Feast Your Eyes on Good Feedback

You know how they say you are what you eat? At eBay, you are only as good as your feedback says you are. If you're selling, here's how to get a good reputation:

• Establish contact with the buyer (pronto!) after the auction ends.
• After you've received payment, send out the item quickly.
• Make sure that your item is exactly the way you described it.
• Package the item well and ship it with care.
• React quickly and appropriately to problems -- for example, the item's lost or damaged in the mail or the buyer is slow in paying.

If you're buying, try these good-rep tips:

• Send your payment fast.
• Keep in touch via e-mail with the seller.
• Work with the seller to resolve any problems in a courteous manner.

If you're selling, here's what to do to tarnish your name big time:

• Tell a major fib in the item description.
• Take the money but "forget" to ship the item.
• Package the item poorly so that it ends up smashed, squashed, or vaporized during shipping.

If you're buying, here's how to make your status a serious mess:

• Bid on an item, win the auction, and never respond to the seller.
• Send a personal check that bounces and never make good on the payment.
• Ask the seller for a refund because you just don't like the item.

Dressing Up Your Auction Image with Templates

To give your auctions a consistent look and feel, you create a template (or pattern) that each auction follows. Just like a stencil that you'd use to paint a repeated pattern, an auction template makes it easy to create many similar-looking auctions.

When deciding whether to create your own template or find a prebuilt one, consider how much control you want to have over the design. If you're comfortable using a template that other sellers are using and can live with designs that don't allow much customization, then a prebuilt template may be for you. However, if you want to create a truly unique design and don't want to have any limitations placed on your creativity, it's time to dig into HTML and create your own!

A quick search on Google for eBay auction templates yields over 100,000 results! Within the first few pages of the results, you'll find numerous sites that offer hundreds of custom templates. Although some sites offer free templates, most require you to sign up for their services. They typically charge a monthly fee in return for access to their template libraries and other services.

What, No Sale? Timing Your Relist Wisely

Boo! Your Dansk China Maribo dinner plate didn't sell. Don't take it personally. It doesn't mean that your merchandise is trash. It's just that this particular week no one was looking for Maribo plates (go figure).

Often, when relisting, you need to make adjustments. For instance, there's always a chance that you're off base on your title. Or perhaps the keywords in your title aren't drawing people to your listing. To help you figure out whether it's you or just the market, try running a search for other, similar items — is anyone buying? If there's just no bidding activity (perhaps you're selling bikinis in January?), then perhaps that item needs to be retired from eBay for a while.

Consider some other variables. Perhaps your starting price is too high? Are other items selling on the site with a lower starting price? If you can comfortably lower your price, do so. If not, wait until other sellers run out of the item. Then put yours up for auction — you may just get more bidding action if you are one of the few (versus one of the many) sellers offering the same item

Placing Photos Inline with Your Text

Buyers love seeing pictures of the products in your auctions. That's why eBay lets you add a free picture to every auction you post. Of course, eBay also offers you the option of adding a few more pictures to the auction (for a minimal fee, of course), but unfortunately every photo you include gets shoved into the same section at the very bottom of the auction — and that's not the best place for photos to go.

You can overcome that positioning problem and add any number of photos to your auctions at the same time by creating your own photo storage area and then including image tags () in your auction text. Although this adds an extra step to your posting process (namely, copying the photos to your online storage area), that minimal amount of work provides you with tons of flexibility, plus the ability to make a really awesome-looking auction.

First things first — you need an online home for your photos. Luckily, any Web hosting service covers this task perfectly. Even the storage space built into every AOL account (check out key word My FTP Space) works great! If you already have a Web site, just use a bit of space on that server. And if you always wanted to start a Web site, this makes a great excuse to start now.

Web hosts come in all shapes, sizes, and price ranges, so shop around. You can find basic hosting for as little as $2.95 per month, although reliable hosting usually starts in the $4.95 to $7.95 per month range. Many books and online articles tell you how to pick a hosting service, so dive into Google (or pick up a resource at your favorite bookstore) and see what you can find.

After you arrange for your Web space, find out how the host recommends transferring files from your computer to your online space. Some host companies offer a nifty Web-based tool for this, although a good FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program like Direct FTP from CoffeeCup Software usually works faster, easier, and better. Check with your Web hosting company for its recommendations.

Even though you can add pictures until your auction looks like a photo mosaic, don't get carried away. Every image you add increases the loading time for your auction, so keep the number low. Most auctions benefit from using two to three images instead of just one, but only the priciest auctions — stuff like cars, houses, priceless Ming vases, and such — require more than three pictures. If you want to use a gallery image for the auction, you still need to put one photo into the standard eBay image area.

Improve Auction Photos with Cloud Dome

Ambient light, light that occurs naturally, is the best light for photographing many types of items that you want to auction on eBay (especially shiny items). Problems start when you use flash or flood lighting alone (without a Cloud Dome) for pictures of metallic objects, Common lighting problems that affect the quality of your photographs include shiny spots from reflections (off walls and ceilings), washed out areas from the glare of the lights and loss of proper color.

Enter the Cloud Dome to offer your at-home photos the ability to take advantage of natural, ambient light. The Cloud Dome looks like a giant bowl that you place upside-down over the object you want to photograph. This bowl evenly diffuses ambient room light over the surface area of the object. This way, you can produce quality digital images in average room lighting.

Keeping Track of ebay Sales

Savvy eBay sellers have different methods of handling inventory. They use everything from spiral-bound notebooks to sophisticated software programs. Although computerized inventory tracking can simplify this task, starting with a plain ol' handwritten ledger is fine, too.

Many sellers tape sheets of paper to their boxes to identify them by number, and use that as a reference to a simple Excel spreadsheet for selling purposes. Excel spreadsheets are perfect for keeping track of your auctions as well, but if you're using a management service or software, you don't need both for physical inventory. After you're running a full-time business, however, you have to keep Uncle Sam happy with a dollars and cents accounting of your inventory, so keep your inventory records in a standardized program such as QuickBooks.

Organizing Your ebay Auction Presentation

Selling products through an online auction works like selling things face to face in real life. As the seller, you need to connect with the customer, entice and interest the person in your product, provide information, answer questions, overcome objections, and close the sale -- or, in this case, get the bid.

A well-organized auction starts with the basics: complete, descriptive auction text and plenty of pictures that flatteringly (and fully) show off your product. Atop that foundation, add headings for each major section of your auction text -- namely the description, payment, and shipping information blocks. A consistent design builds your eBay brand in the eyes of your customers, which enhances your professional stature among the buyers and browsers and encourages new (as well as repeat) sales at the same time

Deciding How Many Days to Run Your ebay Auction

Here's a little subject with lots of big opinions -- especially since eBay's introduction of the one-day auction. Consider this array of auction-length options.

• One-day auction. Although a buy-it-now feature on any auction can bring great results, that only works if the item is hot! hot! hot! If people are bidding the item up -- and they really gotta have it -- you may do best by starting the bidding really low and listing it with a one-day format.
• When you list in a one-day format, your listing goes right to the top of the list. Most people view their searches by auctions ending first. With a one-day format, you can pretty much choose the time of day your item will be at the top.
• Three-day auction. A three-day is good, for all the same reasons that a one-day is good -- only it's better for the faint of heart because it gives your item more time to sell.
• Another good use of a three-day auction is when you already have a seven-day auction up on the site, and the bidding is going crazy. You've reached your sales goal by the middle of a seven-day cycle. Once it's in the last couple of days of the listing, throw up a second one on a three-day.
• Seven-day auction. The gold standard for eBay auctions, seven full days of fun, excitement, and (hopefully) bidding. Seven days gives your item plenty of time to be seen on the site and attract bidders.
• Ten-day auction. Say you've got multiples of an item that you stock in your eBay store and want the longest amount of exposure on the auction site. You can put one up for a ten-day auction to draw attention to your items and store.
• Also, a ten-day auction is good for more esoteric items. This can be a special collectible or an expensive item that normally doesn't get listed on the site by the hundred. Putting up a ten-day auction (starting Friday night -- so you get two weekends' exposure) is a near-perfect way to attract bidders.

ebay Power Supplies to Support Power Sales

If you've ever used digital cameras, you know that they can blast through batteries faster than sugar through a 5 year old. A reliable power supply is a must. You can accomplish this in a couple of ways:

• Rechargeable batteries: Many specialists on eBay sell rechargeable batteries and chargers. Pick up quality Ni-MH (nickel metal hydride) batteries because this kind, unlike Ni-Cad (nickel cadmium) batteries, has no memory effect. That means you don't have to totally discharge them.
• CR-V3 lithium ion batteries: This battery that takes the place of two standard AA batteries. Lithium batteries are the longest lasting and lightest batteries available, but they're also expensive. Then some smart guy figured out a way to put two batteries into one unit; considerably cutting the price. This new battery can average 650 photos before you have to change it. The CR-V3 is available also in a rechargeable form, thereby extending the life even further (and reducing your battery budget significantly).

