you find at these shops and reselling them on eBay? Sure, and the stores are grateful for each dollar you spend there, which helps fund their programs.

Win with niche selling

By Skip McGrath

In the early days, you could sell just about anything on eBay and make money. Today, there’s a lot more competition. Large eBay sellers have established businesses. Meanwhile, major corporations such as J.C. Penney, Bloomingdale’s, and Disney have moved onto eBay in a big way.

The good news is, you don’t have to sell the latest digital camera, Gucci shoes, or expensive diamond jewelry to make money on eBay. Some of the most profitable eBay sellers get their inventory from garage sales, thrift stores, flea markets, and closeout dealers. You can, too.

It’s still possible for small sellers to make big profits. Your surest bet is to specialize. Seek out the offbeat and find used items that are in demand. Forget trying to sell computers, digital cameras, iPods and plasma TVs. There is no way you can compete with the big guys unless you have tons of money. And those drop-ship Web sites and programs that claim to have those products are mostly scams. Find a small niche—or several small niches that you can dominate.

The list of possible niche categories is virtually endless: used radio tubes, used (vintage) hi-fi equipment and parts, juggling supplies, used music and game CDs, old board games (Monopoly, Scrabble, etc.), clown equipment and supplies, used tools, old garden tools and decorative items, used college textbooks, small appliances (blenders, pasta machines, irons, etc.) personalized children’s books, collectible fountain pens, new and used magic tricks and magic supplies, used bubble-pak and Styrofoam peanuts. The list goes on.

Along with being in a superior position to take advantage of repeat business, the benefits from becoming specialized are endless. If you know more about your product area, you will be able to buy at better prices and people who sense you specialize in something will be more comfortable buying from you.

Find your own niche. Define your market. Then you can know the type of person you’re going to be selling to and the types of product you want to sell. You will also have less competition.

Search Listings on eBay to see what is selling. Go to: http://listings.eBay.com to see what is being listed and sold on eBay. The number in parentheses after the category title is the number of auctions for a given item. In general, the higher the number the more action and sales.

Become an expert in your field. Become an authority on what you do in your online auction business. If you sell printer ink cartridges, you want to be thought of before anyone else. When you become an authority in your field, a whole new universe of business and opportunity is opened up to you. I buy certain types of things on eBay from the same sellers over and over. I wouldn’t dare do business with anyone else, not when my trusted buyers have proven themselves and their product. You want to earn that same type of position in the minds of eBayers for your niche.

Your niche category strategy

OK, you’ve put a lot of thought into your product and completed the introspective phase of getting started. You are excited about your merchandise and ready to start selling it. The next step is to find your niche market; as applied to online auctions, this refers to the category you will list your item(s) in. Considering eBay has more than 7,500 categories to choose from, this should be a relatively easy process. But there is one important strategic trick you should know.

Before listing your item in any category, follow these simple steps: First, browse through the eBay categories and write down the ones you feel are relevant to your product. You should be able to find at least 3-5 possible choices. Next, write down the number of auctions currently online in each of those categories (it will appear next to the category name). An average category has about 4,000, so if there are more than that you may conclude that the category is active. If there are less than 2,000 you may consider it inactive. I consider categories with more than 5,000 auctions to be popular, and those with over 10,000 are most popular. Some categories have more than 50,000 auctions going at any one time. Using this ranking system, rate the categories that you have chosen for your product.

I recommend listing in the most active categories only because they get the most traffic. If you put your product in an inactive section of eBay, you may get few or no bids, even if you feature it. Avoid categories with fewer than 1,000 auctions online unless your product is highly specialized to that category!

A longtime eBay PowerSeller, McGrath publishes “The eBay Sellers Resource Site” at http://www.skipmcgrath.com, where you can subscribe to a free newsletter for professional eBay sellers. He is the author of several best-selling eBay how-to books, including “Three Weeks to eBay Profits,” “Titanium eBay,” and “How to Start and Run an eBay Consignment Business.”

Cash in on collectibles

Even if you don’t set out to deal in collectibles, once you’ve been selling for a while, you’re bound to run into some special items. When that happens, don’t shirk the extra research required to describe and price your gems properly.

Autographed items. Items that are signed by celebrities often fetch great prices, but such items are easily forged. For this reason, signed items are often sold with a “Certificate of Authenticity” (COA), which reassures buyers that the signature was really made by the advertised person.

But COAs can be forged just as easily as autographs. For this reason it’s important to research the “authenticator” who signed the COA. Many are reputable, and many are not. eBay maintains a list of authenticators it recommends, and those who are unacceptable. See:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/autographs.html

To prevent misunderstandings between buyers and sellers of signed items, include the following details in auctions of autographed items:

• A good-quality photo of the autographed item.

• All pertinent details from the COA (if there is one), especially the name of the person or company, who issued the certificate, and a scanned image of the COA.

• Refund policy. Seller should offer refunds in the event that a reputable dealer discovers that the autograph is fake.

Trust, but authenticate

Using an authentication service. In cases where you believe your item is of sufficient value, you may wish to consult a professional appraiser or an authentication service. Consult your local Yellow Pages or visit the International Society of Appraisers:

http://www.isa-appraisers.org/

Also, eBay maintains a list of recommended appraisers who are skilled in identifying a variety of different items. These appraisers serve both eBay buyers and sellers, but promise not to buy or sell on eBay, which prevents them from competing with the buyers and sellers using their services.

You might also obtain an appraisal for $9.95 from the “What it’s Worth to You” service:

http://www.whatsitworthtoyou.com/

How to recognize fake autographs

By Ken Zajac

Perhaps no other detail adds as much instant value to a collectible as a signature. Yet nothing is easier for scammers to fake, or harder for beginners to authenticate. Here are some tips:

• Watch out for felt-pen signatures, a common trick. It’s easy to fake a signature using a felt pen. But felt-tip pens weren’t sold until the 1960s, so an ink pen must have been used if the signature is older than 1960.

• Cut signatures are risky. Anything cut away from the rest of a document may be a fake or a printed signature, or taken from a reproduction. It was popular during the 1976 U.S. Bicentennial to sell reproductions of famous documents made on onion paper, which looks old but isn’t. Some unscrupulous sellers purchase complete repros just to cut the printed signatures out and try to sell them as autographs.

• Watch out for signed index cards; most aren’t real. If you were a president, for example, would you sign your name over and over on common index cards?

• Beware of signed baseballs, especially if the signature is of a political figure—most of these are printed or stamped. Think about it—can anyone sign their name on a curved surface to make it appear just like their signature on a flat piece of paper?

• Often, “signed” items are printed or made with an auto-pen. The majority of John F. Kennedy signatures are autopens or printed, as are Jacqueline Kennedy’s name on thousands of replies to condolence letters after JFK’s assassination. The familiar, official White House photos of JFK and Jackie all have printed signatures. Even letters from Kennedy’s secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, were often printed.

• Letters written by famous political figures are usually signed by an auto-pen unless it’s a personal letter.

• Photos of famous figures usually contain a signature that was printed as part of the photo. Books are a common source of photos that were printed with authentic-looking autographs.

• Computers make the forgery of autographed photos easier than ever. A general rule of thumb: If the photo is glossy and the subject is dated, it’s probably a modern copy. Glossy photo paper has only become common in recent decades.

Zajac is an antiques dealer in Tacoma, Wash.

Selling used items is a great way to start on eBay. The profit margins on used items can be extremely healthy once you learn how to spot potentially valuable items.

To efficiently find items that can be resold profitably, you’ll need sources in your area where you can regularly find a variety of items at reasonable prices. Here’s where to start:

• Estate sales. Estate sales can be a reliable source of fine, bargain-priced items. Usually advertised in newspaper ads, these sales liquidate the entire contents of a household, and can include large groups of used items, collectibles, and unused gifts.

If you attend an estate sale, plan on being the first in the door. This can mean standing in line for 45 minutes or more at a well-publicized sale, but getting first crack at the contents can be worth the wait.

Most estate sales are held on Friday or Saturday mornings. Larger sales may begin on Thursday and continue through Sunday. Remaining items are usually marked down 50 percent on the last day, so a good sale may be worth a second visit. But don’t pass up good items on Friday or Saturday because you think you’ll get them more cheaply on Sunday. By then, 98 percent of the cream will be skimmed. Get the good stuff while you can.

If there are more estate sales advertised on a given Saturday than you have time to attend, it’s worth doing some detective work to determine which sales are likely to have the best items. The newspaper ad should have a contact number for the liquidator running the sale. Phone ahead and ask what types of merchandise are available. Don’t rely on the newspaper ad, which might prominently mention “oil paintings,” for example, when only a few cheap reproductions are for sale. And it never fails, the advertisement won’t mention the most valuable items being sold.

If estate sales work well for you, it’s worthwhile to cultivate a relationship with the estate liquidators who work in your area. Leave your business card and ask to be notified of all upcoming sales. These contacts may also be able to alert you to collections that come up for sale outside the estate liquidation process. Likewise, familiarize yourself with local funeral directors and estate attorneys, who can alert you to good opportunities.

• Bankruptcy sales. When businesses or shops go out of business, often their merchandise and office equipment is auctioned off. The sales are sometimes advertised in the local newspapers. Sometimes you can get word of these sales through local bankruptcy attorneys or the clerk of your county’s bankruptcy court. It can take some work to learn the proper procedures for getting access to bankruptcy auctions, but it can result in big opportunities.

Sometimes the contents of storage facilities, where people store excess household items, are auctioned or sold off. Every month, a certain number of storage units must be cleared out by companies like Public Storage when the contents are left unclaimed and the owner quits paying storage fees. Sometimes these sales are advertised, but it doesn’t hurt to ask local storage companies to notify you of these opportunities.

• Garage sales and yard sales. Weekend neighborhood sales can be a good source of stock if you enjoy wheeling and dealing. Garage and yard sales require lots of legwork, though, and the proportion of junk to gems can be high.

The main problem is that these sales are full of the stuff people no longer want, in contrast with an estate sale that liquidates the entire contents of a household. Some yard salers have caught on to this difference and now advertise their garage sales as “estate sales,” aiming to draw more buyers. When you’re scanning the classifieds, beware of yard sales masquerading as estate sales. An “estate sale” that does not advertise items like antique furniture, silver, and stemware might be a yard sale in disguise.

• Thrift shops. Thrift shops can be worthwhile sources of merchandise, particularly when the items are mispriced. Sometimes items are worth more online than in a physical store. Church thrift shops are a potential source of stock too. The prices are usually reasonable and the donated items are sometimes of higher quality than those at commercial thrift shops.

• Local artisans. One good way to obtain products is to find local artists, painters, potters, rug makers, and others who may have unique, interesting products you can sell online. If the products are unusual, it’s likely that no other eBay sellers will have similar merchandise, and your profits should be healthy. One disadvantage is that hand-made items are produced slowly, so you may have trouble finding enough items to build a high-volume business.

If you or a family member has a creative hobby, you can consider selling those items or services on eBay too. eBay is a fantastic opportunity for artists and craftsmen to sell their wares directly to the public, without having to sell at huge discounts to galleries or stores.

• Close-out merchandise. Local retail stores have only a certain amount of time to sell items they’re carrying. At some point, the remaining items (such as winter clothing or last year’s stereo equipment) are marked down for clearance, perhaps at more than 50 percent off.

In some stores, this clearance merchandise may be displayed in tables in the front of the store. If you talk to the store’s manager, you can often get this clearance merchandise for even less—and you may find out about other bargains stuck in the back room.

You’re in a strong bargaining position if you can offer to haul off a quantity of merchandise. If a store can’t move clearance items fast enough, the retailer might have to sell it to a liquidator for 10 percent to 15 percent of retail. You can probably offer a bit more than the liquidators. For example, by getting the goods at 80 percent off retail, and reselling it on eBay at 40 percent off retail, you’re making a healthy profit.

Factory stores and outlet mall stores fall into this same general category. Their merchandise turns over rapidly, presenting a constant stream of opportunities.

