It’s interesting to note that there aren’t that many scammers on eBay, however, they’re the ones who tend to be greedy. This means that they will always try to pull their scams on high-value items like cars and computers, so that they can make a lot of money quickly.. Since buyers generally buy these items very rarely, they may not know about the various scams out there..

Automobile Scams.

With cars, you will find that scammers will try to get you to send them money in advance for any reason. For some reason, some people aren’t all that reluctant to pay 50% or 25% of the money before delivery using a relatively insecure payment method, especially on a car.. They reason that the seller will obviously deliver it, as they’ll want the other half of the money.

But there never was a car! Believe when I say that pictures of cars aren’t hard to find and the veteran scammer may have a library of photos of different cars. The seller just got your $5,000 for nothing, and you can leave them all the negative feedback you like. They’ll just go and open another eBay account and find their next sucker..

While it’s not an outright scam, what you might find is that the car does turn up, but simply doesn’t live up to the description – it has been oversold, in the tradition of used car dealers through the ages. If this ever happens to you, then you can open an eBay dispute and say your item was not as described, then you might get a partial refund.

It’s just like any web owner who got a seo service which do not know a thing about professional website design or web traffic; you end up losing money.

Computer Scams.

If you bid in a computer auction but don’t win, the seller might email you to ask whether you would like to buy a computer the same as the one they just sold through their own website..

This is a bad idea! You do not have any guarantee that the item will ever arrive, and you haven’t just given them your money – you’ve given them your credit card details too.

There are sellers with nothing but positive feedback who use this scam often – and since you won’t be able to leave them any feedback on the transaction, their reputation will stay that way.. If you complain to eBay that you bought an item outside the site and got scammed, they will tell you to get lost and not do it again.

How to Beat the Scams.

There are lots of ways to beat the scams.. First, whenever you buy anything expensive, make sure to read and check your seller’s reputation thoroughly. Always check if they have sold items of a similar high value before and haven’t just sold a string of $10 items to get their feedback rating high. If you want to be very sure, insist that the money is placed in an escrow service (eBay recommend escrow.com – don’t use any other service unless you’re sure of it).

To be honest, it’s generally quite a bad idea to use eBay to buy things like cars and computers to begin with – you can get them anywhere, and the discounts aren’t that big any more. It ‘s much better to use eBay for those special things. The next email will give you some tips for buying collectibles.

Technorati Tags: eBay, scams

eBay has quite a long and complicated resolutions when it comes to disputes. It’s just like SEO, any top services has complicated methods in website design and getting web traffic. In this email, I will explain each step for you so you can see what’s involved and how long it takes.

As an example, let’s go through what you would do if you paid for an item but didn’t receive it from the seller.

Before you open a dispute: Give the seller a chance to send the item before you get ahead of yourself and open a dispute. If you’re concerned about how long the item is taking to arrive, the first thing you should do is send a polite email to the seller saying that you haven’t received it and asking whether they have posted it.. Also make sure to check your own email address in eBay’s options to check that the seller can reply to you. As a last resort before opening a dispute, you should try to call the seller on the number eBay has for them.. You might have to pay long-distance charges for the call, but that’s better than dragging the auction through mediation for months.

Step 1 – You need to open an Item Not Recieved Dispute: You can do this here: http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?InrCreateDispute.

What you need to do is enter the item number and say that you did not receive the item.

Step 2 – eBay will then try to contact the seller. eBay sends the seller an email that tells them that you’ve said you didn’t receive the item. Then the seller can choose from the following three options: that your payment hasn’t cleared yet, that the item is in the post, or that they’ll give you a full refund. The seller can also tell eBay that they would like to send you a message.

Step 3 – You talk to the seller: You try to work out what’s happened directly with the seller, sending messages back and forward.. Hopefully they’ll agree to give you a refund for the sake of their feedback, or your item will turn up in the post during this time..

Step 4 – Closing the dispute: After 30 days (or 10 days if the seller didn’t respond), you have two options to close the dispute: either you were satisfied or you weren’t.. If you weren’t satisfied, then you can claim under eBay’s purchase protection program for up to $200.

Independent Dispute Mediation.

If you don’t want to go through eBay’s own process, and especially if the auction was for a high-value item, then you can use a third-party mediator.. eBay recommend SquareTrade, at www.squaretrade.com, who provide mediation to many websites where there are buyers and sellers. They will contact the seller on your behalf and then mediate as you try negotiating what to do from there.

Sellers who are committed to going through SquareTrade’s mediation for any disputes can sign up to display the ‘SquareTrade seal’ on their auctions.. This gives their buyers $250 fraud protection, and shows that their identity has been independently verified so they are who they say they are.

When you are in doubt with your sellers reputation, you need to be careful in order to avoid being a victim of fraud. There are a few scams that you especially need to look out for – we’ll cover them in the next email.