If your eBay photo studio includes a camera on a tripod (and it should), you can use a good, old-fashioned AC adapter (you know, it's the one that plugs into the wall).

Polish Up Your Sales Pitch

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Shakespeare definitely wasn't selling items on eBay when he wrote these words. When it comes to listing an item successfully, the title (or name) really does matter. You need to think of a title that's provocative enough for a potential buyer to click your item in a list of similar items.

Which of these items sounds more saleable to you?

• Silver Nut Dish
• Vintage Gorham Sterling Silver Pierced NUT DISH.

The second one is a better choice because it gives more detailed information about the item and highlights four pluses of the item:

• The dish is vintage, which means if it's not an antique, at least it's somewhat old. For a collector, the age of the piece is an important part of the value.
• The dish was made by an important silver company (Gorham).
• The dish is sterling silver (not silver-plated).
• The silver is pierced, which means the lacelike design was made by punching holes in the silver to form a pleasing pattern. This is another bit of information that would interest a collector.

In addition to making the item sound more enticing, giving a detailed description makes it more likely that your item comes up when buyers use the eBay search function. With the strong title shown previously, searching on the terms Vintage, Sterling, Gorham, or pierced would show this nut dish in the list of items that meet the search criteria.

Silencing the Bells and Whistles

Any audio or video solution you add to your eBay listing should be optional for the customer and be provided in a streaming mode if at all possible. That is, any time you include audio or video in a listing, give your potential customers the option of not listening or viewing. Customers can view your listings in many different ways -- and places -- which raises the possibility that audio or video would be an unwelcome intrusion. (Think: Employees browsing your store from their offices during lunch hour, or a mother whose children are napping, may want to keep things quiet.)

So as you're evaluating a product that supplies any multimedia content, check the product specifications to make sure your viewers can easily turn off the multimedia elements supplied by the product. If you can't tell whether the product has this capability, ask the product's provider this essential question when evaluating their service and deciding whether to add it to your arsenal of eBay selling tools.

It's possible that some of your customers might have their computers' sound turned off (for any number of reasons), so be sure that any information you include as either a sound or video clip is also included in the text of your listing.

Capitalize on Keywords! in bay

Hands down, the most valuable real estate on eBay is the 55-character title of your item. The majority of buyers do title searches, and that's where your item must come up to if it's going to be sold!

Here are some ideas to help you fill in the keywords in your item title:

• Use the most common name for the item, and only if there's room, list the alternate name. For example, say salt shaker, and if there's room, add saltcellar.
• If the item is actually rare or hard to find, okay, mention that. But instead of the word RARE (so overused it's practically invisible), include the acronyms (OOAK, OOP, or HTF) that eBay users have come to rely on. (No, they aren't cartoon noises; the table in the next section lists what they mean.)
• Mention the item's condition and whether it's new or old. When applicable (as with gently used items), include the item's age or date of manufacture.
• Mention the item's special qualities, such as its style (for a handbag), model (for a camera), or edition (for a book).
• Include brand names, if those names are significant. If you're selling a for-real Tiffany lamp, you want people to know it!
• State the size of the item or other descriptive information, such as color or material content

Hangin' Out with My Favorite Sellers

When you've been on eBay for awhile, you will find that certain sellers carry a type of merchandise that interests you. By saving their user IDs in the My Favorite Sellers area, you'll be able to revisit their current auctions without having to run a seller search from the search area. Remember that the purpose of the My eBay page is to have all your controls in one area.

From a seller's point of view, My Favorite Sellers is where you can keep a list of people who sell items similar to what you sell. You can check up on them and see what they're selling, when they're selling it, and for how much. It's a helpful tool that can prevent you from listing an item right next to one of their auctions.

My Favorite Sellers is handy also when your competition is selling an item that you plan to sell, but at a deeply discounted price. When that happens, don't offer yours until they sell out of the item, at which time the price will most likely go back up -- supply and demand, remember?

To add a seller to your My Favorite Sellers list, click the Add new Seller or Store link in the upper-right corner of the page. On the page that appears, type the seller's user ID or store name. You may add a maximum of 30 sellers to your list.

Multiplying Sales with Second Chance Offers

When you have multiples of an item and your final bid amount exceeded your target price, you can feel free to make offers to underbidders to buy the same item for their high bid. You can also make a Second Chance offer if the winning bidder does not come through with the payment.

This is a perfectly eBay-legal way to make a second sale. Best of all? eBay doesn't charge you a second listing fee for your offer. You just pay a Final Value fee if the bidder accepts your offer.

Second Chance offers may be offered to underbidders, for a prescribed time period -- 1, 3, 5, or 7 days. The underbidder has the opportunity to take you up on the offer or pass. When the underbidder takes action, that is, buys the item or e-mails you that he is not interested (and you close the Second Chance offer -- just like an auction), you can make another offer to a different underbidder. You can follow this process on down the list of underbidders for up to 60 days.

You do not necessarily have to make an offer to an underbidder if you are not comfortable with that person's feedback. It's up to you to which bidder you make offers.

Sending a PayPal Invoice

PayPal has a free service called the Invoice Manager that can speed up the process of sending invoices for items you recently sold on eBay. The Invoice Manager prepopulates the item fields, based on the auction information. You have no limit to the number of invoices you can send at a single time with the Invoice Manager.

You access the Invoice Manager through the Post-Sale Manager:

1. Click the Auction Tools tab.

2. Under the Receiving and Managing Payments heading, click the Post-Sale Manager link.

3. Select your eBay username from the list, or select the All eBay Accounts option.

You can add your eBay username and password if you haven't yet linked your eBay account to your PayPal account.

4. Select the Uninvoiced option from the Show list and click the Submit button.

5. Place a check next to each of the items you want to create an invoice for and click the Invoice button.

This brings up the Item Invoice Details page (also known as the Invoice Manager).

Each item is in a separate section of the page, displayed as a mini-invoice. If you sold more than one item to the same buyer, the items are grouped into a single invoice. The invoices include a Pay Now with PayPal button or link to make it easy for the buyer to send payment immediately.

Most of the fields on the invoice are already filled out for you. These include

• The item name (clicking this shows the eBay listing in a new window)

• The item number

• The date the auction ended

• The quantity of items sold

• The price of the final bid

• The total price

Shipping, insurance, and taxes

If the buyer's address is known, the price of shipping the item is determined by the eBay shipping calculator. If the shipping price is filled in, you can enter the amount you plan on charging the buyer.

eBay can also calculate the cost of providing the buyer with shipping insurance. If you don't know the buyer's address, you have a place on the page where you can enter the cost of shipping insurance yourself; adding insurance is optional, so don't feel like you have to offer it if you don't want to.