One note of caution: Don’t gamble on a large quantity of merchandise without researching to see how much it’s selling for on eBay. If there’s no demand for the stuff, it doesn’t matter if you get it for 99 percent off retail. It will still be dead money.

• Library sales. For acquiring used books, library sales are hard to beat. Sales are often conducted monthly, usually on a Saturday, and feature a wide variety of books at very low prices. Most library sales are organized by a nonprofit Friends of the Library (FOL) group, and most of the books for sale are donated by area residents in very good or like-new condition. Because the library can’t absorb most of this material into its collection, the surplus is offered for public sale as a fundraiser. Nearly all the books are priced at a dollar or two apiece, and again, lots of them can be sold for $10 or more online. Everything from current bestsellers to antique volumes is likely to be on sale. You’ll likely find some videos and CDs at these sales too.

Many libraries also have a small daily book sale at a shelf or cart near the lobby, and some larger library systems even operate a full-time used bookstore. Sometimes these stores, tucked away in a library basement, are unadvertised gold mines.

In addition to libraries, schools and civic groups organize book sales, and these sales can include some high-quality donated stock.

• Overstock distributors. New items that have been returned from retail stores can be a profitable source of inventory. In this case, you’re buying from the liquidators that have already cleared merchandise from retailers. If you buy the right items, this can be a good sideline to your used-merchandise business, expanding your volume and profits. You can get identical items in quantity, and re-use the same photos and descriptions for subsequent listings, saving time. However, the average profit margin will be probably be lower than for used items. Be careful to avoid buying items that are already in plentiful supply on eBay because price competition among sellers can eliminate your profits.

Find overlooked gems at estate sales

By John Landahl

Follow these tips and learn to find overlooked gems at estate and yard sales you can resell on eBay for big markups.

• Look for items that date from the 1970s or earlier, are in good condition, and are still in their original boxes. Seek nostalgia items that Baby Boomers in their 40s and 50s remember from childhood. Lunchboxes, toys, home décor items, hand tools, and games are but a few examples.

• Concentrate on small vintage items still in their original boxes. Small items are easiest to carry, store, pack, and ship. The original box gives important information about the manufacturer and the precise item name to use in your eBay description. For collectors, the box adds significant value.

• If in doubt, pick it up. If you leave an interesting item sitting while you ponder it, someone else will snatch it. Possession is nine-tenths of the law!

• Think twice about items with no identifying name or manufacturer. For example, generic ceramics are difficult to sell on eBay because buyers searching for name brands won’t find them.

• Be careful with film cameras or other gadgets that are hard to test. Faulty electronic gear results in lots of returns and negative feedback.

• Selling fine artwork on eBay is tough unless you’re an expert. Artists’ popularity comes and goes, and authenticating pieces can be more trouble than it’s worth.

• Large, bulky or fragile items are a nightmare to pack and ship. If you’re in doubt, don’t buy that sculpture unless you’d enjoy seeing it on your own mantelpiece—it might end up there.

• Don’t overbuy. Remember, each item you acquire must be carefully researched, photographed, described, and weighed. You’ll spend time answering e-mails from prospective buyers. And if the item sells, you’ve got to pack and ship it.

• Discriminate. Set a buying budget and stick to it. If you buy everything in sight, you’ll lose money because you’ll end up with too many unsold duds.

• Buy cheap unless you’re certain of the value. Buying several items for $10 apiece is much safer than buying a single $50 item.

• Remember, there’s always another sale. What you’ll find at the next one is completely unpredictable.

• The more sales you can hit in one trip, the better. Be efficient and plan your route. Use an Internet mapping service like MapQuest or Google Maps to plot the location of your sales.

• Search Internet classified services such as CraigsList.com to find more sales not listed in the newspaper.

Landahl is author of “Estate Sale Prospecting for Fun and Profit with CraigsList and eBay.”

Live auctions

Scan your daily newspapers for notices of local auctions. You’ll find news of estate auctions, bankruptcy auctions, and sometimes auctions dealing with specific types of merchandise or office equipment.

The right merchandise bought at a local auction can often be sold for triple your cost on eBay. Why? Well, let’s imagine that you attend an auction this weekend in a nearby town. You buy a box of old comic books for $20. Just a few comics collectors attended the auction, since it was advertised only in the local paper. However, when you list the comics on eBay, you’re offering them simultaneously to thousands of collectors. Once two or more bidders decide they want those comics, competition raises the price, creating more interest in your merchandise. And you could end up selling those comics on eBay for $150 or more.

You can do the same thing with practically any type of auctioned merchandise, such as antique furniture, toys, books, artwork, or other collectibles. The more practice you get at this, the better you’ll recognize what sells on eBay, and where the bargains are at local auctions.

• Postal Service auctions. The U.S. Postal Service conducts public auctions at mail “recovery centers” around the country to liquidate unclaimed, damaged, and claim-paid merchandise. The lots vary in size, but tend to be large and heavy.

Most of the items in Postal Service auctions are like-new or brand-new items that have simply come unpackaged and separated from the delivery address in the mail. However, the auctions are potluck—sometimes there’s no list of the exact contents, which can include miscellaneous items. The value of the individual items can range from practically nothing to hundreds of dollars. These auctions can present good buys, but whether it is worth your while will depend on what is included in the lot and how high the bidding goes.

For details on upcoming Postal Service auctions, check this Web page:

www.usps.com/auctions

In addition to auctions, the Postal Service occasionally conducts sales of personal property or its own equipment. These sales are conducted at local post offices and are advertised in local newspapers.

• Treasury Department auctions. The U.S. Customs Service regularly auctions off property it has seized for trade violations, trademark or copyright violations, smuggling, drug trafficking, money laundering, and other crimes. The auctioned property includes all sorts of items and sometimes includes large lots of consumer merchandise and even motor vehicles, airplanes and boats.

Most Customs auctions are conducted in New Jersey, Texas, California, and Arizona. It’s possible to get a good buy on merchandise at these sales, but as is the case with any auction, the final price for items depends on public interest and what people are willing to pay for them. It’s a good idea to go early and inspect the merchandise. Payment is due at the auction. For more information, see the Treasury Department’s Web site:

www.treas.gov/auctions

• GSA Auctions. The U.S. government’s General Services Administration runs a Web-based auction system allowing registered participants to bid on a single item or bulk lots. GSA Auctions offer federal personal property ranging from commonplace items like office equipment and furniture to more specialized items like scientific equipment, heavy machinery, aircraft, boats and other vehicles. Through the Web site, the GSA allows buyers across the country to bid on and buy any of the offered items. See:

http://www.gsa.gov/Portal/gsa/ep/contentView.do?contentId=9881&contentType=GSA_BASIC

• Government Liquidation. This is an online marketplace that sells U.S. government surplus and scrap material to the public. The site offers more than 500 commodity categories and thousands of surplus items are added weekly. The U.S. Defense Department sells items through Government Liquidation, which also runs the Web site Liquidation.com. See:

http://www.govliquidation.com

• Law enforcement auctions. Local police agencies often sell used equipment and recovered stolen property. There are many Web sites that advertise police auctions, but you can also find out about upcoming sales by simply calling your local police department. Ask if you can be put on a mail or e-mail list so you’ll be notified of future sales. Check the classified section of your local newspaper for announcements and the Web sites PoliceAuctions.com and PropertyRoom.com.

• Classified ads. If you have trouble finding enough stock using the sources discussed above, try placing a classified advertisement yourself: “Cash paid for your used items.”

If you place an ad offering to pay people cash, you’d better be ready for a response. The challenge is keeping the nuisance responses to a minimum. Don’t give anyone the impression that you’re itching to spend a wad of cash on any old junk. Keep expectations low. One strategy that seems to work is offering a “finder’s fee” for referrals to a collection you agree to buy.

Ads in metropolitan daily newspapers are costly, so look for alternatives such as weekly newspapers and circulars like Penny Saver and Thrifty Nickel. Another option is CraigsList.com, the online classified service, which is free. The home page displays classified ads for the San Francisco Bay area, but you’ll find a link to your nearest metro area.

While you’re at it, don’t overlook other free forms of local advertising, such as bulletin boards in local stores and community centers, and signs and posters.

Get merchandise on eBay

Some of the most successful eBay sellers get many of their items right on eBay. Regular sellers and some high-volume wholesalers are constantly listing auctions in many eBay categories. Each and every day there are hundreds of bulk lots of used and new merchandise listed on this section of eBay:

http://pages.ebay.com/catindex/catwholesale.html

One way you can save money with a wholesale lot is limiting your search to sellers in your area. That way you can inspect the goods before bidding and haul the merchandise yourself, saving on shipping.

Get merchandise on consignment

If enough people know you’re an eBay seller, eventually someone may ask you to sell some of their items. And while consignment selling produces several unique challenges, it is a surefire way of expanding your business.

Consignment selling solves the main problem for someone starting a new online business: finding enough merchandise to sell at prices low enough to bring a profit. With the consignment model, people bring the merchandise to you, and after you sell it, you pocket a commission less your expenses. If it doesn’t sell, you return the item to its owner.

The potential is huge with consignment selling. Think of the millions of people who are interested in getting cash for their old possessions, but don’t have the initiative to sell on eBay themselves. Many of these folks probably realize they could get much higher prices for their items by letting someone else sell them on eBay, rather than holding a yard sale.

Pitfalls await the consignment seller, though. To do it right, you need to set up a real bookkeeping system. You’ll need good insurance coverage if you store merchandise belonging to someone else, in the event of fire, flood, or some other disaster. There’s also the problem of managing the expectations of the folks you’re accepting merchandise from. Popular shows such as “Antiques Roadshow” have convinced too many people that treasures are lurking in their attic or basement. Lots of the stuff isn’t valuable, it’s just old. You don’t want to be roped into babysitting someone else’s junk.

Even more issues can confound the consignment seller, things that don’t trouble the typical eBayer. For example, how can you represent yourself as a bonded auctioneer? How do you protect yourself from illegal activity such as selling stolen goods?

And perhaps the biggest consideration of all for potential consignment sellers: Are you a “people person?” Do you enjoy being around other people and getting input regarding your business from lots of different folks? If you are indeed a people person, you might find the business invigorating. On the other hand, if you’re not, it might be a pain in the neck.

If you want to keep your business as simple and worry-free as possible, avoid consignment selling. If the items offered for consignment look good to you, offer to buy them outright. Sell them yourself and avoid the hassles of a consignment deal.

On the other hand, a consignment operation is the sort of business that can be scaled much larger, and opening an eBay “drop-off store” could be your long-term goal. To bolster your qualifications, you can sign up with eBay to become a “Trading Assistant” and be listed in their Web site directory, where potential customers can find you by ZIP Code (more details on this in the following section).

Some eBay drop-off stores average a commission rate of 40 percent. In other words, if an item sells for $100 after expenses, the seller pays the item’s original owner $60, and pockets $40.

According to Skip McGrath, a longtime eBay PowerSeller and author of How to Start and Run an eBay Consignment Business, a one-person eBayer relatively skilled at selling could generate $1,000 to $5,000 in weekly profits by building a well-oiled consignment business. You could ramp up even bigger if you hired some employees and committed to rent payments and advertising.

Become a trading assistant

Once you’re an experienced seller, you can offer your services to the public as an official eBay Trading Assistant, selling items as a service. As a Trading Assistant, you help others realize the benefits of selling their items on eBay without having to open their own accounts.

Many Trading Assistants sell on behalf of others as a way to supplement their regular eBay income. Whether you’re a full-time or part-time Trading Assistant, you can run your business as you wish, specifying the types of items you deal with, your fees, and your hours of operation.

Once you’re a Trading Assistant, you can be listed in eBay’s directory, which can help in acquiring new business.

• Getting new client leads. Through the Trading Assistant Directory, your business is marketed on a global level. You can also drive additional marketing efforts by downloading flier templates, press kits, and program logos. You can also take advantage of the variety of training and education opportunities, including the TA Education & Training hub and TA Workshops.

