eBay article update

MSE_Martin

Dear eBay MoneySavers. I am planning an update of my article

The Six Golden Rules of Using eBay

I thought I would ask for your feedback and thoughts on it.

Part of the plan is to extend the article to look at

1. eBay Spelling error sites (as discussed elsewhere)
2. Freecycle type sites
3. Gumtree type free classifieds
4. Amazon book selling

I'd love to know what else you feel should go in the article. Any other sites you think should be looked at. PS feel free to repeat points made elsewhere in the forum if you feel they're relevant to the article.

Kind regards

apprentice_tycoon

regarding Amazon - there really aren't any pitfalls to avoid when buying except the obvious tip of checking if the book (or CD, DVD etc) can be bought cheaper from ebay.

The big pitfall to avoid when selling on Amazon is pricing your goods too cheaply. There is a fixed amount that Amazon give you to post the goods so the seller of a thin paperback book will be given the same postage allowance as the seller of a heavy text book, the heavy book will cost up to 4 times as much to post.
An inexperienced seller might be tempted to undercut the other sellers of the same book, this is a very shaky tactic because this will trigger an undercutting spiral with the book eventually costing more to post than the total amount that the book has realised = a loss on the transaction.

The advice we give on the Amazon thread is to match the price of the lowest priced book (assuming that this lowest price is a fair price for the book) and then make your book a better prospect than the others by giving a good, clear description and offer a fast service.

soolin

I like the analogy of using ebay with the same care as you would use if buying off a man in a pub, it is one I often use myself to illustrate that buyers mustn't be sucked into the 'it's ebay so it must be ok' scenario.

I am often extremely surprised how little care people take when using ebay, so I like the fact that Martin's tops do advocate a 'look after yourself' attitude. If all buyers took care to exercise caution then the scammers would have to give up as they would have no one left to sell to.

The only thing I would question, but it is probably to in depth for the casual user, is the feedback issue. It is possible to easily see through false feedback, but I admit that it is probably not so easy if you are new to ebay, so the warning is probably fair.

Nicely done Martin, I think people trust you more than they trust run of the mill articles in the newspaper, so hopefully your sensible suggestions will reach a lot of new users and stop them losing out.

Soo

apprentice_tycoon

bump in case no-one saw the thread

bs7

with regards to ebay feedback - how about adding a quick mention of tools such as http://www.goofbay.co.uk/ebay_tools and http://www.toolhaus.org/cgi-bin/negs that allow you to check the negative feedback (received and left).

bleugh

can I add something along the lines of soo's suggestion

sellers, you're ONLY 'protected' with paypal if you do the following

Post by a trackable method
post to a confirmed / verified buyer


buyers, if something is too good to be true, it probably is, if something doesn't 'feel' right, it may not be,

research sellers of high value items, check what they've sold in the past, and how long they've been with paypal / ebay