The last field on the Item Invoice Details page is where you add sales tax to the price of the item. Enter the tax rate, as a percentage, in the box and select your state from the list shown to the right. Sales tax is charged when you are selling to a buyer who is located in the same state you are.

The Sales Tax Clearinghouse has a nifty little online tool to help you calculate what percentage to use for sales tax. The tool is available at Online Sales Tax Calculator. All you do is enter your state, the address of the buyer, and click the Lookup button.

Formatting your invoices

After filling in any fields that haven't been filled in already, you can choose to customize your invoice by clicking the Edit Formatting Options link at the bottom of the page. You can select an alternate e-mail address, if you have more than one linked to your PayPal account. You can also edit the message to be sent to the buyer.

You can also add a logo to the invoice. After entering the Web address for the image, make sure to try the Click here to test your logo link to make sure the image is the right size and looks professional.

You can opt to have a copy of the invoice sent to yourself and can save the formatting settings as a default to use with all the invoices you send. Click the Save button to save the settings.

Sending out the invoices

After formatting the invoice, click the Send button on the Item Invoice Details page. You return to the Post-Sale Manager page. At the top of the page, PayPal shows confirmation that the invoice has been sent and displays an order number. The items shown in the Invoice column show a status of "Sent." If multiple items are combined into a single invoice, the status shows as "Consolidated."

A gentle reminder

After sending an invoice, when you look at your Account Overview, you may notice a Remind button. You don't get the chance to customize this message before it is sent, so make sure you're really ready to send it before clicking.

Auction Adhesive: Beeswax versus Museum Putty

Hosting Images at AuctionPix

PayPal Punishes Bad Guys

PayPal used to allow online gambling, but changed their policy after they were acquired by eBay. If you use PayPal's services for gambling, adult content, or buying/selling prescription drugs from noncertified sellers, you're in violation of PayPal's User Agreement. In September 2004, PayPal announced that it would start fining users up to $500 for violation of the Agreement. Not only that, PayPal may take legal action in addition to levying the fines. If you engage in any of these activities, stop using PayPal unless you want to start paying hefty fines.

Looking Out for Liquidation Sales in ebay

When a company gets into serious financial trouble, its debtors (the people to whom the company owes money) obtain a court order to liquidate the company to pay the bills. The liquidated company then sells its stock, fixtures, and even real estate. Items sell for just cents on the dollar, and you can easily resell many of these items on eBay. A special kind of auctioneer handles these auctions. Look in the phone book under Auctioneers: Liquidators and call local auctioneer's offices to get on mailing lists. This way, you'll always know when something good comes up for sale

A Domain by Any Other Name ebay

Suppose that you've come up with a brilliant name for your site and you get really big and famous. Then someone else uses your Web site name but registers it as a .net -- while yours is a .com. To avoid this situation, when you're ready to register your site, make sure you register both domains (.com and .net) and park them with your registrar. For example, www.ebay.net and ebay org are registered to (guess who?) ebay.com. You can check the owner of any domain name at any of the Web hosting or registrar sites.

ebay Feedback: It's All in the Timing

If you're running a lot of auctions, leaving feedback can be a chore. One solution is to automate the submission of feedback through an online service or software. But timing the automation of this task can be tricky.

Don't leave feedback for an eBay transaction until after you've heard from the buyer that the purchase is satisfactory. Leaving positive feedback immediately after you've received payment from the buyer is too soon. After you receive an e-mail assuring you that the customer is satisfied, manually leaving feedback by going to the feedback forum (or the item page) can be just as easy -- if not easier -- as bulk-loading feedback.

Preapproving Bidders in ebay

Suppose that you're selling a big-ticket item and want to prequalify your bidders. If the bidder has taken advantage of the ID Verify feature, you can be sure that your bidder is a real person. You can scroll through a bidder's bidding history to see the amounts they've successfully bid in previous auctions and whether the feedback on those transactions is okay. Although eBay gives you the tools, you still have to do the research to determine whether you deem particular bidders trustworthy enough to bid on your special auction.

In your auction, state that bidders must prequalify by sending you an e-mail claiming their intent to bid. As you receive e-mails and approve bidders' intentions, you can build your preapproved bidder list.

Your preapproved bidder list is applicable only on an auction-by-auction basis. In other words, the bidders must be preapproved in the listings you indicate, not in all your auctions. To use this feature, you must supply eBay with the auction number. You can add approved bidders right up to the close of the auction.

If someone who isn't preapproved tries to bid on your auction, eBay asks that bidder to contact you by e-mail before placing a bid. After you've investigated the bidder to your satisfaction and are comfortable with that person bidding on your auction, you can add the bidder's name to your preapproved bidder list for that auction

Looking Good in Your ebay Listing

eBay comes up with options to fill the needs (or wants) of users. Some sellers enjoy putting colorful graphics around their descriptions. Listing Designer will include pretty graphics and help you design your description, placing pictures in different places on the page. But if you have a good description (creatively done with HTML color and emphasis) plus a good picture (inserted creatively with HTML code, no less), your item will draw bids just the same as if you spent $.10 extra (per listing) for the Listing Designer option.

If you want your descriptions surrounded by graphics, make sure they aren't too intensive. Otherwise, the pages will load too slowly for dial-up users. Also, you can develop your own template or buy one from savvy eBay graphics gurus who sell their services on the site.

You can use a graphics template to brand your listings on eBay, giving them a uniform look. If you want to use a template, decide on one and make it your trademark.

Tracking Auction Buyer Information

Keeping track of your eBay auction winners isn't rocket science. You can do it in an Excel spreadsheet or a Word document, both of which are exportable to almost any program for follow-up mailings promoting future sales. If you choose to have an online management service do this for you, be sure that you can download the information to your computer (in case you and the online service part ways someday).

Tracking Auction Buyer Information

Keeping track of your eBay auction winners isn't rocket science. You can do it in an Excel spreadsheet or a Word document, both of which are exportable to almost any program for follow-up mailings promoting future sales. If you choose to have an online management service do this for you, be sure that you can download the information to your computer (in case you and the online service part ways someday).

Helping the Kids through School, the eBay Way

Whether children are in a public school, private school, or being home schooled, they always need stuff for school. Lots and lots of stuff! When you're buying things, it seems like the list is endless. The older they get, the more expensive the stuff kids need becomes. Table 1 gives you an idea of just a few of the things a young girl may need for school.

These prices do not include shipping — so be sure to check how much the seller is charging for shipping before you bid.

Table 1: School Supply Bargains at eBay

Product	Street Value	eBay Price
Jansport bookbag	$34.95	$14.99
Nike Shox shoes	$110	$49.99
TI Graphing calculator	$130	New like new $20
100 #2 pencils	$15	$3.99

There are plenty more items at eBay — just give your item a chance and search!

Textbooks for home school, high school, and college

Textbooks are the most expensive items that parents purchase. Many schools across the country have been faced with budget cuts, and parents must buy supplemental books for their children — even if the children attend public schools. Home schooling is becoming increasingly popular, and of course, parents need the appropriate books. Last of all? If you have an offspring in college, you've already endured the shock of textbook costs. Used books are a bargain at $100 each — you can imagine the tariff on the new stuff!

School and college bookstores buy back students' books at the end of the term — maybe. Maybe, because professors may decide to change books, or a new edition may be published. Then you're stuck with an expensive doorstop — er, textbook. But even if the bookstore does buy back copies of books at the end of the term, the bookstore only pays you a fraction of what you paid for the book in the first place.

Half.com

eBay acquired Half.com in July 2000. Half.com started as a person-to-person book sale site. In true eBay style, the site began to carry all types of items (other than books).

If you tend toward the lazy way, you like to do all your shopping all in one place. Currently, you have to leave the eBay site in order to shop for stuff from Half.com. However, eBay just announced that Half.com will be fully integrated into the eBay platform by 2004. When the transition is complete, the Half.com site will disappear completely, and all the functions will be available within eBay.