• Trading Assistant requirements. To be included in the Trading Assistant Directory and have access to Trading Assistant marketing materials, you must have sold an average of four items per month during the previous three months, and have a feedback score of 100 or higher with at least 97 percent positive feedback.

For more info on eBay’s Trading Assistant Program, see:

http://pages.ebay.com/tahub/already.html

eBay sellers with at least $1,000 per month in sales who maintain a positive feedback rate of at least 98 percent can receive PowerSeller status. These members receive a special icon beside their User IDs, get priority access to telephone support, a special discussion board, and a few other perks.

There’s no mystery about how to achieve PowerSeller status. Just keep doing the things that are effective for you. Be as efficient as possible and you can constantly expand your business. Here are more principles to keep in mind:

• Sell “lots” to keep your average sale higher. As your eBay business gets bigger, you’ll need to become more efficient in the way you locate new merchandise, list it, and ship it. One great way to streamline your administrative tasks is to sell “lots” of items instead of individual pieces whenever possible. For example, let’s imagine you have six sweaters, all the same size but different colors. You can probably find one buyer for all six. And selling everything in one auction makes your operation more efficient in several important ways:

• You ship all the items to a single buyer. You collect payment, ship, and communicate with one buyer instead of several.

• You spend less time listing the individual items for sale. There are fewer eBay fees and less to keep track of.

• It’s likely that one or two of the sweaters wouldn’t have sold individually. Selling them as a group ensures that you move out this merchandise and make room for new items.

Create your ‘About Me’ page

Once you’re serious about eBay, publishing an “About Me” page is a no-brainer. It’s a personal Web page you can use to let the rest of the community know more about you. You can add a personal touch or keep it strictly business. You might display some of your prized listings, describe your hobbies, and display a picture or two of yourself or your pets. Letting some personality shine through on your About Me page helps your past customers remember you, and helps prospective customers get comfortable with you. Also, if you have another business outside eBay, you can link to it here.

You can use HTML code or select a pre-formatted format for your page. You’ll be able to preview your About Me page, then click Submit to publish it. You can always go back and edit your About Me page if you like. You can change the format, add or remove pictures, or delete the page entirely.

If you don’t have your own Web site, the URL of your About Me page is a good addition to your business cards and e-mail signature. You can include links to your About Me page in your listings.

You can view the About Me page for any eBay member by clicking the Me icon next to the User ID.

Cross-promotions

• Cross-promoting your eBay items is one of your best tools for selling additional merchandise to your buyers. When buyers bid or buy one of your items, four of your other items are displayed. Combining this feature with an offer of a shipping discount for additional purchases is a strong incentive for buyers to purchase more items from you simultaneously.

By default, buyers see your cross-promotions during checkout. Cross-promotions are also displayed when a buyer visits one of your eBay Store listings. However, it’s not mandatory for sellers to use cross-promotions—you can out of this feature by changing your preferences in My eBay.

• Fine-tune your cross-promotions. Cross-promotions are more powerful if you promote certain items in the right situation. You can create “rules” for your cross-promotions to make them more effective. For example, you can stipulate that whenever a buyer bids on a tennis racquet, tennis balls are promoted too. Store sellers can also set how many items appear in cross-promotion displays (a maximum of 12) and other preferences.

Here’s how to set your cross-promotion preferences:

• In My eBay, click Marketing Tools.

• Click Settings under Cross Promotions.

• Set preferences.

Open an eBay store

When you have a sufficient inventory and you decide to concentrate on developing your eBay business further, you should consider expanding your business by opening an eBay Store. The requirements are simple: You’ll need to have a feedback score of 20 or more, be ID Verified, or have a PayPal account in good standing.

eBay’s Store listing fees are much lower than auction fees, making a Store a good place to park merchandise between auctions, to clear slow-moving merchandise, and to provide a browsing destination for your previous customers. You can put a clickable link into your Store within your regular eBay auctions.

If you put some effort into your eBay Store, you’ll probably make back the $15.95 monthly subscription fee several times over. For example, you might run a promotion at your Store in which you offer free shipping to customers who buy at least two items. Or you might offer a 35 percent markdown on all your items to spark sales during the “dog days” of summer.

The Store Inventory listing format is fixed-price. Listings have a longer duration and lower insertion fees. Store items get less exposure than auctions because Store listings usually don’t show up in eBay search results. You can create Store listings by using eBay’s Sell Your Item Form and other listing tools.

Three Store subscription levels are available: basic at $15.95 a month, premium at $49.95 a month, and anchor at $299.95 a month. For a rundown on the features of each subscription level, see:

http://pages.ebay.com/storefronts/subscriptions.html

Set up shop

Once you decide which level of Store subscription is right for you, you have the option of using the “Quick Store Setup” to customize your Store. This feature recommends design and marketing features that have worked well for other sellers. You can apply the recommended settings or edit them to suit your situation. If you change your mind later, you can use the Manage My Store feature in My eBay to change any Store settings.

You can customize your Store with your favorite colors, images, and text styles, and you can create up to 300 categories and subcategories for your items.

• Name your store. You can use your eBay User ID as your Store name or you can select a different name. The name determines your store’s Web address, the URL. For example, if your Store’s name is “Car Parts,” your Store’s URL is http://stores.ebay.com/car-parts. eBay automatically adds hyphens between words, makes all letters lower case, and deletes “special” characters such as apostrophes and spaces.

Try to pick a name that tells buyers something about your inventory. A specific name like “Baseball Hats” works better than a vague name like “Perry’s Picks,” which doesn’t help buyers understand what’s for sale. Also, by using descriptive words, search engines like Google will help people find your Store, even if they weren’t shopping on eBay to begin with.

Some Store names are prohibited by eBay. You can’t use a name containing the words eBay, Half.com or PayPal. You can’t use a name identical to or very similar to any trademark or someone else’s company name. Your Store name can’t contain the characters www or end with a domain abbreviation such as .com, .net or .biz.

You can change your name at any time, but should avoid doing so because any existing bookmarks or Web links to your Store will quit working. At Google and other search engines, your Store will be considered a new site, and you’ll lose any ranking you had.

Promote your store

Unlike regular eBay auctions and fixed-price listings, your Store listings won’t be as visible to browsers, so to get sales you must draw people into your Store. One way sellers can attract buyers to their Stores is by linking to them in their regular auctions and fixed-price listings. You can include links to your Store items in your regular item descriptions. You can link to your Store’s home page, categories, or specific items.

You can also have Store items appear in your cross-promotion displays.

eBay offers a variety of marketing tools for Store operators, including e-mail marketing. Access these tools from My eBay by clicking on Marketing Tools.

To generate more traffic to your store, mention your Store URL on your packing slips, business cards, advertisements, e-mail signatures, and other promotional materials.

• e-Mail Marketing. E-mail newsletters are an efficient way to promote your eBay store to previous customers and members who have expressed an interest in your store but haven’t bought anything yet. To access this feature:

• Click My eBay at the top of any eBay page.

• In the left column, click Marketing Tools.

• Under Store Marketing, click Email Marketing.

Buyers can ask to receive your e-mail newsletter when they add you to their Favorite Sellers list or by clicking Sign Up to Store Newsletter.

Using eBay’s Web site, you create your e-mail newsletter with links to your Store items. You can specify which subscribers receive an e-mail based on their interests and buying history.

You can create as many as five mailing lists to advertise different promotions or target different interests. For example, you could have a “Baseball Cards” mailing list and a “Weekly Sale” mailing list.

After sending your newsletters, you’ll be able to gauge their effectiveness by viewing statistics on the number of resulting bids and Buy It Now transactions.

Depending on your Store subscription level, you’re allocated a certain number of free monthly e-mails. For example, Basic Stores get 5,000 free e-mails and can purchase more for 1 cent apiece.

• Promotional fliers. You can easily print a promotional flier to publicize your eBay Store. You might highlight new items, promote special deals, and remind buyers of your return policy and how to leave feedback. You can enclose your fliers in shipments to buyers, hand them out to friends and acquaintances, and tack them to bulletin boards. To begin:

• Click My eBay at the top of any eBay page.

• Click Marketing Tools in the left-hand column.

• Click Promotional Flyer in the left-hand column.

• Shipping Discounts. Offering shipping discounts on multiple purchases is a proven method of getting buyers to purchase more items. Many buyers who might have quit after purchasing just one item will take the time to browse your entire inventory once they see an offer for free shipping.

When you offer shipping discounts, buyers see the message Save on shipping in your listing. When buyers pay for more than one item, eBay automatically figures the shipping discount and subtracts it from their total shipping fee. The discount is shown to buyers when they pay.

You can set your shipping discounts in your My eBay Preferences.

• Have a sale at your Store. Having an occasional sale is a great way to jump-start sales. You can create sales linked to seasons or specific holidays, categories of merchandise, or just as a clearance event.

eBay’s Markdown Manager automates this process for you. You can discount your listings by a percentage or by price. You can apply discounts to part or all of your Store inventory, and promote your sale with e-mail marketing. See:

http://pages.ebay.com/storefronts/markdownmanager.html

• eBay Express. In 2006 eBay launched a new section of its Web site called eBay Express. It emphasizes fixed-price listings, not auctions. Certain eBay items—mostly new, fixed-price items—show up automatically on Express. Buyers use a shopping cart and can purchase from multiple sellers with one payment.

• eBay Store traffic reports. You’ll have access to traffic reports from your eBay Store that show how visitors behave at your store, your listings, and other pages. You can discover which pages are viewed most often and which Web sites and search keywords bring in the most traffic for you. To view your traffic reports:

• From My eBay, click Manage My Store.

• Click Traffic Reports.

You must view your traffic reports at least once every 90 days, or the reports will stop.

• Using eBay’s Half.com site. If your inventory includes standard media items such as books, music or video games, consider listing your items for sale at Half.com. All items are listed at fixed prices. Feedback you receive from buyers will show up in your eBay account, and vice versa.

Half.com charges sellers no fees for listing items, but takes a 15 percent commission on sales.

The payment procedures on Half.com differ from eBay. Instead of using PayPal, buyers pay directly with a credit card, and sellers receive their proceeds in a monthly check or online bank transfer.

• Google Base. Google offers free software enabling you to enhance your Store’s visibility on the Web. The software, called “Google Base Store Connector,” puts details about your inventory, called a “feed,” into the search engine’s index. Then when people search Google for products like yours, your listings show up along with a link to your site.

“This is the best thing I’ve come across yet for eBay store owners, and the absolute best part is it’s totally free,” said the eBay PowerSeller known as history-bytes. “Google has built a free tool to let you upload all of your auctions into it, so that hundreds of millions of customers worldwide can find your auctions—and buy them.”

To find out more:

http://www.google.com/base/storeconnector/index.html

eBay also has an internal procedure enabling sellers to create a feed of their inventory. For more information on exporting a file of your eBay listings, see:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/specialtysites/exporting-your-listings.html

Why many would-be PowerSellers fail

By Skip McGrath

Hundreds of new eBay sellers crash and burn every month. Here are the most common mistakes you should avoid:

• Poor Feedback Rating. New eBay sellers typically underrate the importance of quickly building a great feedback rating. When starting your eBay business, you should bend over backwards to provide exceptional service. Remember, you’re fishing for compliments. As the seller, you have a lot to lose from negative feedback. It’s only a question of time until you run into a difficult or irrational buyer. He or she may be rude, or unresponsive, or both. While you’re building your feedback rating, sometimes you just have to swallow hard and be extra-diplomatic. Once your feedback rating is established in the high hundreds, you can afford to fight back and absorb the occasional negative feedback without suffering a big hit to your average.

• Not accepting credit cards turns away bidders. Thousands of bidders worry about Internet fraud. Studies by eBay have firmly concluded that accepting credit cards increases your auction bids between 100 percent and 300 percent.

In the old days, it was tough for new, small merchants to get a card processing account, but PayPal offers an elegant solution. There are no set-up fees and transaction costs are 2.2 percent or less. By contrast, setting up an old-fashioned merchant card account can cost between $195 to $425 in setup fees and anywhere from 2.5 percent to 7.5 percent per transaction.