Technorati Tags: eBay

Over the years, eBay has introduced different auction types in an effort to give people more options when they buy and sell their things on eBay. There are lots of people who do not like the idea that their item might sell for a lower price than they intended. It is exactly like SEO; top seo services aim to get the best website design and have a good amount of web traffic for their sites. Equally, there are people who have hundreds of the same item and don’t want to sell them individually.. This email gives you an overview of the different kinds of auctions and how to spot them.

Normal Auctions.

These are the bread-and-butter of eBay, the auctions everyone knows: you bid, others outbid you, you outbid them, and the winner gets the item. Simple.

Reserve Auctions.

This type of auction are for sellers who don’t want their items to sell for less than a certain price – a concept you’ll know about if you’re familiar with real auctions. They work just like normal auctions on eBay, except that you will be told if your bid has not met the reserve price set by the seller.. If no-one is willing to meet this price, then the auction is cancelled, and the seller keeps the item.

You can spot these auctions by looking out for ‘Reserve not met’ or ‘Reserve met’ written next to the current bid on an item’s description page..

Fixed Price (‘Buy it Now’) Auctions.

This type of auction can work in one of two ways. A seller might add a Buy it Now button to a normal auction, meaning that you can choose either to bid normally or to simply pay the asking price and avoid the whole bidding process.. Some sellers, though, now cut out the auction process altogether and simply list all their items at fixed price. Recently, eBay added a twist to fixed price auctions: the ‘best offer’. This means that you can negotiate a price to someone who offers their items using Buy it Now, which could be a great way to get a bargain on things that don’t seem to be selling..

These fixed price auctions are easy to spot as they have a little ‘Buy it Now’ logo either next to or instead of the current number of bids on the search listings page.

Multiple Item (‘Dutch’) Auctions.

These auctions are where a seller is selling two or more than one of a certain item. Dutch actions are usually done by bidding. Most buyers bid a price and then say how many items they want and then everyone pays the lowest price and say how many items they want. If you have trouble getting your head around that, then don’t worry – everyone else does too! These auctions are very rare.

What is more common is when a seller has a lot of one item, and lists it using a combination of two auction types: a multiple-item fixed price auction. This just means that they say how many they have, and offer them at a fixed price.. You can enter how many you want and then just click Buy it Now to get them.

Now, after all the explanation, I believe you are now facing a dilemna: when you have the option, should you bid, or should you just use Buy it Now and save yourself the hassle? That’s what the next email will be about.

Technorati Tags: eBay

Yes, you read that correctly: ten years. eBay was created in September 1995, by a man called Pierre Omidyar, who was living in San Jose. He wanted his site – before it was called ‘AuctionWeb’ – to be an online marketplace, and wrote the first code and made its website design for it in one weekend. It was one of the first few websites of its kind in the entire world. The name ‘eBay’ comes from the domain Omidyar used for his site.The name of his company was Echo Bay and the ‘eBay AuctionWeb’ was originally just one part of Echo Bay’s webpage at ebay.com. The first thing ever sold on the site was Omidyar’s broken laser pointer, which he got $14 for.

The site quickly became massively popular as sellers came to list all sorts of odd things and buyers actually bought them. Relying on trust seemed to work remarkably well and meant that the site could almost be left alone to run itself. The site had been designed from the start to collect a small fee on each sale, and it was this money that Omidyar used to pay for AuctionWeb’s expansion.. The fees quickly added up to more than his current salary, and so he decided to quit his job and work on the site full-time. It was at this point, in 1996, that he added the feedback facilities, to let buyers and sellers rate each other and make buying and selling safer..

In 1997, Omidyar changed AuctionWeb’s – and his company’s – name to ‘eBay’, which, curiously,is what people had been calling the site for a long time. He began to spend a lot of money on advertising, and had the eBay logo designed. In that same year marked the one millionth item that was sold (it was a toy version of Big Bird from Sesame Street).

In the year 1998 – the peak of the dotcom boom – eBay became a business giant, and the investment in Internet businesses at the time allowed it to bring in senior managers and business strategists, who took in public on the stock market. People were encouraged to sell more than collectibles, and quickly became a massive site where you could sell anything, large or small. Unlike other sites, though, eBay survived the end of the boom, and is still going strong today.

By 1999, eBay went worldwide, launching sites in the UK, Australia and Germany. Also, eBay bought half.com, an Amazon-like retailer and in the year 2000, they introduced Buy it Now and bought Paypal, an online payment service.

Pierre Omidyar has now earned an estimated $3 billion from eBay, and still serves as Chairman of the Board. Oddly enough, he keeps a personal weblog at http://pierre.typepad.com. Every day, all over the world, there are millions of items bought and sold on eBay. For every $100 spent online worldwide, it is estimated that $14 is spent on eBay – that’s a lot of laser pointers.

Now that you know the history of eBay, perhaps you’d like to know how it could work for you? Our next email will give you an idea of the possibilities.