Before the integration rolls to a close, you can go to Half.com or click the Half.com by eBay link under Specialty Sites on the eBay home page) to arrive at a page packed with offerings

Every book has an ISBN number, and if you type the ISBN number in the search box on the Half.com home page, listings for the book appear.

Get your student's booklist and run the ISBN numbers through Half.com (or search the title through eBay). You'll save a bundle on books.

The cheapest way to ship books is using Media Mail rate. Using this method can take as long as two to four weeks to get across the country so do your online book shopping as early as possible. That is, unless you're saving enough money at eBay to pay for Priority Mail shipping!

Using QuickBooks in Your eBay Business

QuickBooks can give you up-to-the-minute reports about the status of your eBay business and keep track of everything in the background — including payroll and sales tax liability.

Here are a few things that make this business accounting software by Intuit an indispensable tool if you want to streamline an online business:

• Inventory Reports: As you purchase inventory, aside from deducting the money from your checking account and expensing your merchandise account, QuickBooks adds the purchased merchandise to your inventory. Every time you sell an item, QuickBooks deducts the item from your inventory. QuickBooks has many other reporting features for your inventory and end-of-year reporting for taxes.

• Sales Tax Tracking: Depending on how the program is set up (based on your own state sales tax laws), you can request a report that has all your taxable and non-taxable sales. The report calculates the amount of sales tax you owe. You can print out this report for backup information on your sales tax payments to your state.

• Payroll: Whether you use the online payroll service to prepare your payroll or input the deductions yourself, QuickBooks posts the appropriate withholdings to their own accounts. When it comes time to pay your employees' withholding taxes, QuickBooks can generate the federal reporting form (all filled in) for submitting with your payment.

• Sales Reports: QuickBooks gives you a plethora of reports with which you can analyze your sales professionally. One of my favorite reports is the Sales by Item Summary. This report gives you the information below for every inventoried item you sell in whatever time period you choose:

• Quantity sold

• Total dollar amount sold

• Percentage of sales represented by each individual item

• The average price the item sold for

• COGS (cost of goods sold) by item

• Average cost of goods sold by total sales per item

• Gross profit margin in dollar amounts

• Gross profit margin expressed as percentages

Depending on how you post your transactions, you can analyze your eBay sales, Web site sales, and/or brick-and-mortar sales individually or together. You can also select any date range for your reports.

Some online auction management services integrate with QuickBooks. This integration means that your individual transactions can be downloaded into the QuickBooks program, setting a up a new customer for each of your sales.

Although this process is quick and easy, inputting each sale as a new customer will cause the size of the database to become huge quickly. QuickBooks is a very large program to begin with, and if you're going to use it (and update it) for several years, the database will become even larger.

If you've ever worked with large files, you know the larger the data file, the more chance there is for the data to become corrupt. That's the last thing you want. Besides, QuickBooks will max out with over 14,000 customers — very doable in several years on eBay.

To keep track of your customers, you can use an additional copy of your PayPal monthly report and combine them with cash sales into an Excel (you can also use Microsoft Works) spreadsheet to build this important data.

Searching Out Merchandise to Sell on eBay

Okay, you want to set up shop on eBay. You kind of know what type of merchandise you want to sell, but you don't know where to turn. Anyone in the brick-and-mortar world who plans to open a new store faces the same quandary: Find merchandise that will sell quickly at a profit.

Merchandise that sits around doesn't give you cash flow — which is the name of the game in any business. (Cash flow = profit = money to buy better, or more, merchandise.)

To gain access to legitimate wholesale sources, you must be a licensed business in your city or county. You also usually have to have a resale permit and tax ID number from your state.

Finding merchandise locally

Always remember that the cost of shipping the merchandise to you adds a great deal of expense. The higher your expense, the lower your return may be. The more you buy locally to resell, the more profit you can make.

The first place most potential retailers go is to their local wholesale district. You can find yours in your yellow pages (remember that giant brick of a book they drop in your driveway once a year) under the name of your item. For example, you want to sell women's apparel. Look up Women's Apparel in the yellow pages and find the subcategory of Wholesale. Bingo! Immediate merchandise sources, within driving distance of your home! Also be sure to check the directories in neighboring communities as well. The value of this printed (and usually overlooked) resource is immeasurable when you're starting up a business.

Newspaper auction listings

Another excellent source of merchandise for resale is your daily newspaper — in particular, the listings of major liquidation and estate auctions (usually on Saturday). Check out your daily newspaper each day and look for this page or section.

You may want to sell women's apparel, but if you can get a great deal on office or pet supplies, paying cents on the dollar, you just may bend your way of thinking!

Don't miss the daily classified section — look for ads that announce local business liquidations. Do not confuse any of this with garage sales or flea-market sales (run by individuals and often a great source for one-of-a kind items). Liquidation or estate sales are professionally run, usually by licensed liquidators or auctioneers and involve merchandise that may be new but is always sold in lots (in a quantity).

If your local newspaper has a Web site, use their online search to view the classifieds for major liquidations, estate auctions, or other similar deals. Right there online, you can often find just what you are looking for locally.

Regional merchandise marts

Your next stop, should you be lucky enough to live in a regional area, is to find out if there is a merchandise or fashion mart near you. These are giant complexes that hold as many as several thousand lines of merchandise in one area.

Merchandise marts are hubs for wholesale buyers, distributors, manufacturers, and independent sales representatives. They have showrooms within the property for manufacturers or their representatives to display their current merchandise. Under one roof, you may find both fashion and gift merchandise for your eBay business.

Wholesale trade shows

By discovering marts and checking out associated links, you'll also end up with links to the thousands of wholesale trade shows that go on across the country each year.

Trade shows are commonly held in convention centers, hotels, and at the local merchandise marts.

When visiting a show or a mart, view all merchandise before you place an order. Bring a notebook with you to make copious notes of items you find interesting and where you find them.

These trade shows are gargantuan bourses of hundreds of wholesale vendors all lined up and ready to take your orders. The vendors have samples of the merchandise in the lines they carry, and are delighted to answer all your questions about their products, credit applications, and minimum orders. These shows are designed to move product to retailers like you!

You may have to bring less than the items on this list. Be sure to check with the organization sponsoring the trade show or mart prior to attending so that you'll have everything you need. Don't let this list scare you — wholesale marts are fun and the organizers and vendors will do everything they can to help you make your retailing venture a success!

Very few trade shows are more exciting than the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association. If you buy breakthrough technologies to sell online, this show is a must! You'll find the latest in everything high-tech including digital imaging, electronic gaming, home electronics, car audio, home theater, satellite systems and much, much more. It takes days to see this show. You'll see what's new, but more importantly, you'll see what will be passé in a hurry — great merchandise to sell on eBay.

CES draws over 100,000 buyers each year and the vendors are there to sell their goods to you. Visit the CES Web site to get an idea of the excitement that the show generates.

See if the item is selling on eBay before you make your purchase. Bring a laptop with a wireless connection (if there is a hot spot at the show) or make notes for purchases on another day. Getting a good deal is one thing — selling it on eBay is another

What's That Thingy Next to My eBay ID?

For the first 30 days after you register or change your User ID, eBay gives you an icon that stays next to your User ID every time it appears on eBay (when you bid, run an auction, or post a message on any of the chat boards).

So why the icon? eBay calls the graphic of a beaming robot-like critter the "new ID" icon. It's sort of a friendly heads-up to others that you are a new user. (If you've changed your User ID, the icon consists of two of the little guys with an arrow connecting them.) You still have all the privileges that everybody else has on eBay while you're breaking in your new identity. The icons are nothing personal, just business as usual.

eBay Charity Auctions: All for a Good Cause

A charity auction is a high-profile fundraising auction where the proceeds go to a selected charity. Most people don't wake up in the morning wanting to own the shoes that Ron Howard wore when he put his footprints in cement at Mann's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, but one-of-a-kind items like that are often auctioned off in charity auctions. (In fact, someone did want those shoes badly enough to buy them for a lot of money at eBay.) Charity auctions became popular after the NBC Today Show sold an autographed jacket at eBay for over $11,000 with the proceeds going to Toys for Tots. Charity auctions are run like most other auctions at eBay, but because they're immensely popular, bidding can be fierce, and the dollar amounts can go sky high. Many famous celebrities use eBay to help out their favorite charities.