• Weak headlines and poor auction descriptions lose bids. To attract bidders, your headline must stand out above the competition. A great headline contains two key elements: “Keywords” that are searchable, and “emotional words” designed to draw attention. Before writing the auction description, ask yourself: “Why would someone want to own this item?” If you’re selling something you used yourself, say so. Tell the potential bidder why you owned the item, how you used it, and what benefits it brought you. Sell not just the features, but the benefits and the romance.

• Poor images turn off buyers. The saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” is especially true at eBay. Not having a photo of your item will greatly reduce your bids and cause unprofitable or unsuccessful auctions. Not only must you have a photograph of your item, the photo must be accurate and revealing. It’s not necessary to be a professional photographer. eBay bidders understand that most sellers are taking snapshots. But your photo should be clear, and show the product as completely as possible.

• Not understanding your costs is a prescription for disaster. It’s easy for a new seller to get caught up in the excitement of selling and ignore the costs of selling. Before deciding whether to list something on eBay and what to sell it for (i.e. reserve or Dutch auction price), you must understand all the costs involved. First, there’s the insertion fee, then, if it sells, the final-value fee. There may be a fee to process the payment. If you use an auction-management service such as Andale, don’t forget their fees. Then there’s shipping and the cost of packing materials. If you’re selling items you purchased wholesale, you probably paid for the items to be shipped to you. Did you pay sales tax?

A longtime eBay PowerSeller, McGrath publishes “The eBay Sellers Resource Site” at http://www.skipmcgrath.com, where you can subscribe to a free newsletter for professional eBay sellers. He is the author of several best-selling eBay how-to books, including “Three Weeks to eBay Profits,” Titanium eBay,” and “How to Start and Run an eBay Consignment Business.”

Many eBay sellers like to think of themselves as retailers, but it’s also helpful to consider your business as a service. You’re selling convenience and service just as much as you’re selling products. Most of your sales will come from new customers, and the only way to differentiate yourself from competitors is the “feedback” record you earn by providing good service to buyer after buyer.

• Set Buyer Requirements. If you do business with enough people, sooner or later you’re going to run into someone you’d rather not deal with again. Fortunately, eBay allows you to block certain buyers from bidding on or buying your items based on whether they have a PayPal account, their country of registration, feedback, and buying history. Here’s how to add buyer requirements to your listings:

• From My eBay, in the My Account column, click Preferences.

• In the Seller Preferences section, click Edit.

• On the Buyer Requirements page, select your buyer requirements.

• Click the Submit button to save your settings. You can also create a requirements exemption list.

Be a feedback fanatic

eBay’s feedback system enables transaction partners who don’t know each other to predict one another’s likely performance. This facilitates trade because buyers can easily see the track record of sellers, and vice versa. Once you’ve earned a strong feedback record, you have a huge advantage over competing sellers and can even command higher prices.

eBay members receive one rating point from each transaction partner—positive, neutral or negative. A perfect feedback percentage score is 100, and careful sellers can expect to keep their positive feedback averages well above 90. eBay counts feedback from the same buyer only once; otherwise it would be possible for two people colluding to dramatically boost their feedback scores and give other buyers the impression of a longer trading history.

Transactions completed on Half.com also count toward your eBay feedback score.

Sellers gripe about feedback systems, which are always imperfect, but feedback can serve as a useful tool for managing your business. By aiming to minimize negative feedback, you’ll automatically be focused on preventing mistakes that cost money to correct.

The best way to prevent bad feedback is to have a daily routine for managing your business. For example, morning can be a good time to check your messages and answer inquiries received overnight. Prompt communication with buyers prevents small problems from growing into big problems.

Having satisfied customers is fine, but the real payoff comes through future rewards of repeat sales. Satisfied customers come back again and again, and that’s the lifeblood of every successful business.

You should take extreme care and exercise patience when leaving feedback ratings for buyers for a variety of reasons:

• It’s a reflection on your business. Potential customers may review feedback ratings you’ve left for previous buyers.

• Feedback can’t be edited or removed after it’s posted. It becomes a permanent record on eBay and is visible to anyone, unless the transaction partners mutually agree to remove it or in the unlikely event that eBay removes it at your request.

• You could be held liable for legal damages to your buyer’s reputation if a court found your statements were libelous or defamatory.

• eBay might restrict or suspend your account if it determines you’ve posted abusive feedback.

So to maintain your level of service and minimize negative feedback, focus on the things you can control: prompt shipping, careful communication, and accurate descriptions.

• Detailed Seller Ratings. In addition to an overall feedback rating which can be positive, negative or neutral, buyers can leave detailed ratings on four criteria: description accuracy, communication, shipping time, and shipping and handling charges. The ratings, which don’t count toward overall feedback scores, range from one to five stars, with five stars being best. The stars are displayed in your feedback profile.

Unlike the overall feedback rating, Detailed Seller Ratings are anonymous.

Keep a good reputation

Maintaining excellent customer service and setting clear expectations in your product descriptions can help keep your feedback record sparkling.

• Prompt shipping. Buyers expect prompt shipment and a confirmation of shipment. Part-time sellers can probably get by shipping two or three times per week, but if you take your business seriously, commit yourself to shipping on a daily basis. That way, if you forget a package one day, you’re likely to catch your mistake the following day. Aim higher than the minimum requirements.

Justified or not, a substantial portion of buyer feedback comments are gripes about delivery time. “Prompt delivery” and “I received it in a few days” are typical feedback comments from satisfied customers. “Very slow” is an all-too-typical feedback comment, and obviously, the customer could actually be rating the Postal Service rather than the seller.

So it’s unavoidable that seller ratings will suffer from slow delivery and other issues outside your control. The best way to minimize problems from delivery speed is shipping as promptly as possible. Daily shipping is not required, but usually results in greater customer satisfaction and less wasted time responding to e-mails from impatient buyers.

Most sellers offer at least two shipping options, express and standard. For example, you can offer Postal Service airmail or ground delivery. Most buyers rarely choose to pay for expedited shipping, but have no qualms about complaining when standard shipping fails to arrive within a week or so.

For sellers of media items such as books, music and videos, the U.S. Postal Service’s Media Mail service is usually the most economical shipping option. The drawback with Media Mail (formerly known as Book Rate) is that it can take anywhere from two to four weeks to arrive, resulting in irate customers. More and more, a shipping time exceeding two weeks prompts complaints, especially from younger buyers more accustomed to prompt deliveries by UPS and FedEx.

To minimize grief over tardy Media Mail packages, some sellers upgrade the shipping on lightweight items to First Class or Priority Mail, particularly for customers outside the continental United States. Delivery to Alaska, Hawaii and overseas military and government offices frequently takes longer than 30 days. If you can fit the item into a flat-rate Priority Mail envelope or box, you’ll usually save lots of postage compared with paying by weight.

• Offer unconditional guarantees. Nothing puts a buyer at ease faster than a strong guarantee. Whether you like it or not, as a seller you’re already bound by various requirements from eBay and mail-order requirements that you accept returns from customers. Instead of resisting these requirements, turn them around to work in your favor. Tell your customers that you’ll accept returns within 30 days, no questions asked. The vast majority of buyers can’t be bothered to return an item even if they decide they don’t like it, but a strong guarantee is a confidence-booster for wavering buyers.

While you’re thinking about it, compose a detailed payment and shipping policy. Explain how you’ll ship and when, when you post feedback, how long you hold checks, and so on. You’ll appear more professional, and in case of misunderstanding you’ll have your process in writing.

According to research by eBay, buyers’ fear of difficulty in returning items is the No. 1 barrier to online sales. Sellers who clearly spell out their policies have a big advantage over competitors and sell a higher percentage of their listings.

To discourage returns, some sellers charge a “restocking fee.” For example, a seller who charges a 5 percent restocking fee would refund 95 percent of the customer’s purchase price after accepting a return. Also, some sellers refuse to accept “open box” returns, or returns without all the original materials such as the owner’s manual. These types of policies should be clearly outlined by the seller to prevent misunderstandings with customers.

Whatever your policies are, be sure to explain them in a friendly way. You don’t want to give buyers the impression that you’re looking for reasons not to do business with them.

• State your return policy. To make sure buyers know your return policy, make these notations to the “Additional Information” section of the Sell Your Item form:

• Check the Returns accepted check box.

• Pick a time limit for buyers to return items.

• Select the type of refund you’ll give if an item is returned—exchange, merchandise credit, or money back. Buyers usually prefer the option of getting their money back.

• Enter additional information about your return policy in the box labeled Return Policy Details. For example, will you accept an item for return if the box was opened? If the box is missing? If the item was damaged during return shipping?

• Offer immediate shipment on personal checks under $25. If you accept personal checks, consider offering immediate shipment for payments under $25 if a buyer has good feedback. Another option is to hold the merchandise for just a few days after depositing the check. Banks are very efficient these days in clearing check payments.

Completing sales. Prompt, courteous communication and shipping is the bare minimum for succeeding as a seller. If you’re using eBay’s Checkout feature, the task of contacting your buyer is handled automatically. Otherwise, you’ll need to e-mail your buyer to specify the shipping cost, how you’ll ship the item to them, a tracking number when available, total price, which payment methods you’ll take, and any taxes applied.

EBay will provide you with your buyer’s e-mail address in an e-mail notifying you of the end of your listing. You can also contact recent buyers by going through My eBay. Under the heading All Selling, click Sold. Click on the buyer’s nickname, and on the next page you’ll see a link for Contact Member. Using eBay’s messaging system, you can send an e-mail reminding them of the item name and number, bid amount, shipping cost, and payment options.

Another way of spurring a buyer into action is to send a “payment reminder,” which you can do after three days and up to 30 days after a transaction. Your buyer receives an e-mail message from eBay with all the pertinent details. To send a payment reminder:

• Go to My eBay

• In the left column, click on Sold.

• Find the item in question, and click the icon in the item’s Payment Reminder column.

• Check boxes for each element you want to appear in the e-mail.

• Preview and send the message.

Communicate with a packing slip

You can perform several important functions with a simple packing slip. You can make the customer feel good about the purchase, head off potential problems, and solicit feedback.

Here’s sample text you can print on your packing slip to encourage feedback after delivery:

Dear Customer:

Thank you for your purchase. If you are happy with my service, please leave “feedback” for me, which will let other buyers know I’m a responsible and reliable seller. If you were unsatisfied for any reason, I would appreciate hearing from you before you leave feedback so that I might resolve any issues regarding the transaction.

Best regards,

Your Seller

Notice that the message above provides another opportunity for correcting mistakes and misunderstandings before a customer submits negative feedback.

• Respond to feedback. From time to time you may want to publicly respond to a feedback rating or comment you’ve received. You might want to rebut an inaccurate statement by a buyer or express appreciation to a thankful buyer. Here’s how:

• Go to the Reply to Feedback Received page:

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?

PersonalizedFeedbackLogin

• Under the comment where you want to respond, click Reply. Enter your text in the box, and click Leave Reply.

Leave feedback for buyers

You can easily leave feedback ratings for all your transactions from the previous 90 days by visiting My eBay. To leave feedback:

• Click My eBay at the top of any eBay page.

• In the left column, click Feedback under My Account.

• Click Leave Feedback.

Limit your comments to factual statements. Your response can’t be deleted, so it’s best to avoid writing feedback responses while you’re angry. It’s better to take a few hours to cool off. Remember, don’t take feedback comments personally.

• Request negative feedback removal. Protect your feedback average by asking buyers to remove negative ratings you believe are unfair. eBay calls the process “mutual feedback withdrawal,” and you can initiate the process by visiting this address:

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/

eBayISAPI.dll?MFWRequest

A polite request will result in feedback removal about 60 percent of the time. If the buyer cooperates and removes the rating, it will be removed from your feedback page and will no longer be counted toward your average. So it’s well worth the effort.