Technorati Tags: ebay history, internet marketing

Using a dropshipping wholesaler is an excellent replacement to keeping products on hand yourself and greatly simplifies the task of starting to sell via the Internet. You really should think about using a free dropshipper supplier which lets you stay away from paying dropshipping fees that potentially cuts into your profits. You really need to thoroughly investigate any dropshipper before deciding to use them.

Following are 5 considerations to ponder before you decide on a free drop shipping company:

1. No fees, for real – When a supplier claims to offer free dropship service, make sure they really do. Find out if they charge you a monthly fee you have to pay, or some other charge that can hurt your profit margin.

2. Integrity – The dropshippers for eBay company should be reliable and do what they claim they are going to do. They should be in possession of the ability to make good on what they promise or your business will suffer.

3. Slow fulfillment – The turnaround time for orders has to be low so that your customers get their orders when they expect them. Your online retail business is the one that will gain a poor reputation if it takes forever to deliver orders to customers.

4. Returns – How are customer returns handled? Are they handled by your dropshipper, or do they expect you to handle the returns and worry about getting them back to your supplier?

5. Shipping paperwork – A customer order should come with a blank packing slip, or one that is customized with your business information. Your customer never should know that you did not personally ship the order to them.

Choosing the right dropshipping wholesalers supplier is a very important component to the success of your selling online. Not having to pay to use drop shipping is important as it has a direct impact on your profitability. Locate a supplier that is very trustworthy, who doesn’t make you pay to make use of their drop shipping, and you have a more likely probability at being an online selling success.

Technorati Tags: drop shipping, find a free dropshipper

Have you considered starting an Ebay Business?  Having more than 430,000 people in the United States alone are working full or part time on Ebay.  It may be easier to start an Ebay business than you think.

The setting up of your “About Me” page is one thing to remember,not only because it is free it is also an eBay feature that allows you to promote your business and yourself.

If your Ebay business makes it convenient to buy you have much better chance of success.  This means your Ebay business should sell similar products.  If you sell CD’s then having CD racks or players would be a good combination.  The more compatible items you have on sale the better your chances of success.  People would much rather purchase what they want at one store.
After you have gotten comfortable with auction formats, and other aspects of your Ebay business remember not to get complacent.  You will want to read about any new features, keep in touch with your customers, and also be aware of what your competitors are doing.  If you are not growing and adapting your not taking your Ebay business to its full potentialand attaining you’re earning potential.  You will not only be more successful with your Ebay business but you will have a great time doing it. Now get to it.

Want to learn how to become an Ebay Power Seller?This is a wonderful resource. Go to this website now at: 90daypowerseller.com

Technorati Tags: about me, auction, business, credit card, e-commerce, eBay, ebay business, ebay sales, money, online auction, online marketing, online sales, paypal, powerseller, sales, success

Some auctions get hundreds of bids but some go much more slowly, getting only a small fraction of bids, worse, none at all for days. Auctions are generally much slower during the summer months than they are in the winter – and sales on eBay are slowing each year, as more sellers sign up than compared to buyers, with the hopes of gettin rich as quick as possible. It is actually the same with new SEO services hoping to get more customers by emphasizing more on webpage website design rather than thinking of ways to get more web traffic. A bit foolish, if you ask me.

Here are a number of ways that you can take advantage of slower auctions to get a good price.

Wait to Bid.

Because if you bid on an item, then everyone will think that you’re interested – and that might make them interested too. If you leave the item alone for quite some time will make then item less popular, thus keeping the price down so you can come at the last minute and get a great bargain.

Make an Offer.

If the seller is selling an item using ‘Buy it Now’ and it still hasn’t sold when the auction is about to end, use eBay’s ‘Best Offer’ service to make them an offer on it.. The chances are they’ve listed the item two or three times before, and they’ll be so annoyed at the prospect of re-listing it yet again that they’ll accept your offer just to get rid of the thing..

Conspire with Other Buyers.

You might not have thought of this, but if there are two auctions for the same item and only you and one other buyer are bidding, why not get together and work out a ‘you take this one and I’ll take that one’ deal? This stops you from raising the price on both auctions just to get one each. If you make a few friends, you can even work together on auctions long-term, taking it in turns to bid..

Be Snobbish.

Send the seller an email asking questions about the product and making it clear that you are a very discerning buyer and will only accept things of the highest quality. This will make them feel better about selling you their item for less.

Don’t Feel Guilty.

There are so many sellers on eBay now, to the point that you can easily find other items at lower prices. Long-term, this will probably force those sellers out of business, but that’s the way a market works – it’s supply and demand.

Buy in Bulk.

Sellers will have the same stock in a long time when auctions are low. If you offer to take ten things off their hands all at once then you can almost name your price – the chances are that they’ll fall over themselves to give you a good deal. If you come back again and buy another ten items then they’ll love you even more..

The longer you spend on eBay, the more experienced you’ll become – and the bigger the chances are that you’ll come across an auction for a very old item, and quite unexpected. Watch out for the next email. you’ll hear all about the strangest eBay items ever sold.

Technorati Tags: eBay