The Big Picture with eBay Thumbnail Images

When you use thumbnail images in your eBay listing, you need to include the HTML coding that links each thumbnail to an alternative image. Using HTML, you can set up this link to allow your customers to click the thumbnail image and display a larger version of the picture, whether in the current window or in a new window. If the image opens in a new window, be sure to provide instructions on how to close the window and return to your listing (many such temporary windows include a Close button).

When you make a thumbnail image into a link, your customers’ cursors will change when passing over the thumbnail, indicating that they can click it. But don’t assume that they'll notice this nifty feature. In your listing text, be sure to include a message that the image is clickable; mention it more than once if necessary. You want to make it easy for your customers.

Pay Attention to eBay Packing Slips

Lost packages are the bane of all carriers since they started accepting packages for delivery. The Post Office has been dealing this problem since it opened the Dead Letter Office in 1825.

The Postal Service's Dead Letter Office employees (call them DLOs) are the only people legally permitted to open lost mail. When an address label gets smooshed, torn, wet, or otherwise illegible enough that the box can't be delivered, it finds its way into the hands of the DLOs, who open the package with the hope of finding enough information to get it to the rightful owner.

Make sure that you always include a packing slip -- like the kind you print from Selling Manager or My eBay -- inside your packages. The packing slip should have both your address and the buyer's so that if the label is illegible, the packing slip will identify the owner and the package can be delivered

Break Out of Brick and Mortar with an eBay Storefront

Do you already have an existing business? eBay isn't only a marketplace where you're able to unload slow or out-of-season merchandise. You can also set up your store right on eBay. An eBay store allows you to list a fixed-price item at a reduced fee and keep the item online until it's sold. When you run your regular auctions for special items, they will have a link to your store, thereby drawing in new shoppers to see your store merchandise.

Here are a few ways you can expand your current business with eBay:

• Opening a second store on eBay: How many people run stores that sell every item, every time? If you're a retailer, you've probably made a buying mistake. Many times the item that isn't selling in your store is selling like hotcakes in similar stores elsewhere in the country. eBay gives you the tools to sell those extra items to make room for more of what sells at your home base.

Perhaps you just need to raise some cash quickly. eBay has tens of thousands of categories in which you can sell regular stock or specialty items.

• Selling by mail order: If you've been selling by mail order, what's been holding you back from selling on eBay? It costs you far less to list your item on eBay than to run an ad in any publication. Plus, on eBay, you get built-in buyers from every walk of life. If your item sells through the mail, it will sell through eBay.
• Licensed real estate agents: Plenty of land, homes, and condos are selling on eBay right now. List your properties online so that you can draw from a nationwide audience. When you offer listings on the Web, you're bound to get more action.

Watching Out for eBay Trading Violations

Both buyers and sellers can commit trading violations by attempting to manipulate the outcome of an auction or sale. Many of the violations aren't necessarily buyer- or seller-exclusive but apply to both. Regardless of the nature of a violation, such behavior violates everyone who's part of the eBay community.

As a valued member of the community, it's partially your responsibility to look out for such violations — so that eBay continues to be a safe community in which to do business. Should you see a violation, report it immediately to the eBay Security Center.

We need to be watchdogs because we need to protect the other users in our community. Don't feel like a squealer if you make a report. Remember that it takes just one rotten apple to spoil the basket, so if you see a violation, do your duty and report it.

Unfortunately, you may sometimes encounter non-community-minded sellers who interfere with your auctions or sales. This interference can take on several forms, such as sellers who illegally drive up bids or "steal" bidders.

Again, should you fall victim to bad deeds, be sure to report the bad-deed-doer's actions immediately. eBay will take some sort of disciplinary action. Penalties range from formal warnings and temporary suspension to indefinite suspension. eBay reviews each incident on a case-by-case basis before passing judgment.

Shill bidding

Shill bidding is the practice of placing a bid on an item to artificially inflate the final value. It's the bane of every eBay user (whether buyer or seller) and undermines community trust. Shill bidding is a violation of the Federal wirefraud statute, which encompasses the practice of entering into interstate commerce to defraud — it's a felony and not something to be toyed with!

The practice of shill bidding has been a part of auctions from their beginnings. To prevent the suspicion of shill bidding, people in the same family, those who share the same computer, and folks who work or live together should not bid on each other's items.

Should you ever even dream of participating in any sort of auction manipulation, think twice. You might consider yourself clever by using another e-mail address and username, but that doesn't work. Every time you log onto your ISP, your connection carries an IP address. So no matter what name or computer you use, your connection will identify you. eBay can use this number to track you through its site.

Shill bidders are fairly easy to recognize, even for the eBay user who isn't privy to things such as IP addresses. By checking a bidder's auction history, you can easily determine a user's bidding pattern. A bidder who constantly bids up items and never wins is suspicious.

Spurious sellers often employ shill bidding to increase the number of bids on an item to more quickly make it a hot item. This doesn't mean that all hot auctions are products of shill bidding, it means that hot auctions are desirable and pull in lots of extra bids (due to the herd mentality). Rogues would like all their auctions to be hot and may take any road to ensure that they are.

Transaction interference

Have you ever received an e-mail from an eBay seller offering you an item that you're currently bidding on for a lower price? This is called transaction interference, and it can prevent sellers from gaining the highest bid possible.

Transaction interference occurs also when a troublemaker who has it "in" for a particular seller e-mails bidders participating in the seller's current auctions to warn them away from completing the auction. Tales of woe and much bitterness usually accompany such e-mails. If a bidder has a problem with a seller, that bidder can — and should — file a report with eBay and leave negative feedback for that seller. This sort of e-mail barrage can potentially fall under the category of libel and isn't a safe thing to practice. If you receive an e-mail like this, ignore its message but report it to eBay.

Transaction interception

They say the criminal mind is complex; when it comes to transaction interception, it certainly is! Transaction interception occurs when an eBay scalawag keeps track of closing auctions and then, when the auction is finished, e-mails the winner as if the scalawag were the seller. The e-mail often looks official and is congratulatory, politely asking for payment. Interceptors usually use a post office box for such mischief. This behavior goes beyond being a trading violation — it's stealing.

The best way to protect yourself from such miscreants is to accept payments through a payment service, such as PayPal, by using a Pay Now link.

Fee avoidance

Basically, fee avoidance is the practice of evading paying eBay fees by going around the eBay system. There are many ways to commit fee avoidance — sometimes without even realizing it. Read this section carefully so that you don't fall into this violation by mistake.

You're guilty of fee avoidance if you

• Use information that you've received from an eBay member's contact information in an attempt to sell a listed item off the system.

• Close your auction early because a user e-mailed you to offer to buy an item you were auctioning, and you accepted the offer.

• End your auction before it legally closes by canceling bids, to sell the item to someone who has e-mailed you with an offer of a higher price.

• Use an eBay member's contact information to sell an item from one of your closed auctions off the eBay site in which the reserve wasn't met.

• Offer duplicates of your item to the unsuccessful bidders in your auction, unless you use the Second Chance option.

Non-selling seller

Refusing to accept payment from the winning bidder and refusing to complete the transaction is simply wrong. Very, very bad form! You are legally and morally bound to complete any transaction in which you enter.

Tuning Into Types of eBay Auctions

An auction is an auction is an auction, right? Wrong! eBay has five types of auctions for your selling pleasure. Most of the time you'll run traditional auctions, but other auctions have their place, too. After you've been selling on eBay for a while, you may find that one of the other types of auctions better suits your needs.