This is where having a script on hand really helps. You’re likely to be angry after receiving a negative rating, particularly from an ill-informed buyer. Your first instinct may be to give your customer an earful and try to shame him into removing feedback, but the response will likely be defensiveness and intransigence.

Below is a sample script to request removal of a negative feedback rating in cases where the buyer is unhappy about slow delivery by the Postal Service, even though the seller shipped the item promptly. Notice that it achieves three key objectives:

• Apologizing for the slow delivery.

• Gently explaining that the customer received the promised service.

• Suggesting how the buyer can avoid the problem on future purchases.

Dear [Buyer]:

I noticed the negative feedback rating you left on my eBay account regarding the delivery time of your item. I apologize that delivery took so long. However, I did ship your package within 24 hours using standard mail, as described on my eBay listing.

I would greatly appreciate it if you would remove the feedback comment. I’m concerned that other buyers may avoid purchasing from me after reading it.

For future reference, you can ensure three-day delivery from me and other eBay sellers by selecting Priority Mail shipping where available.

Best regards,

Your Seller

If the delay by the Postal Service was egregious, you might offer to sweeten the deal by refunding the shipping fee. Faced with this offer, many buyers respond: “No refund is necessary, I will remove the feedback.” You’ve given the customer a way to save face and claim the moral high ground while cleaning up your feedback.

• Mutual Feedback Withdrawal. When your buyer withdraws their feedback, their rating (positive, negative or neutral) disappears from your feedback score. The feedback comment itself remains, but as you continue selling and compile more feedback, the comment text becomes obscured by recent feedback.

You can request Mutual Feedback Withdrawal only once for each rating. You can file your request within 30 days of the feedback left by you or your transaction partner, or 90 days after the transaction date, whichever is later.

• Feedback Removal. A last resort for getting inappropriate feedback removed is requesting feedback removal by eBay, which is a long shot. The company will completely erase the feedback and all comments, but only if it violates its Feedback Removal and Abuse Policy.

To qualify for removal by eBay, feedback must meet one or more of these circumstances:

• eBay receives a valid court order showing the feedback in question is “slanderous, libelous, defamatory or illegal.”

• Comments in the feedback include language judged “profane, vulgar, obscene, or racist” or of an “adult” nature. Inflammatory language describing a transaction partner as a “fraud, liar, cheater, scam artist, con man,” etc., is strongly discouraged by eBay, but doesn’t necessarily qualify for removal.

• The comments in the feedback include personal identifying data such as another member’s real name, address, phone number, or e-mail.

• The feedback refers to an investigation by police, eBay or PayPal.

• The feedback contains HTML links or scripts.

• Feedback was left by a buyer who wasn’t eligible to participate in eBay transactions according to Section 1 of eBay’s user agreement.

• Feedback was from a buyer who gave eBay false contact information and therefore couldn’t be contacted during the “transaction period” 30 days after the feedback posting date or 90 days from the end of the listing, whichever is longer.

• Feedback was from a buyer who eBay determines bid on or bought an item solely in order to leave negative feedback, and didn’t intend to complete the transaction.

• Feedback from buyers who are indefinitely suspended for violating certain eBay policies within 90 days of registration.

Sometimes a buyer makes a mistake and leaves negative feedback for the wrong seller. It’s possible to get this feedback removed by eBay, but only when the buyer notifies eBay of the mistake and posts the same feedback for the correct seller. For more details, see:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/feedback-abuse-withdrawal.html

• SquareTrade.com. SquareTrade, a company that provides dispute resolution services, is another option for resolving feedback problems. SquareTrade uses a panel of professional mediators who help sellers resolve disputes with buyers for a fee of $29.95. Membership is $9.50 per month or $95 per year with prepayment. However, with the introduction of eBay’s free Mutual Feedback Withdrawal procedure a few years ago, it seems that SquareTrade is less popular with sellers than it used to be.

• Feedback policies. Any discussion of eBay’s feedback policies would be incomplete without mentioning the following prohibitions. Violations of these guidelines can result in restriction or suspension of a member’s account:

• Feedback Extortion. Threatening negative or neutral feedback for a seller unless the seller provides a good or service not included in the original listing.

• Feedback Manipulation. Feedback whose primary purpose is to “artificially” enhance an eBayer’s reputation.

• Feedback in Seller Terms and Conditions. Sellers are prohibited from restricting the buyer from leaving feedback.

Appropriate time for feedback. Some sellers make it a habit of leaving feedback for their buyers as soon as they receive payment. Their theory is that upon payment, the buyer has fulfilled his end of the bargain. And eBay’s research shows that sellers who leave feedback immediately tend to receive more feedback from buyers.

On the other hand, many sellers avoid leaving feedback until they have received a positive rating from the buyer. Their philosophy is that nothing prevents buyers from leaving inappropriate feedback once the seller has already left the buyer a positive rating.

One valid reason for waiting until a buyer leaves feedback is this can be taken as a sign a buyer is satisfied, and needs no further customer support.

Feedback stars. After receiving 10 feedback points, eBay members receive stars displayed next to their User ID. The display changes with each successive level of feedback:

Yellow star = 10 to 49 points

Blue star = 50 to 99 points

Turquoise star = 100 to 499 points

Purple star = 500 to 999 points

Red star = 1,000 to 4,999 points

Green star = 5,000 to 9,999 points

Yellow shooting star = 10,000 to 24,999 points

Turquoise shooting star = 25,000 to 49,999 points

Purple shooting star = 50,000 to 99,999 points

Red shooting star = 100,000 points or more

Handle customers right

You need cooperation from buyers on removing inappropriate feedback because eBay will rarely get involved in a dispute. In general, the company’s policy is to remove feedback only when the feedback contains obscene language or it includes personal information such as your full name or telephone number.

Unfortunately, some buyers are just impossible to satisfy. Perhaps the buyer doesn’t understand the feedback process, won’t admit a mistake, or is just plain malicious. When all attempts to make amends fail, the important thing is to avoid taking it personally. Learn what you can from the experience and move on. Don’t let a dispute with an unreasonable buyer distract you from running your business.

Unpaid item disputes

eBay buyers are legally bound to purchase your item if they win the auction or use Buy It Now. If a buyer receives excessive unpaid items “strikes,” their account can be suspended. Regardless, you will occasionally have buyers who neglect to pay and don’t respond when you attempt to contact them. Your alternative is to begin a four-step unpaid item process:

• File Dispute. You can report an unpaid item as long as 45 days after the transaction date. Usually you’re required to wait seven days to file the dispute, but you can file immediately if the buyer is no longer registered at eBay or both parties agree to cancel the transaction. Visit this URL to report your dispute:

http://rebulk.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?CreateDispute

• eBay contacts your buyer. Via e-mail and pop-up message, eBay reminds your buyer to pay and provides instructions. If the buyer fails to respond within seven days, you can file for a Final Value Fee credit and you’ll be eligible for a relist fee credit.

• Mutual agreement indication. If you indicate that you’ve reached an agreement with your buyer to not complete the transaction, eBay will ask for confirmation from your buyer through an e-mail and pop-up message. If the buyer confirms your statement about mutually agreeing to not complete the transaction, you’ll receive the Final Value Fee credit. If your buyer disagrees with your statement on mutual agreement, you won’t receive a Final Value Fee credit and the dispute will be closed. If the buyer doesn’t respond within seven days, you’ll be able to close the dispute, and you’ll receive a Final Value Fee credit.

• Item Dispute Communication. Your buyer has three options. They can elect to pay immediately with PayPal or with another payment method. Your buyer’s other options are indicating they’ve already paid, or they’ll communicate with you about paying.

• Closing the dispute. From your Dispute Console, you can close disputes when the buyer has responded or if the buyer fails to respond within eight days. You have three options for closing disputes:

1. We’ve completed the transaction and we’re both satisfied. You won’t receive the Final Value Fee credit, and your buyer doesn’t receive an Unpaid Item strike.

2. We’ve agreed not to complete the transaction. You’ll receive a Final Value Fee credit and be eligible for a relist credit, and your buyer won’t receive an Unpaid Item strike.

3. I no longer wish to communicate with or wait for the buyer. You’ll receive a Final Value Fee credit and be eligible for a relist credit, and your buyer will receive an Unpaid Item strike.

If the dispute isn’t closed within 60 days of the transaction, eBay closes it automatically. In this case you won’t receive a Final Value Fee credit, and your buyer won’t receive an Unpaid Item strike. Buyers and sellers are able to leave feedback on transactions connected with an Unpaid Item dispute, even after reaching a mutual agreement not to complete the transaction.

Prevent unpaid items

Follow these four steps to reduce your rate of unpaid items:

• Accept PayPal, which makes it easier for buyers to pay.

• Provide clear shipping and handling information in your listing’s description and “shipping details” section. If this section is vague or blank, most buyers will move on, and you’ll lose the sale.

• Use eBay Checkout, which makes it simple for buyers to pay.

• For fixed-price listings, require immediate payment through PayPal.

Work with PayPal

PayPal is a fast, easy way to collect payments securely over the Internet. When you accept PayPal, your eBay buyers can pay you with a credit card or checking account without having to send you their account number or any personal information. PayPal is owned by eBay, and you can use it for your eBay transactions or on your own Web site.

Most sellers see two big advantages of using PayPal:

• You get paid faster. You don’t have to wait for a check or money order to arrive in the mail.

• Many buyers prefer PayPal because it’s easy and quick. So offering PayPal on your listings will usually result in more sales for you.

The disadvantage to PayPal is that sellers incur an extra fee on each transaction. However, many sellers believe that PayPal brings in extra business that offsets the fees. And unlike many other merchant credit card systems, PayPal requires no setup fees, no membership fees, and no minimum transaction requirements.

If you don’t already have a PayPal account, it’s simple enough to get started. Simply select PayPal as a payment method on the Sell Your Item form and enter the e-mail address where you want to be notified of payments. When you get your first payment you’ll be asked to sign up.

You can also use PayPal to accept payments from overseas customers if you upgrade your account to a Premier or Business account. You can accept payments from customers in 50 countries, and the foreign currencies are automatically converted into U.S. dollars for you.

PayPal provides protection programs for buyers and sellers. The Seller Protection Policy protects sellers from complaints and chargebacks if certain conditions are met, such as proof of delivery through a parcel tracking system.

PayPal’s Buyer Protection Policy allows customers to file a complaint within 45 days if they don’t receive an item or the item is significantly different than the seller’s description. Also, if the buyer used a credit card to fund the PayPal transaction, they can initiate a chargeback through their credit card company to obtain a refund.

Sellers who receive an “item not received” claim from PayPal are asked to enter a tracking number for the parcel on the company’s Web site. If the buyer claims that an item is “significantly not as described,” PayPal usually requires the buyer to return the item to the seller at the buyer’s expense, with proof of return delivery.

PayPal security keys. In 2007, PayPal introduced an optional security key, adding another layer of protection for users logging into PayPal or eBay. Users press a button on the key, then enter a six-digit code to complete their login. PayPal charges $5 for the device.

Refunding buyers. If you decide to refund a buyer for a transaction, you’ll normally use the same payment method as the buyer used. To issue a refund with PayPal:

• At www.paypal.com, log into your account.

• On the My Account Overview page, find the item you need to refund, and then click Details.

• If you don’t see the item that needs a refund, click on the All Activity link.

• On the Transaction Details page, click Refund Payment near the bottom of the item page. Follow the directions to issue the refund.

Set your payment preferences

You can change your payment preferences on eBay by clicking Preferences in My eBay under “My Account.” Click Show in the “Payment from buyers” section.

You can edit any of these settings:

• Use Checkout. When Checkout is on, your buyer sees Pay Now buttons when purchasing from you. If Checkout is off, you’ll need to send your buyer an invoice in order to use Checkout. The default setting is on.

• PayPal Preferred. Your buyers are notified on the item page that you prefer PayPal. The default setting is off.

