EBay for Dummies (12 page)
Authors: Marsha Collier
Tags: #Electronic Commerce, #Computers, #General, #E-Commerce, #Internet auctions, #Auctions - Computer network resources, #Internet, #Business & Economics, #EBay (Firm)
Surveying Your Sales on Your My eBay Selling Page
Your My eBay page supplies you with the tools to keep track of items you’re selling on eBay. The My eBay Selling page works much the same as the Bidding page, but this time you’re making the money — not spending it! Your current auction sales are listed in the Items I’m Selling area. The items with bids on them appear in green, and the ones without bids (or where the reserve hasn’t been met) are in red. At the bottom, you have a dollar total of the current bids on your auctions.
Your Sell page
Similar to the Buy section of the All Buying section, the Sell area keeps track of your ongoing listings on eBay. You can observe the auction action in real time (or at least every time you refresh the page). You can see how many bids have been placed, when the auction closes, and the time left in the auction. If you want more information about what’s going on, click the handy All Item Details link, which gives you a miniversion of each auction (without the description).
Your Sold page
When the sale is final, the items go into the Sold area (shown in Figure 4-9). Here’s where you can keep track of the sale. You can check whether the buyer has paid with PayPal as well as the transaction status. If the buyer has completed checkout, you can get his or her information by clicking the Next Steps/Status link. If the buyer hasn’t completed checkout, you can click the Send Invoice button to send the buyer an invoice. Very handy!
If you haven’t heard from the buyer after three days (the prescribed eBay deadline for contact), you may need to resend your invoice or send another e-mail. See Chapter 12 for more information on post-sale correspondence.
After the transaction is complete (which means the item has arrived and the buyer is happy with his or her purchase), you can click the handy Leave Feedback link to leave feedback about the buyer.
You can also relist the item from a quick link or place a Second Chance offer to an underbidder if you have more than one of the item. See the nearby sidebar for more on the Second Chance feature.
Your secret seller tool — Second Chance!
Those cagey minds at eBay have come up with another great selling implement. Say you have multiples of a single item (you
did
sell that set of Minton china one piece at a time, didn’t you?) or the winning bidder backs out of the transaction without paying. Second Chance offer gives you the opportunity to offer the item to one of the underbidders (okay, the losers) at their high bid price. You can also create a Second Chance if you set a reserve that wasn’t met before the auction ended. The Second Chance opportunity is available for up to 60 days after the sale ends.
You can offer the item to as many of the underbidders (as you have merchandise to cover) at a time and make this personal offer good for one to seven days. The bidder receives an e-mail regarding the offer and can access it on the site through a special link. It is visible to only you and the other bidder for the duration of the offer. The best part is that eBay doesn’t charge any additional listing fees for this feature, but you are charged the final value fee after the transaction is complete.
Figure 4-9:
The Sold area and all its options.
eBay’s Selling Manager/Selling Manager Pro
If you’re at the point where you’re selling bunches of items on the site, you may want to subscribe to one of eBay’s Selling Manager tools. These tools make your Selling area look completely different and give you the opportunity to handle more sales in a compact and convenient design. See Chapter 20 for detailed information.
Keeping Track of Your Transactions
Yes, I bug you about printing stuff at the outset of your selling career — not because I’m in cahoots with the paper industry but because I care. The eBay transaction process can be daunting, and beginners can easily lose track. The best way to protect yourself is to keep good records on your own. Don’t depend on eBay to cover you — not that eBay doesn’t care. But this is your money, so keep a close eye on it.
Now don’t become a pack rat and overdo it. To help point you in the right direction, here’s a list of important documents I think you should print and file whether you’re a buyer or a seller:
Auction pages as they appear when they close
PayPal statements indicating any payment you receive that doesn’t clear
Insurance or escrow forms
Refund and credit requests
Receipts from purchases you make for items to sell on eBay
Always, always,
always
save every e-mail message you receive about a transaction, whether you buy or sell until the transaction is over and feedback is left. Also save your EOAs (End of Auction e-mails) that eBay sends. For more information about EOAs and correspondence etiquette after the auction is over, see Chapters 8 and 12.
Why should you save all this stuff? Here are some reasons:
Even if you’re buying and selling just a few items a month on eBay, you need to keep track of who you owe and who owes you money.
Good e-mail correspondence is a learned art, but if you reference item numbers, your e-mail is an instant record. If you put your dates in writing — and follow up — you have a nice, neat paper trail.
Documenting the transaction through e-mail will come in handy if you ever end up in a dispute over the terms of the sale.
If you sell specialized items, you can keep track of trends and your frequent buyers.
Some day the IRS may come knocking on your door, especially if you buy stuff for the purpose of selling it on eBay. Scary, but true. For more on where you can get tax information, take a look at Chapter 9.
When it comes to keeping records via e-mail and documents about transactions, I say that after you’ve received your feedback (positive, of course), you can dump it. If you get negative feedback (how could you?), hang on to your paperwork for a little longer. Use your discretion, but generally you can toss the paperwork from a bad transaction after it has reached some sort of resolution. (You can find out more about feedback in the next section.)
Once a month, do a seller search on yourself and print your latest eBay history. Chapter 5 tells you more about doing seller searches, organizing your searches, and starting files on items you want to track.
Getting and Giving Feedback
You know how they say you are what you eat? On eBay, you are only as good as your feedback says you are. Your feedback is made up of comments — good, bad, or neutral — that people leave about you (and you leave about others). In effect, people are commenting on your overall professionalism. (Even if you’re an eBay hobbyist with no thought of using it professionally, a little businesslike courtesy can ease your transactions with everyone.) These comments are the basis for your eBay reputation.
Because feedback is so important to your reputation on eBay, you don’t want others leaving feedback or making bad transactions under your name. The only way to ensure this doesn’t happen is to always keep your password a secret. If you suspect somebody may know your password, change it before that person has a chance to sign in as you and ruin your reputation. (For more on selecting and protecting your level of privacy, see Chapters 1 and 15.)
When you get your first feedback, the number that appears next to your user ID is your feedback rating, which follows you everywhere you go on eBay, even if you change your user ID or e-mail address. It sticks to you like glue. Click the number next to any user ID and get a complete look at the user’s feedback profile. The thinking behind the feedback concept is that you wouldn’t be caught dead in a store that has a lousy reputation, so why on earth would you want to do business on the Internet with someone who has a lousy reputation?
You’re not required to leave feedback, but because it’s the benchmark by which all eBay users are judged, whether you’re buying or selling, you should
always
leave feedback comments. Get in the frame of mind that every time you complete a transaction — the minute the package arrives safely if you’re a seller or an item you’ve bid on and won arrives — you should go to eBay and post your feedback.