Traditional auctions

Traditional auctions are the bread and butter of eBay. You can run a traditional auction for 1, 3, 5, 7, or 10 days, and when the auction closes, the highest bidder wins. You begin the auction with an opening bid, and bidders will bid up your opening price into a healthy profit for you.

Dutch auctions

When you've purchased an odd lot of 500 kitchen knife sets or managed (legally, of course) to get your hands on a truckload of televisions that you want to sell as expeditiously as possible, the Dutch (multiple item) auction is what you'll want to use. In the Dutch auction, which can run for 1, 3, 5, 7, or 10 days, you list as many items as you'd like, and bidders can bid on as many items as they'd like. The final item price is set by the lowest successful bid at the time the auction closes.

For example, suppose you want to sell five dolls on eBay in a Dutch auction. Your starting bid is $5 each. If five bidders each bid $5 for one doll, they each get a doll for $5. But, if the final bidding reveals that two people bid $5, one person bid $7.50, and another bid $8, all five bidders win the doll for the lowest final bid of $5.

Here are some details about Dutch auctions:

• The listing fee is based on your opening bid price (just like in a traditional auction), but it's multiplied by the number of items in your auction to a maximum listing fee of $4.80.

• The final auction value fees are on the same scale as in a traditional auction, but they're based on the total dollar amount of your completed auctions.

• When bidders bid on your Dutch auction, they can bid on one or more items at one bid price. (The bid is multiplied by the number of items.)

• If the bidding gets hot and heavy, rebids must be in a higher total dollar amount than the total of that bidder's past bids.

• Bidders may reduce the quantity of the items for which they're bidding in your auction, but the dollar amount of the total bid price must be higher.

• All winning bidders pay the same price for their items, no matter how much they bid.

• The lowest successful bid when the auction closes is the price for which your items in that auction will be sold.

• If your item gets more bids than you have items, the lowest bidders are knocked out one by one, with the earliest bidders remaining on board the longest in the case of tie bids.

• The earliest (by date and time) successful high bidders when the auction closes win their items.

• Higher bidders get the quantities they've asked for, and bidders can refuse partial quantities of the number of items in their bids.

Reserve price auctions

In a reserve price auction, you're able to set an undisclosed minimum price for which your item will sell,thereby giving yourself a safety net. Using a reserve price auction protects the investment you have in an item. If, at the end of the auction, no bidder has met your undisclosed reserve price, you aren't obligated to sell the item and the high bidder isn't required to purchase the item.

For example, if you have a rare coin to auction, you can start the bidding at a low price to attract bidders to click your auction and read your infomercial-like description. If you start your bidding at too high a price, you might dissuade prospective bidders from even looking at your auction, and you won't tempt them to even bid. They may feel that the final selling price will be too high for their budgets.

Everyone on eBay is looking for a bargain or a truly rare item. If you can combine the mystical force of both of these needs in one auction, you have something special. The reserve price auction enables you to attempt — and perhaps achieve — this feat.

The fees for a reserve price auction are the same as those for a traditional auction with one exception. eBay charges between $2.00 and $100.00 for the privilege of running a reserve price auction. If the reserve price is $200.00 or more, the reserve price fee is 1% of the reserve price (with a maximum of $100.00). When your item sells, you get that money back.

The reserve price auction is a safety net for the seller but often an uncomfortable guessing game for the prospective bidder. To alleviate buyer anxiety, many sellers put reserve prices in the item description, allowing bidders to decide whether the item will fit into their bidding budgets.

You can't use the reserve price option in a Dutch auction.

Restricted access auctions

eBay won't allow certain items to be sold in nonrestricted categories, so you must list them in the Adult Only area of eBay. eBay makes it easy for the user to find or avoid these types of auctions by making this area accessible only after the user enters a password and agrees to the terms and conditions of the area.

Items in the Adult Only area are not accessible through the regular eBay title search, nor are they listed in Newly Listed Items.

Anyone who participates in Adult Only auctions on eBay, whether as a bidder or a seller, must have a credit card on file on eBay for verification.

Do not attempt to slip an adult only auction into a nonrestricted category. eBay doesn't have a sense of humor when it comes to this violation of policy and may relocate or end your auction. eBay might even suspend you from its site.

Private auctions

Bidders' names are often kept private when dealing in the expensive fine art world. Likewise, to protect the innocent, eBay private auctions don't place bidders' names on the auction listing. No one needs to know just how much you choose to pay for something, especially if the item is rare and you really want it.

As a seller, you have the option (at no extra charge) of listing your auction as a private auction.

The private auction is a useful tool for sellers who are selling bulk lots to other sellers. It maintains the privacy of the bidders, and customers can't do a bidder search to find out what sellers are paying for the loot they then plan to re-sell on eBay.

A great option for sales of items that are a bit racy or perhaps for purchases of items that may reveal something about the bidder, the private auction can save you the potential embarrassment associated with buying a girdle or buying the tie that flips over to reveal a racy half-nude female on the back.

Although the private auction is a useful tool, it may intimidate the novice user. If your customer base comes from experienced eBay users and you're selling an item that may benefit by being auctioned in secret, you might want to try this option

Writing an eBay Listing Title That Sells

Your title is (next to your Gallery image) the most important way to draw people to your listing. eBay buyers are search-engine-driven — they find most of their items by typing selected keywords into the search box and clicking the Search button. Those keywords should be all your title consists of. No fancy prose. No silly words that people won't search for. Here are a few examples of eBay's worst title words:

• L@@K

• Nice

• WOW

• RARE

Do yourself a favor — never include these words in your title. No one ever searches for these words — ever! (For that matter, nobody's looking for "!!!!!!" in the title, either. Can't think why . . . )

If you've finished writing your item title and you have spaces left over, please fight the urge to dress it up with lots of exclamation points and asterisks. No matter how gung-ho you are about your item, the eBay search engine may overlook your item if the title is encrusted with meaningless ****, $$$$, and !!!! symbols. If bidders do see your title, they may become annoyed by their virtual shrillness and ignore them!!!!!!!!

Another distracting habit is overdoing capital letters. To buyers, seeing everything in caps is LIKE SEEING A CRAZED SALESMAN SCREAMING AT THEM TO BUY NOW! Using all caps online is considered shouting — it's annoying and tough on the eyes. Use capitalization SPARINGLY, and only to finesse a particular point or name.

Look for keywords that pay off

Hands down, the most valuable real estate on eBay is the 55-character title of your item. The majority of buyers do title searches, and that's where your item must come up to if it's going to be sold!

Here are some ideas to help you fill in the keywords in your item title:

• Use the most common name for the item, and only if there's room, list the alternate name. For example, say salt shaker, and if there's room, add saltcellar.

• If the item is actually rare or hard to find, okay, mention that. But instead of the word RARE (so overused it's practically invisible), include the acronyms (OOAK, OOP, or HTF) that eBay users have come to rely on. (No, they aren't cartoon noises; the table in the next section lists what they mean.)

• Mention the item's condition and whether it's new or old. When applicable (as with gently used items), include the item's age or date of manufacture.

• Mention the item's special qualities, such as its style (for a handbag), model (for a camera), or edition (for a book).

• Include brand names, if those names are significant. If you're selling a for-real Tiffany lamp, you want people to know it!

• State the size of the item or other descriptive information, such as color or material content.

eBay lingo at a glance

Here's a crash course in eBay lingo that can help bring you up to speed on attracting buyers to your auction. Table 1 summarizes some abbreviations used frequently in eBay auctions; they can do wonders to jump-start your title.

Also, a whole smattering of acronyms that abbreviate item characteristics are part of the eBay business experience. As eBay has grown, so has this specialized lingo. Members use these acronyms as shortcuts to describe their merchandise.

So here, as promised, is Table 1: a handy list of common acronyms and related phrases used to describe items on eBay. (Hint: Mint means "may as well be brand new," not "cool chocolate treat attached.")