• Buyer Edit Payment Totals Option. When this setting is on, your buyer is able to edit the payment amount during Checkout. For example, the buyer would be able to add additional fees for overnight delivery or gift wrapping. Default setting is on.

• Payment Address. Your payment address is displayed only when a buyer wants to pay with a check or other method that requires sending postal mail to your physical address.

• Multiple Seller Payments. Enables buyers to pay for multiple items from different sellers simultaneously with one payment. Each seller receives a separate payment from PayPal.

“Verifying” your PayPal account enables you to raise your withdrawal and sending limits. If you already have an account, you can become PayPal-Verified by logging in, clicking the PayPal Verified icon, and following the instructions. If you don’t have an account yet, you can become Verified as part of the signup process.

If you commit to selling full-time, you should upgrade your PayPal account to a Business account. You’ll be able to conduct your transactions in your business name. To upgrade your account, click on the Sign Up link at PayPal’s home page.

Take payments

Payments policy. You have many options for accepting payments on eBay, and each has its advantages and disadvantages. Some of the most popular payment methods:

• PayPal. As stated previously, eBay strongly encourages the use of PayPal, and eBay owns the company. Sellers who have a different merchant credit card account or a third-party processor can offer this option to buyers, either through a third-party checkout process or by telephone.

• Money orders and cashier’s checks. In theory, this is one of the safest payment methods for sellers, but the frequency of check forgeries in recent years has reduced the attractiveness. On the other hand, the odds that you’ll receive a phony money order or cashier’s check from a eBay buyer who has a good feedback record are exceedingly small.

• Personal checks. This is a popular payment method with many buyers. But checks create extra work for sellers, who must fill out deposit slips to deposit the checks at their banks. Also, you’ve got to wait for the buyer to send the check in the mail. And, even with small payment amounts, there is always the chance that the check will bounce.

Other payment methods permitted on eBay: PayPal, credit cards including MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Discover, debit cards and bank electronic payments. Sellers can also accept bank wire transfers or bank cash transfers. Cash on delivery (COD) or cash for in-person transactions are allowed. Sellers may accept personal checks, cashier’s checks, money orders and certified checks.

Here are examples of payment methods permitted on eBay: Allpay.net, cash2india, CertaPay, CheckFree, hyperwallet.com, Moneybookers.com, Nochex.com, Ozpay.biz, Paymate.com.au, Propay.com, and XOOM.

Not permitted on eBay: Sellers aren’t allowed to ask buyers to send cash through the mail. Likewise, sellers are prohibited from asking buyers to pay using instant cash transfer services such as Western Union or Moneygram.

eBay doesn’t allow the use of Google Checkout or these other payment methods: AlertPay.com, anypay.com, AuctionChex.com, BillPay.ie, ecount.com, cardserviceinternational.com, CCAvenue, ecount, e-gold, eHotPay.com, ePassporte.com, EuroGiro, FastCash.com, gcash, GearPay, Goldmoney.com, graphcard.com, greenzap.com, ikobo.com, Liberty Dollars, Moneygram.com, neteller.com, Netpay.com, paychest.com, payingfast.com, Payko.com, paypay, Postepay, Qchex.com, rupay.com, sendmoneyorder.com, stamps, Stormpay, wmtransfer.com, xcoin.com.

PayPal and credit cards. If you choose to accept PayPal during the listing process, you’re obligated to accept all forms of PayPal payments, including credit cards, bank accounts and PayPal balances. Sellers who assert they will not accept PayPal credit card payments are in violation of eBay and PayPal rules.

Your seller account. Each month eBay will send you an invoice for all your applicable Insertion Fees, Final Value Fees, and additional fees for optional features. Non-payment of your seller fees can lead to account suspension. You can view or download recent account activity through My eBay.

You’ll have several options for paying your seller fees, including PayPal, credit card, direct payments, by check (business checks, not personal checks). You may pay after receiving your invoice, or you can sign up for automatic monthly payments.

Fees. There’s no membership fee for selling on eBay. Your cost for selling items is the combination of your Insertion Fees and Final Value Fees. When creating an eBay listing, you’ll be able to view an itemized list of all fees before submitting your listing. For a listing of current eBay fee, see:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html

When you list an item for sale on eBay, you’re charged a non-refundable Insertion Fee. The higher your starting price or Reserve Price is, the higher your Insertion Fee will be. Insertion Fees for a Multiple Item Auction (Dutch Auction) and Fixed Price listings depend on the opening value of your items. The opening value is the starting price or fixed price multiplied by the quantity listed.

When you sell an item you’ll pay the Final Value Fee, a set percentage plus some additional fees if your item sells for more than $25.

Optional Feature Fees. You can increase your odds of a successful sale by adding optional features, but you’ll incur additional fees for doing so.

Reserve Fees are $1 for reserve prices under $50 and $2 for reserve prices from $50 to $199.99. For a reserve price of $200 and up, you’ll pay 1 percent of the Reserve Price (up to $50). If your item sells, your Reserve Fees will be refunded.

When you sell an item from a fixed-price listing, you’ll pay a Buy It Now Fee. The greater your price, the larger the fee.

eBay offers several listing upgrades for optional features such as subtitles, bold titles, and gallery pictures. Many of these optional features can be bundled together into special packages. eBay also charges some fees for additional picture hosting beyond what’s included in a basic insertion fee.

Use Skype. Skype is an online conferencing system owned by eBay that allows users to talk to other users for free and eliminate long-distance phone charges. You download software to your computer and set up a microphone and earpiece.

Sellers can add Skype buttons to their listings, allowing buyers to contact them and ask questions. You can add voice or chat capability to your listings, which helps build confidence with buyers of complicated or expensive items. See:

http://pages.ebay.com/skype/

The good news about eBay is it’s a vibrant marketplace and a great place to do business. The bad news is, every lively bazaar attracts its share of crooks, and if you’re careless you’ll be victimized.

Use care in choosing your eBay User ID, password and “secret question.” Your User ID is the seller nickname that identifies you on eBay. Select a name and password unrelated to your e-mail address and other online accounts. Using similar log-in information at different sites is risky—if one account is compromised, the rest of your accounts will be at risk. Also, a unique User ID helps you avoid spam.

A good, secure password includes a combination of at least six to eight letters, numbers and special characters. It’s also a good idea to change your eBay password every couple of months.

In the event you ever forget your password, go to eBay’s “Forgot Your Password” page:

http://cgi4.ebay.com/ws/

eBayISAPI.dll?ForgotYourPasswordShow

You’ll need to enter your User ID and verify your identity. eBay then will e-mail instructions for resetting your password.

If you forget your User ID, visit the Forgot User ID page:

http://cgi4.ebay.com/

ws/eBayISAPI.dll?UserIdRecognizerShow

You can change your password by visiting eBay’s “Change Your Password” page:

http://signin.ebay.com/

ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ChangePasswordAndCreateHint

Spot shady buyers

Counterfeit cashier’s checks are an increasingly popular technique for scammers. Crooks are easily able to use software and laser printers to create phony checks. Here are typical warning signs:

• You’re selling a high-priced item and receive a request from a foreign bidder to accept a foreign cashier’s check.

• The amount of a cashier’s check you receive is much more than the value of the item. The buyer wants you to overnight the excess payment using a cash wire transfer service such as Western Union or Moneygram.

Experience shows this scenario is dangerous. It may take many weeks for your bank to discover the check was fake. If the cashier’s check is fraudulent, you’ll be required to reimburse your bank.

Another technique popular with scammers is pressuring eBayers to avoid using PayPal or checks in favor of Western Union and other cash-transfer services where the payment can’t be canceled or reversed. For more information on auction fraud and how to report it, consult the AuctionBytes fraud resource:

http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/pages/fraud

Recognize predators

Avoid phishing e-mails. Crooks on the Internet will try to steal your eBay account and password by sending phony e-mails that appear to be from eBay itself. Typically, the e-mail will warn that your account will be suspended or canceled unless you log into a Web site (supposedly eBay’s) and provide your account information.

It’s highly unlikely eBay would send a message asking about your account number, password, or other personal information, but if it did, you’d receive a copy in your My Messages box at My eBay. Otherwise, that suspicious e-mail is a phishing attempt.

If you’re not certain a message is really from eBay, don’t click on links contained in the e-mail. Instead, open a new browser window, go to ebay.com, and sign in. If the message doesn’t appear in My Messages, it’s a phish, often called a “spoof” message.

Spoof messages usually have an official-looking eBay logo and may appear to have an eBay address in the “From” line, such as “help@ebay.com.”

Typically, spoof e-mails have one or more of the following characteristics:

• Requests personal information, such as “Please update your credit card number.”

• Doesn’t address you by name, but a generic phrase such as “Dear eBay member.”

• Demands immediate action, such as “Failure to respond will result in suspension of your account within two business days.”

• Links to Web pages that mimic eBay’s real sign-in page. An example of a spoof link is http://signin-ebay.com.

If you receive a suspicious e-mail, report it to eBay by forwarding the message to spoof@ebay.com. eBay will check the message and notify you if it was really sent by eBay.

eBay offers a free “Account Guard” toolbar you can download and install to your Web browser. The toolbar indicates when you are on a verified eBay or PayPal Web site and warns you when you’re visiting a potential spoof site. The toolbar, which also helps protect your eBay password, is available here:

http://pages.ebay.com/ebay_toolbar

Using My Messages. As discussed previously, eBay’s My Messages is a secure area where you receive messages from eBay as well as other eBay members. Here you’ll typically receive messages from buyers who used eBay’s Ask a Question feature. When you respond to the message, eBay will send a copy to your customer’s My Messages inbox and to their registered e-mail address. A copy will also be saved in your My Messages Sent folder and (if you check the required box) to your registered e-mail address.

For more information, see eBay’s tutorial on spoof e-mails:

http://pages.ebay.com/education/spooftutorial/

Beware of hoax e-mails

By Ina Steiner, AuctionBytes.com

Every year, thousands of unsuspecting eBay sellers have their accounts hijacked by scammers who send hoax e-mails. The messages, disguised to look as though they are coming from eBay and PayPal, trick eBay members into revealing their password, banking and credit card information.

The perpetrators, often called “phishers,” attempt to lure recipients into clicking on a link embedded in the e-mail directing them to a “spoof” log-in page, set up to look just like eBay or PayPal. The user unwittingly logs into the fake site with their user name and password and enters private information that is harvested by the scammers.

Some hoax e-mails are easy to spot because bad grammar gives them away. An example:

Dear PayPal user!

At 09.27.2003 our company has lost a number of accounts in the system during the database maintenance.

Or this one:

Subj:    Your acount will be dezactivated

From:  suspension@eBay.com (suspension@eBay.com)

Reply-to: suspension@eBay.com (suspension@eBay.com)

Although you can get a good chuckle out of the more inept attempts to gain your personal information, some scam e-mails are very sophisticated, and extremely difficult to distinguish from the “real” notifications.

Sometimes the message sounds plausible, such as asking a user to update their eBay account information because of a security breach. Many times they use a sense of urgency to get you to respond right away, before you have time to think about it being a possible scam.

We had a security breach, we will shut down your account if you don’t immediately verify your account information, click on the link below.

We regret to inform you that your eBay account will be suspended if you don’t resolve your problems.

Here’s one that’s quite convincing:

We regret to inform you that your eBay account has been suspended due to concerns we have for the safety and integrity of the eBay community.

Per the User Agreement, Section 9, we may immediately issue a warning, temporarily suspend, indefinitely suspend or terminate your membership and refuse to provide our services to you if we believe that your actions may cause financial loss or legal liability for you, our users or us. We may also take these actions if we are unable to verify or authenticate any information you provide to us.

Please note that any seller fees due to eBay will immediately become due and payable. eBay will charge any amounts you have not previously disputed to the billing method currently on file.

To activate your suspended eBay account please complete the form located at…

Be safe. Never click on a link in an e-mail to log in to an account. Always go to your Web browser, type in the URL of the site, and log in as you normally would. Don’t think that just because you’ve been on the Internet for a long time that you are immune—some very smart people have been tricked into giving out personal credit information as a result of these hoax e-mails!

Steiner is co-founder and editor of AuctionBytes, an independent source of news, tips, and opinions for the eBay community. For more information on marketing, product sourcing, and product reviews, see AuctionBytes.com.

Avoid drop-ship, wholesale scams

Drop-shipping is a popular topic of discussion among eBay sellers who are trying to expand their businesses. With drop-shipping, you offer to sell merchandise that someone else has on hand. When you get a sale, the other party “drop-ships” it for you.

On the Internet, you’ll probably discover many companies offering to drop-ship products to your eBay buyers. It sounds great because they promise you big profits, while they handle the shipping. But just remember the familiar saying, “If it sounds too good to be true…”

Think about it: If it was so easy to sell the merchandise from this drop-shipping company at huge profits, then the drop-shipping company would probably be busy selling it themselves, and they wouldn’t be inviting you to compete with them.

Many of the drop-shipping offers out there are simply scams. In other cases, the companies are legitimate, but it’s just impossible to earn money by working with them. When several eBay sellers are selling the same merchandise, price competition results in slim profits for everyone.

One way that sellers can drop-ship successfully is by working directly with a manufacturer or a master distributor. This ensures there is no middleman, and there will still be enough of a profit margin for you. But this isn’t easy. Many manufacturers and distributors don’t actively look for small businesses to sell their merchandise on the Web. Many companies simply don’t want their goods available on eBay or anywhere else online because it angers traditional retailers who don’t want the competition.

You’ll find directories of wholesalers, importers, and drop-shippers for sale on eBay, but these often contain outdated, inaccurate or useless information. Instead, consult a real directory such as American Wholesalers And Distributors Directory at your public library. You may also be able to find a directory of product manufacturers for your state, or an export-import trade business directory. Also, the reference librarian may be able to point you toward online directories that you’d have to pay a hefty subscription fee for if you were using your home computer.

If you contact a manufacturer, they’ll nearly always say they don’t deal directly with retailers. Use the opportunity to ask them for a recommendation for a wholesaler for their products.

And remember, legitimate wholesalers and manufacturers won’t deal with you unless you’re operating a legal business. We’ll discuss this in a subsequent section, but at a minimum, this means:

• You’ve filed a business name with your county or state government. Usually this is done by filing a fictitious name or DBA (doing business as) application with your county government, or by incorporating your business by filing paperwork with your state government.

• You have a Tax ID authorizing you to collect sales tax on sales made to customers within your state. In some cases this is called a “seller’s permit” or “use tax certificate.”

• A business bank account. You’ll need your business name paperwork to open a business (not personal) bank account.

Recognize crooks and middlemen

In the book What to Sell on eBay and Where to Get It, authors Chris Malta and Lisa Suttora explain that most of the advertisements you’ll come across for wholesalers and drop-shipping companies are actually middlemen or multilevel marketing schemes. Either one will produce headaches for your business. Here are the authors’ tips on recognizing the scammers:

Warning signs of bogus wholesalers:

• Does not include a full company name, address, and phone number that they answer.

• Makes claims about how much money you can make by doing business with them.

• The “wholesaler” is offering the same products you can find on other “wholesale” Web sites.

• The site attempts to sell other services or membership fees in addition to offering wholesale products.

• The wholesaler does not ask for your Sales Tax ID before accepting an order.

If you have any doubt about whether a wholesaler is legitimate, investigating is a straightforward matter:

• Search the Internet for the company’s name. If other online sellers have had problems with the company, you’ll find complaints quickly.

• Search for complaints about the company at the Better Business Bureau, www.BBB.org.

• Contact the Chamber of Commerce in the city where the company operates. Even if the company is not a chamber member, the group should have some information about them.

Know a fake from the real McCoy

By Ken Zajac

Increased interest and prices in many collectible categories have been a boon for eBay sellers. But along with the high prices comes a big downside: the emergence of authentic-looking fakes.

In the 1980s and 1990s Art Pottery hit a peak in sales and prices, with many pieces selling for far above reference book prices. This high market caused such an interest that another market developed—the production of fake pottery, and reproduction or repro pottery. There is a difference between the two.

The marketing of fakes and reproductions devalues the originals, causing an atmosphere of suspicion among collectors and investors. The best defense against this corruption in the marketplace is education.

Fakes are pieces that were made to deceive. Fakes have shapes and patterns that look similar to an original, or have characteristics of pieces an original manufacturer might have made, but didn’t.

Reproductions are pieces that usually have been made from the original molds, but they were made recently, and not by the companies that made the molds. This can happen when the molds have been sold after the original company closed, usually some decades later.

Fake pottery offered for sale is quite often made in China, but isn’t marked that way. The China fakers attempt to mark the original manufacturer’s name on the pieces. But a quick comparison between the China marks and the original marks reveals the difference. There isn’t the same attention to detail, and the color of the clay used to make the pieces sometimes shows through around the mark on the bottom.

New fakes are usually made with light or white-color clay. The bottom rim and, sometimes, the inside typically has no glaze, and appears clean. The craftsmanship on fakes is poor. They have vague patterns, rough features, bright glazing colors, and generally lack the hand-worked quality of originals.

Reproduction pottery is more difficult to assess. Original pottery companies usually kept their molds, even after they closed their businesses. The molds were sold, and the new owners of the molds started new production using the original molds. Another repro method is to make a new mold from an original piece. The big difference is that the clay used in repros is not the same as the original clays. Repros made from an original piece rather than an old mold will always be of slightly smaller size than the original piece. Also, the glazing is new. Sometimes the glaze will not entirely cover the piece, and you can see bright clay where the glazing missed. Sometimes the bottom rim will not be glazed, revealing that it’s a repro. And the bright glazing colors can give away the age, although old and original pieces in mint condition will look bright too.

The fakers have gotten good at their deceptions, they sometimes make the bottom rims with artificial wear and dirty-looking unglazed clay. Some have defects introduced deliberately, mimicking old damage. Many of the patents from the original companies have been granted to subsidiary companies that make fakes, which allows them to legally make and sell fakes.

When looking at online auctions for purchasing pottery, if you are not sure about the piece you want, try searching the Internet for the same manufacturer. Chances are you will find a number of Web sites that show photos of originals and fakes. Fakes are plentiful, and most reliable groups will show you what the differences are.

Some reliable sources of information are the American Art Pottery Association, Wisconsin Pottery Association, and the Glass & Pottery Seller’s Association, among others.

Zajac is an antiques dealer in Tacoma, Wash.

So far, we’ve seen how important it is to keep up with customer communications on a daily basis. That is the mental part of the selling process. Now we’ll examine the physical aspect of fulfilling orders.

Devising a routine way of storing, retrieving, and packing items for shipping can help you save a bit of time with each transaction, leading to a huge cumulative impact in time savings. And as we know, time is money.

Standardizing the way you handle customer orders will minimize mistakes and help you operate faster and more efficiently. Likewise, striving to obtain the best rates on postage and delivery confirmation has a huge cumulative effect on your profitability.

Ship efficiently

Determine which type of shipping materials you’ll need to ship all your merchandise, and be sure to keep adequate packing supplies on hand. The less time you spend each day scrounging around for the proper packing materials, the more time you’ll have for finding and listing new merchandise.

Three popular choices for packaging are cardboard boxes, corrugated boxes and bubble mailers. The type and value of the item being shipped can call for different materials. Padded or bubble envelopes may be fine for small, inexpensive items, but for more fragile and valuable items, use a box to protect from bending and crushing.

Local stores like Staples and Office Depot have decent prices on shipping supplies, but you can find a wider selection and save money by buying shipping supplies online in quantity through vendors like Associated Bag Co. and Uline. There are many perfectly fine sellers of packing materials right on eBay. If you can get a cost savings of 20 cents for each bubble mailer, for example, that adds up to a fair amount of money over the year, which you can add to your bottom line.

If you’ve reached the point where you’re shipping more than two packages a day, it’s time to consider using an online postage service. Monthly service fees are $15 or less, allowing you to avoid standing in line at the Post Office. Instead, you’ll be able to prepare your shipments at your PC and drop off crates of parcels at your Post Office’s rear dock. You also can submit a request for “Carrier Pickup,” and a Postal Service truck driver will pick up your packages at your house for no charge. For more information, see:

http://pages.ebay.com

/usps/shippingitems/carrierpickup.html

Thermal label printers. Another big time-saver is a thermal label printer, which quickly prints 4 x 6-inch address labels like the ones used on UPS packages. Instead of constantly having to feed sheets of labels into a laser printer, you can load a dedicated thermal printer with a roll of 300 labels and it’s always ready. Although these printers can cost more than $300 when brand new, used and reconditioned thermal printers are usually available on eBay for about $40.

Likewise, a postal scale with at least a 10-pound capacity can be a valuable time-saver. Don’t risk your shipments by using a bathroom scale to weigh your packages. You don’t want to apply too little or too much postage. Some of the newer electronic scales integrate with online postage services, saving you even more time because you don’t need to key in the package’s weight.

Choose a shipping company. An expanding lineup of companies competes for the business of the eBay seller:

• U.S. Postal Service. If you’re selling typical merchandise, the good old Post Office should be your first consideration. Although USPS takes a fair amount of criticism, its service is relatively reliable and economical. For items weighing less than a few pounds, USPS is usually the cheapest way to ship. The Postal Service also provides free shipping envelopes and boxes for users of its Priority Mail and Express Mail services. Special low rates for sellers of media such as books and videos make the Postal Service indispensable. Although USPS offers delivery confirmation with online tracking numbers, the system is not as reliable as those offered by competitors. For more information, see www.usps.gov.

• United Parcel Service. UPS is a good option for packages that are larger and heavier than the maximum accepted by the Postal Service. UPS accepts packages weighing up to 150 pounds, while the USPS maximum is 70 pounds. Nowadays many office supply stores such as Staples have UPS drop-off counters. For more information, see www.ups.com.

• Federal Express. FedEx made its name by offering overnight delivery for urgent packages. Since then the company has expanded into Ground Home Delivery service that is fairly economical and comparable to regular UPS service. For more information, see www.fedex.com.

Using eBay’s Calculated Shipping Costs. Shipping and handling fees are one of the leading causes of friction between buyers and sellers. Buyers are much more likely to bid and buy if they know they will pay reasonable shipping costs and if they know what the seller’s actual shipping costs are.

• Buyers are more forgiving about shipping costs when the fees are transparent. An easy way to show your buyer the actual costs is to use eBay’s “Calculated Shipping Costs” feature, which shows shipping and insurance rates from the Postal Service and UPS based on the item’s weight and the buyer’s ZIP Code. You can add a “handling” cost to cover your costs for packing materials. The total appears on your item page, and is automatically charged to buyers when they pay. You can initiate this feature through the Sell Your Item form. You can also offer “flat” shipping costs. In this case, you set one fee and describe what services you use, such as the Postal Service and UPS.

Printing shipping labels from eBay or PayPal. You can automatically print shipping labels from My eBay or PayPal. To use My eBay:

• Go to Items I’ve Sold and check the box next to each item you’re shipping.

• Click Print Shipping Labels.

• Log in at PayPal.

• Choose the desired shipping carrier and service.

• Enter package weight, verify the addresses, and click Print.

To print labels using PayPal:

• Visit your Account Overview page or Post-Sale Manager and click Ship for an item.

• Select a carrier and service.

• Enter package weight, verify addresses, and click Print.

Tracking packages from My eBay:

• Go to Items I’ve sold and click View Shipment Status for an item.

• Click the link under Shipping Status.

Communicate when you ship

• Send a shipment confirmation. Send your buyers a message confirming the shipment, including a tracking number if you have one. A short message confirming that the item is on the way reassures the customer and prevents unnecessary and time-consuming inquiries days later. One easy way to do this is by replying to payment e-mails from PayPal. Your reply automatically goes to the buyer’s PayPal-registered e-mail address.