Table 1: A Quick List of eBay Acronyms

eBay Code	What It Abbreviates	What It Means
MIB	Mint in Box	The item is in the original box, in great shape, and just the way you'd expect to find it in a store.
MIMB	Mint in Mint Box	The box has never been opened and looks like it just left the factory.
MOC	Mint on Card	The item is mounted on its original display card, attached with the original fastenings, in store-new condition.
NRFB	Never Removed from Box	Just what it says, as in "bought but never opened."
COA	Certificate of Authenticity	Documentation that vouches for the genuineness of an item, such as an autograph or painting.
OEM	Original Equipment Manufacture	You're selling the item and all the equipment that originally came with it, but you don't have the original box, owner's manual, or instructions.
OOAK	One of a kind	You are selling the only one in existence!
NR	No Reserve Price	You can set a reserve price when you begin your auction. If bids don't meet the reserve, you don't have to sell. Many buyers are leery of reserve prices because they're after a more obvious bargain. If you're not listing a reserve price for your item, let bidders know.
NWT	New with Tags	An item, possibly apparel, is in new condition with the tags from the manufacturer still affixed.
HTF, OOP	Hard to Find, Out of Print	Out of print, only a few ever made, or people grabbed up all there were. (HTF doesn't mean you spent a week looking for it in the attic.)

Normally, you can rely on eBay slang to get your point across, but make sure that you mean it and that you're using it accurately. Don't label something MIB (Mint in Box) when it looks like it's been Mashed in Box by a meat-grinder.

Use the spell checker to verify your titling! It bears repeating: Check and recheck your spelling. Savvy buyers use the eBay search engine to find merchandise; if the name of your item is spelled wrong, the search engine can't find it. In addition, poor spelling and incomprehensible grammar reflect badly on you. If you're in competition with another seller, the buyer is likelier to trust the seller hoo nose gud speling.

Choosing Your eBay Password and User ID

Compared to finding a prime parking space at the mall during the holidays, signing up at eBay is a breeze. About the toughest thing you have to do is type in your e-mail address correctly. When it comes to choosing your password and User ID, the process is so easy that you may be tempted to speed right through it without giving much thought to your choices. Slow down there, partner! Take a deep breath and think about these two identifiers before you click that final Complete Your Registration button.

A quick word about passwords

Picking a good password is not as thought-free (but is twice as important) as it may seem. Whoever has your password can (in effect) "be you" at eBay — running auctions, bidding on auctions, and leaving dangerous feedback for others. Basically, such an impostor can ruin your eBay career — and possibly cause you serious financial grief.

As with any online password, you should follow these common-sense rules to protect your privacy:

• Don't pick anything too obvious, such as your birthday, your first name, or your Social Security number. (Hint: If it's too easy to remember, it's probably too easy to crack.)

• Make things tough on the bad guys — combine numbers and letters and create nonsensical words.

• Don't give out your password to anyone — it's like giving away the keys to the front door of your house.

• If you even suspect someone has your password, immediately change it by going to the following address:

pages.ebay.com/services/myebay/selectpass.html

• Change your password every few months just to be on the safe side.

A not-so-quick word about choosing a User ID

eBay gives you the option of picking your User ID. (If you don't choose one, then your e-mail address becomes your default User ID.) Making up a User ID can be a lot of fun. If you've never liked your real name (or never had a nickname), here's the chance to correct that situation. Consider choosing an ID that tells a little about yourself. Of course, if your interests change, you may regret too narrow a User ID.

You can call yourself just about anything; you can be silly or creative or boring. But remember, this ID is how other eBay users will know you. So here are some common-sense rules:

• Don't use a name that would embarrass your mother.

• Don't use a name that's too weird, such as scam-man. If people don't trust you, they won't buy from you.

• Don't use a name with a negative connotation.

• eBay doesn't allow spaces in User IDs, so make sure that the ID makes sense when putting two or more words together.

If you're dying to have several short words as your User ID, you can use underscores or hyphens to separate them, as in queen-of-shopping. If you permanently sign in to eBay on your computer, typing those underscores won't slow you down.

You can change your User ID (once every 30 days) if you want to, but doing so might not be a good idea. People come to know you by your User ID. If you change your ID, your past does play tagalong and attaches itself to the new ID. But if you change your User ID too many times, people may think you're trying to hide something or you're in the Witness Protection Program.

Nevertheless, to change your User ID, click the My eBay link at the top of most eBay pages. From your My eBay login page, click the Preferences/Set-up tab and scroll to the Change My User ID link, fill out the boxes, and click the Change User ID button. You now have a new eBay identity.

eBay also has some User ID rules to live by:

• No offensive names (like &*#@guy).

• No names with eBay in them. (It makes you look like you work for eBay, and eBay takes a dim view of that.)

• No names with & (even if you do have both looks&brains).

• No names with @ (like @Aboy).

• No symbols such as the greater than or less than symbols (> <) or consecutive underscores ___.

• No IDs that begin with an e, followed by numbers, an underscore, a dash, a period, or a dot.

• No names of one letter (like Q).

When you pick your User ID, make sure that it isn't a good clue for your password. If you use Natasha as your User ID, don't pick Boris as your password. Even Bullwinkle could figure that one out.

Succeeding by Sniping on eBay

Sniping is the fine art of outbidding your competition in the last seconds of the auction — without leaving them enough time to place a defensive bid.

Bidders (that is, losing bidders) whine and moan when they lose to a sniper — but there is one thing to remember. eBay uses proxy bidding. If you're going to snipe, always assume that the current bidder has a high dollar proxy bid in the works. The high bidder always wins!

Sniping techniques for the beginner

Before you start sniping, be sure you know how fast your Internet connection will react. Figure out how long it takes to get your bid confirmed at eBay. Test it a few times until you know how many seconds you have to spare when placing a bid. Also be sure you're signed in first, before you attempt a snipe.

Follow these steps to snipe at the end of the auction:

1. In the last couple of minutes of the auction, locate the item you want to win and press the Ctrl key and the N key together to open a second window on your Internet browser.

Keep one window open for bidding.

2. Continuously click the Reload or Refresh button in the browser toolbar.

By reloading the item continuously, you'll be aware when you're in the last 60 seconds of bidding. You also can see instantly whether anyone else is doing any last-minute bidding.

3. Type your maximum bid in the bid box of the second browser.

This is the highest amount you will consider paying for the item.

4. Click the Place Bid button.

When you click the Confirm Bid button that appears on the next page, your bid is finalized.

5. Do not press the Confirm Bid button yet.

6. Continuously refresh your first browser.

7. As the auction nears its end, confirm your final bid by clicking the Confirm Bid button.

The longer you can hold off to bid before the auction ends, the better.

The three-screen approach to sniping

If you really want an item badly enough, try setting up a back-up sniping setup. With the triple-screen system, you can place a back-up high bid in case you catch another sniper swooping in on your item immediately after your first snipe.

Obviously, if you win with the first snipe, the second window is unnecessary. But if you lose the first one, that second window feels like a real lifesaver! If you're outbid after two snipes, don't cry. The winner paid way more than you were willing to pay. It's not much consolation, but rarely is an item so unusual that you only see it come on the auction block once in a lifetime.

Auto-sniping your auctions

There are many reasons for not wanting to snipe your own auctions. You might not have the time to be there for the closing of each one, you may have a slow Internet connection, or you may just not want to bother. All are valid reasons!

If you're in the market for some sniping assistance, you can seek out one of the many programs that automate the shopping and feedback processes. Here are just a couple of options:

Just remember that if you use software downloaded to your computer, your computer has to be online at the time of the auction.

• BidRobot: BidRobot deftly places sniping bids for you from its servers. The service is one of the least expensive ones out there. It charges a low flat rate for all the snipes you could use. Get a free trial. Just enter the code cool in the registration box.

• eSnipe: Another popular sniping server is eSnipe. This service charges a fee of approximately 1 percent of the final winning price, with a maximum of $10 (you pay only if you win). You can purchase Bid Points to place in your account to pay for upcoming snipes. For 14 days of free sniping, visit esnipe

Calculating Shipping for a Non-eBay Item

If you want to sell a non-eBay item and accept PayPal as the form of payment, you can estimate and apply shipping costs to the invoice or money request you send to the buyer. You can add shipping costs as a percentage of the total cost or as a flat dollar amount. You can add the shipping cost when you're creating the invoice, or you can set your shipping calculations and preferences in advance.

If you're unsure about how much to add when estimating shipping costs on a specific invoice, you can still use the eBay Shipping Calculator for help, even if you're not selling the item through eBay! On the eBay Web site, click the Site Map link, which you find at the bottom of every page. Click the Shipping Calculator link, which you find in the middle of the Services column under Selling Tools. Go through the Calculator steps, filling out the weight and size of the package, the zip codes for the seller and the buyer, and opt to see sample domestic or international rates. You see approximate rates to charge your buyer, depending upon the type of shipping service(s) you plan to offer.

Checking Out the eBay Listing Page

All item pages on eBay — whether auctions, fixed-price items, or Buy It Now items — look about the same. If you were viewing this auction page on the screen, you could scroll down and see a complete description of the item, along with shipping information.

Here's a list of stuff you see as scroll down a typical auction item page:

• Item category: Located just above the item title and number bar, you can click the category listing and do some comparison shopping.
  

• Item title and number: The title and number identify the item. Keep track of this info for inquiries later. Some sellers also use a subtitle to pass on more information about their items.

• Watch this item: Click this link, and the item is magically added to the Watching area of your My eBay All Buying page so you can keep an eye on the progress of the auction — without actually bidding. If you haven't signed in, you have to type your user ID and password before you can save the auction to your My eBay page.

• Starting bid or Current bid: This is the dollar amount that the bidding has reached. The amount changes throughout the auction as people place bids. If no bids have been placed on the item, it will read Starting bid.

Sometimes, next to the current dollar amount, you see Reserve not met or Reserve met. This means the seller has set a reserve price for the item — a secret price that must be reached before the seller will sell the item. Most auctions do not have reserve prices.

• Time left: Although the clock never stops ticking on eBay, you must continue to refresh your browser to see the time remaining on the official clock. When the item gets down to the last hour of the auction, you'll see the time expressed in minutes and seconds.

Timing is the key in an eBay bidding strategy, so don't forget that eBay uses Pacific standard time (PST) or Pacific daylight time (PDT) as the standard, depending on the season.

• Start time: The time that the seller began the sale on eBay.

• History: This field tells you how many bids have been placed. The starting bid is listed in light gray next to the number of bids. When the listing is live, you can click the number of bids to find out who is bidding and when bids were placed. (In some circumstances, only the seller and buyer can access this data.)

• High bidder: This field shows you the user ID and feedback rating of the current high bidder. It could be you if you've placed a bid!

Sometimes an item has no bids because everyone is waiting until the last minute. Then you see a flurry of activity as bidders try to outbid each other. It's all part of the fun of eBay.

• Buy It Now price: If you want an item immediately and the price listed in this area is okay with you, click Buy It Now. You will be taken to a page where you can complete your purchase. Buy It Now is an option and does not appear in all listings.

• Quantity: This field appears only when multiple items are available.

• Item location: This field tells you at the very least the country where the seller is located. You may also see more specific info, such as the seller's city and geographic area.

• Ships to: If the seller ships to only the United States, it will state so here. If the seller ships to any other countries, this is where they will be listed.

• Shipping costs: If the seller is willing to ship the item anywhere in the country for a flat rate, you'll see it here. This area may also link to eBay's shipping calculator if the seller customizes the shipping expense based on weight and distance.

• Seller Information box: This area, on the right side of the page, gives you information about the seller. Know thy seller ranks right after caveat emptor as a phrase that pays at eBay. Like any community, eBay has its share of good folks and bad folks. Your best defense is to read the seller's feedback. You'll see several things in the Seller Information box:

• Seller icons: Various icons that show the status of the seller. A varied color star reflects the feedback level of the seller. If the seller is a PowerSeller, you see the PowerSeller icon. If the seller has an About Me page, you see the blue and red me icon.

• Feedback score: This number is also to the right of the seller's name in parentheses. Click the number next to the seller's ID to view his or her eBay ID card and entire feedback history. Read, read, and reread all the feedback to make sure you feel comfortable doing business with this person.

• Positive feedback percentage: The eBay computers calculate this figure. It's derived from all the positive and negative feedback that a user receives.

• Member since: This line lists the date the seller joined eBay and the country in which he or she registered.

• Read feedback comments: This link does the same thing as clicking the feedback score.

• Add to Favorite Sellers: Clicking here adds the seller to your My eBay Favorite Sellers links.

• Ask seller a question: Clicking this link hooks you up with eBay's e-mail system so you can ask the seller a question regarding the item.

• View seller's other items: This link takes you to a page that lists all the seller's current auctions and fixed-price sales.

• Visit this seller's eBay store: If the seller has an eBay store, a link to it appears here as well.

• PayPal: If the seller accepts PayPal, the PayPal logo appears here. Also, if the seller qualifies for buyer protection, this is also indicated here.

• Financing available: If an item is selling for more than $200, and the seller has approved it, the buyer may finance the purchase through PayPal.

• Description bar: Below this light-blue shaded bar is the item description. There may also be a colorful header with links to the seller's eBay store. Also, if the seller participates with SquareTrade or is bonded through BuySAFE, those company's seals will appear in the item description area. Read all this information carefully before bidding.

Below the seller's description area, you'll find some other important data on the typical auction item page:

• Shipping and payment details: Check here to see the details on shipping. You see

• Whether the seller is charging flat shipping or is offering more than one shipping option through a shipping calculator.

• Who pays (usually the buyer).

• Whether insurance is offered.

• Which states have to pay sales tax (if any) and the sales tax rate.

• Whether the seller is willing to ship to your area. (Sometimes sellers won't ship internationally, and they'll let you know here.)

Be sure to also check the item description for other shipping information and terms.

• Payment methods accepted: This field tells you the payment methods that the seller accepts — checks, money orders, credit cards, or PayPal. Often, it tells you to read the item description for more details.

• Item-related links: From here you can e-mail the item to tip off a friend on a good find, get some advice from an antiques or collecting expert, or run the auction by someone who's been around the eBay block a few times and ask for strategy advice. You also have a link to a printer-friendly version of the page and an additional link to ask the seller a question.

Be sure to use the Watch This Item feature when shopping around. Organization is the name of the game on eBay, especially if you plan to bid on multiple auctions while you're running auctions of your own.

Time Is Money: eBay Strategy by the Clock

Most auctions at eBay run for a week; the auction item page always lists how much time is left. However, sellers can run auctions for as short as one day or as long as ten days. So synchronize your computer clock with eBay's master time and become the most precise eBay bidder around.

To synchronize your clock, make sure that you're logged on to the Internet and can easily access the eBay Web site. Then follow these steps:

1. Go into your computer's Control Panel and double-click the icon that represents your system's date and time functions.

2. On the eBay Web site, go to the Site Map by clicking its link above the navigation bar on the top of every eBay page.

3. Click the eBay Official Time link.

This link is located at the bottom of the Browse column on the left side of the page.

4. Check your computer's time against eBay's current time.

5. Click the minutes in your computer's clock and then click the Reload button (sometimes it's called Refresh) on your browser.

Clicking Reload ensures that you see the latest, correct time from eBay.

6. Type in the minutes displayed on the eBay Official Time page as soon as the newly reloaded page appears.

7. Repeat Steps 5 and 6 to synchronize your computer's seconds display with eBay's.

This process takes a little practice, but it can mean the difference between winning and losing an auction.