• Enclose your contact information. A packing slip with the order number and your e-mail address will be useful in case you made a mistake filling the order or the customer receives something unexpected. Third-party software tools can automate this procedure, eliminating the need for cutting and pasting. For more information, see appendix 3.

• Solicit feedback after delivery. Encourage customers to give you a feedback rating, explaining that it will help you show other potential buyers that you’re a trustworthy and reliable seller. Solicit feedback on the packing slip, not in your shipment confirmation e-mail. An early prompting in the shipping confirmation will make some customers impatient, and they might submit a negative rating before their package is due to arrive. The customer is in a better frame of mind after he receives the merchandise.

Pare shipping costs to the bone

By David Steiner, AuctionBytes.com

U.S. Postal Service Priority Mail is a popular shipping method for eBay sellers because of the 2-3 day shipping time, competitive rates and most importantly, free shipping boxes. You can even have the Postal Service deliver the boxes free by ordering online:

http://ebaysupplies.usps.com/

These packages handle most small items, but sometimes it’s like trying to squeeze an elephant into a phone booth. With a little ingenuity, there are ways to combine Priority Mail Boxes to cover a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Here are a few suggestions and examples:

• The Empire State Building

Great for long items that don’t have much girth. Take a few #4 Priority Mail boxes and slide them together. Tape around the girth of the box and up the sides. This will give you a package that can accommodate an item the shape of a baseball bat, golf club or any long, slender item. Make sure you pad around the item with Styrofoam peanuts so that the item is immobilized in the center. Be aware that items packed like this may be charged a balloon rate by the USPS. That is an extra charge applied when the combined length and girth of a package falls between 84″ and 108″ and the weight is less than 15 lbs.

• The Sears Tower

Same construction as the Empire State Building, but created with #7 Priority boxes. This allows for shipping items that happen to be taller than a single #7 Priority box. Again, slide the boxes together and tape all seams so that the boxes are firmly bound together.

• The Bonneville Salt Flats

Great for shipping wide and long items that are flat, like a tennis racket. Take two 0-1097 boxes (11-1/4″ x 14″ x 2-1/4″) and slide them together like the two previous examples. Tape them together securely to maintain the package’s structural integrity.

There are limitations on what you can do with Priority Mail boxes. You can’t turn the boxes inside out and use them for other methods of shipping. Priority Mail boxes are stamped with special codes on the interior cardboard. If, for example, you try to mail book-rate package using a Priority package, you will be charged the Priority rate or be asked to repackage your items. You shouldn’t cut up Priority Mail Boxes and use them as padding or to make compartments inside your package.

Now for the packing itself: Use Styrofoam peanuts, not newspaper. Styrofoam peanuts may be more expensive, but they immobilize an item much better than paper and they don’t leave newsprint marks. Here’s my usual technique:

• Wrap the item in bubble wrap. If the item is silver or some material that might have a reaction to the bubble wrap, I wrap it in paper first, then put the bubble wrap over the paper.

• Add a healthy layer of Styrofoam peanuts to the bottom of the box.

• Place the item in the box on top of the peanuts, making sure there is plenty of empty space on all sides of the item.

• Pour on the peanuts. Don’t skimp on this step. Make sure there is plenty of padding around the entire item and pack the peanuts in firmly. The goal is to keep the item immobilized in the center of the box and as far away from the cardboard as possible.

• Add more peanuts to the top of the item. No part of the item should be touching the inside of the box!

The peanuts will give the box more interior strength to help it stand up to other mail being stacked on top of it. If you don’t put enough padding in the package, your item will settle or shift, and it will find its way to the bottom of the box, where it is more likely to be damaged.

Steiner is president of Steiner Associates LLC, publisher of AuctionBytes, an independent source of news, tips, and opinions for the eBay community. For more information on marketing, product sourcing, and product reviews, see AuctionBytes.com.

Sell Get It Fast Items

eBay’s Get It Fast program promises buyers that a purchased item will arrive promptly. The program reassures buyers who are looking for holiday and gift items, so participating can increase your sales during those periods.

To participate, select the Get it Fast check box in the Sell Your Item form’s shipping section when you list items. In doing so, you commit to the following:

• Shipping within one business day of receiving cleared payment. On the Sell Your Item form, select 1 business day from the menu for “Domestic handling time.”

• Offering a domestic overnight shipping service such as FedEx, UPS Next Day Air or Postal Service Express Mail.

Remember that you’re committing to a one-day response time, even if your customer doesn’t upgrade to overnight delivery.

Handle delivery snafus

Sometimes a Postal Service carrier scans a package “delivered” but fails to actually deliver it to the buyer’s address. This can prompt a variety of reactions from your buyer. Here is a suggested script for your response:

Dear [Customer],

I’m sorry you haven’t yet received your item. The tracking result means that the Postal Service carrier who walks your route scanned the package and indicated he/she left it at your address. I can think of a few possible explanations why you haven’t received it:

— The carrier left it at the wrong address and that person kept the package.

— The package was stolen after delivery.

— The carrier actually left the package on hold for you at the local post office but pressed the wrong button on his/her scanner and neglected to leave you a note indicating the package is at the post office.

Is it possible for you to ask the carrier about this? That is the quickest way to resolve this. If the package can’t be found, please let me know and I’ll assist you in obtaining a refund.

Best Regards,

Your Seller

• Your return policy. Decide on a return policy that you’ll be able to explain consistently. You also need to comply with the federal mail order and telephone merchandise rule, also known as the “30-day rule” because it requires sellers to ship within the promised time frame or within a maximum of 30 days. In cases where the advertised product can’t be delivered, the law requires sellers to notify the customer and offer the option of a full refund within seven days.

Many successful sellers have a more liberal return policy, and a good rule of thumb is to treat customers the way you expect to be treated. When a customer wants to return an item for a reason you don’t consider 100 percent legitimate, give the customer the benefit of the doubt. Your time is much better spent finding and listing new items than in trying to learn if a problem buyer is unethical or just stupid.

Print online postage

For sellers shipping more than a few packages a week, an online postage service can save tremendous amounts of time. Instead of waiting in line at the Post Office, then waiting for the clerk to apply postage to all your packages, you print the postage yourself in a fraction of the time.

Using online postage enhances your record keeping by automatically building a file of all your mailings right on your computer. Records on each parcel shipped can be retrieved instantly—no rummaging through paper receipts. You also can purchase insurance online instead of waiting in line at the Post Office.

Some online postage plans allow you to print “stealth” postage, which hides the value of the postage. Instead, the label merely indicates the package weight and “U.S. Postage and Fees Paid.” Since customers don’t know the amount spent for postage, they are less likely to become irritated if the shipping and handling fee they paid is higher than the actual postage cost.

The online postage choices include:

• eBay/PayPal. PayPal and eBay users can print address labels that include postage for buyers using PayPal. No Postal Service account registration or software installation is needed. Stealth postage and insurance are available, as are pre-populated address fields.

Fees. There is no monthly fee, but a processing fee of 20 cents is charged for each Media Mail, First Class, or Parcel Post label printed. There’s no fee for Priority Mail or Express Mail labels.

• Endicia.com. Endicia enables users to print U.S. postage on an envelope, label, or piece of paper from your laser printer or a dedicated thermal label printer. Endicia is easy for beginners to use but also has advanced capabilities for high-speed batch printing when needed.

Customer addresses can be imported from a database or copied from the clipboard. Users get free delivery confirmation on Priority Mail parcels. For Media Mail parcels, users get a discounted “electronic rate” for delivery confirmation compared with the “retail” fee when you pay at the Post Office.

Endicia also enables users to purchase insurance from U-Pic Insurance Services, which offers more competitive rates than the Postal Service.

Fees. Users pay $9.95 monthly or $99.95 annually for the basic plan, and $15.95 monthly or $174.95 annually for premium service. A 30-day free trial is available. The premium service includes more automation capabilities and the ability to print “stealth” postage.

• Stamps.com. Stamps.com’s online postage service is similar to Endicia’s but does not have the same range of features and support. Users can print stealth postage.

Fees. Users pay $15.99 monthly.

• Shipstream Manager, www.pitneyworks.com/shipstream. Shipstream is offered by Pitney Bowes, which used to be a popular source from which to rent postage meters. The recently introduced Shipstream is its first Internet postage product that has the range of features required for businesses shipping parcels.

Fees. Users pay $18.99 monthly.

• Click-N-Ship, www.usps.com/shipping/label.htm. The U.S. Postal Service enables online users to print shipping labels at this site. Registration is required for postage and batch label orders. At this time, postage may be printed only for Express Mail and Priority Mail labels.

• USPS Shipping Assistant. This free PC-based software distributed by the U.S. Postal Service creates shipping labels with delivery confirmation, signature confirmation, or Express Mail service. Users can receive discounted rates for Delivery Confirmation and Signature confirmation, and can calculate rates and send customers e-mail notification that the package is on the way, including the delivery confirmation number. Users must pay for postage separately. See www.usps.com/shippingassistant.

Other resources. The Postal Service, UPS, and other carriers maintain several online resources that can help assess shipping options.

Domestic Rate Calculators.

USPS: http://www.usps.com/tools/calculatepostage

UPS: www.ups.com/using/services/rave/rate.html

International Rate Calculators.

International shippers may wish to consult these resources:

USPS: http://ircalc.usps.gov/

UPS: www.ups.com/using/services/rave/rate.html

DHL: www.dhl-usa.com/shipping/

FedEx: www.fedex.com/us/international

Organize your inventory

New sellers typically organize their merchandise by category or alphabetically. This works fine if your inventory consists of less than a few dozen items. But when your inventory becomes several hundred items or more, these offhand organizational techniques become impractical.

Let’s see how a simple SKU (stock keeping unit) system can simplify your daily chores. With an SKU system, we’ll identify each item with a unique number, which we’ll affix to the item with a sticker.

Let’s suppose your items are stored on two shelves. We’ll call them Shelf A and Shelf B. The SKUs for items on Shelf A are A1, A2, A3, and so on. SKUs for items on the other shelf are B1, B2, B3, and so on.

Now, when you make a sale, instead of picking through the alphabet or rummaging through your shelves to find the right thing, you’ll easily find the correct item by looking for its SKU sticker.

How much time can an SKU system save? A lot, depending on how large your inventory is. Let’s assume that using SKUs saves you 45 seconds each time you pull an item off the shelf for an order. As your business grows, those 45 seconds add up. Suppose your business expands to the point where you’re shipping 80 orders a day. Multiply the 45 seconds 80 times daily, and you’re saving one hour per day. Multiply that hour five days per week, 52 weeks a year, and you’ve saved 32 eight-hour days, just by using a simple SKU system.

And the SKU system saves time not only when you pull items off the shelf but also when you put new inventory on the shelf. Instead of hunting down the right spot in the alphabet and reshuffling all your inventory, you’ll put the new items in the first available spot, giving them the appropriate SKU for its position on the shelf.

In case you’re not sold on SKUs yet, here’s another benefit: After your inventory is more than a few hundred items, you’re likely to accumulate multiple copies of some items. For example, let’s say you have five Willie Mays baseball cards. Each card is unique by year of issue, photo, and condition. You don’t want to accidentally send your run-of-the-mill card to the customer who ordered your top-notch card. If the cards have different SKUs, you won’t make that mistake.

Design your SKU system. Now that we have a concept for an SKU system, how do we actually put it into practice? How does the SKU get into your listings and onto the label?

You can insert the SKU characters into your item’s description. If you’re using third-party software, this process can be automated.

A simple way to affix the SKU stickers to the items is to print the numbers on a sheet of removable Avery 5160 Labels. These small rectangular labels can be placed on the item so that the SKU is visible when you’re facing the shelf. When you pick and pack the item for shipment, you can easily peel off the label, leaving no residue. (Be sure to use “removable” labels.)

You can write the SKUs on the labels by hand, or you can laser-print the whole sheet of 30 at once. If you know how to use Microsoft Word form letters, you can mail-merge your list of SKUs right onto the label sheet. You can download a free template to do this at www.avery.com.