Exploring eBay! The Basics on Bidding
Exploring eBay! The Basics on Bidding PLEASE REMEMBER ANY OF THE INFORMATION MENTIONED HERE MAY BE CHANGED BY EBAY. EBAY CAN UPDATE ITS RULES AND PROCEDURES AT ANYTIME. PLEASE CHECK THE LATEST UPDATES ON THE EBAY WEBSITE AT www.ebay.com. _____________________________________________________________________ What is eBay? Founded in 1995, eBay is an internet-based version of a traditional auction. However, there’s no fast-talking auctioneer online and your contending bidders can be located anywhere in the world, as long as they have Internet access. It operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. eBay is just a marketplace to buy and sell, nothing more. eBay does not get involved in transactions between seller and buyer. The seller pays a small fee to eBay – similar to renting a booth at a flea market. Why would you want to eBay? Buying goods for less money than elsewhere. Buying from a large selection of goods (e.g. close-out brands by manufacturers). Buying goods not otherwise available conveniently (e.g. rare/collectible items). Buying for resale (e.g. buys at or below wholesale and sells retail). Having fun or bidding for the thrill of winning. However, by bidding, you are entering a contractual agreement and the winning bidder is obligated to buy the item auctioned. What can you find on eBay? Practically anything from common items such as clothing, school supplies, consumer electronics, and used vehicles to more pricey items such as aircraft engines and houses for sale in Las Vegas. Services such as musical instrument repair and laptop diagnosis service can also be found on eBay. More peculiar items/services such as ‘a box of dog hair’ and ‘hilarious singing on the phone for four minutes’ also exist on eBay. Rules on ‘Prohibited and Restricted items’ are posted on their website at the address: http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/policies.html . Alcohol, prescription drugs, and human body parts are a few examples prohibited on eBay site. How does eBay work? Seller posts an item for sale and sets the time limit on auction time (1, 3, 5, 7 or 10 days) Buyer finds what he’s looking for and can bid on an item, thus becoming a bidder Highest bidder wins and is then notified Winning Bidder makes payment Seller ships the item Copyright © 2005 ASCPL All Rights Reserved Exploring eBay! 5/16/2012 11:25:51 AM/MMS 1 of 21 How trustworthy is bidding/selling on eBay? eBay has an outstanding system for establishing reputations. The reputation (feedback) system comprises the focal point of the eBay system. It is a system that eBay members use to rate their buying or selling experience with another eBay member. After a listing is completed, the buyer and seller can leave a rating (positive, neutral, or negative) and a comment about each other. To see a member's full feedback profile, click on the number in parentheses next to their User ID. The feedback system helps you build your reputation on eBay and helps you check the reputation of other members of the community. For every positive feedback, member gets +1, 0 for neutral, and -1 for negative. Based upon the total points, the Feedback Score is the sum of all the ratings a member has received from unique users. In most cases, a high feedback score is a good sign, however one should also check a member’s profile to read comments from other members. The Feedback Star indicates the level of Feedback Score an eBay member has achieved. For example, a Yellow Star next to the member User ID means, the member has feedback score 10 to 49. For more information, check on http://pages.ebay.com/help/feedback/scores-reputation.html. In addition to leaving an overall Feedback rating (positive, neutral, or negative) for a seller, buyers also can leave anonymous (seller will not see the specific ratings) Detailed Seller Ratings (DSR) in four areas: item as described, communication, shipping time, and shipping and handling charges. With DSR, buyers can provide additional information about the transaction, and sellers can get a more complete picture of their performance. The DSR system is based on a one- to five-star scale. Five stars is the highest rating, and one star is the lowest rating. DSR do not impact the overall Feedback Score. Since eBay changed the rule for sellers for not being able to leave negative or neutral Feedback for buyers, the company put in place new policies and tools, and increased the number of reasons for removing negative and neutral Feedback in Unpaid Item cases. These changes were intended to help sellers better manage their bidders and buyers and ensure that policy violators are reported and held accountable. For details read at Updates on Feedback System on eBay. Note: if this link becomes outdated in the near future, you can always find the latest Feedback Rules under eBay Help pages. An independent organization Toolhaus.org has a website where anyone can check out for free negative/neutral and mutual feedbacks by putting in an individual eBay user ID. By doing so, one does not need to sift through to search for negative/neutral feedbacks for any particular eBay seller or buyer on eBay website. Check out at www.toolhaus.org. On the other hand, the website www.bidfraud.com lists reports that the public can read and write reports themselves about suspected fraudulent internet activity as it is happening (e.g., live auction) or once the transaction has completed & the buyer/seller has reported a fraudulent claim. Bidfraud is free to use. (This site can restrict users at times.) Copyright © 2005 ASCPL All Rights Reserved Exploring eBay! 5/16/2012 11:25:51 AM/MMS 2 of 21 eBay Time The official time of day at eBay headquarters in San Jose, California goes by Pacific Time Zone. Timing on eBay is more essential for eBay sellers. Sellers should time their auction to end when most potential bidders will be online. How to get started Registration is not required just to browse the eBay website. However, before you can bid anything on eBay, you are required to register. You may make up to fifteen purchases as a guest on eBay without completing full eBay registration. As a guest, you’re not allowed to bid on auction-style listings. Item must be purchased using Buy It Now. Payments must be made by credit card processed by PayPal. Item price must be $2000 or less. Items must be purchased from sellers who have a feedback score of 50 or higher and have a 98% positive rating. Let’s get Browsing Type www.ebay.com in the URL address bar area and let’s go over some features of the eBay’s homepage. Reviews & Guides: At the bottom of page under Inside eBay – eBay members share their expertise and comments. With each review, you submit a product rating and write your opinion. Readers can then vote on your review based on its helpfulness. The most popular reviews are given "Top Review" status. Guides allow you to be creative in both the topic and design of the page. Writers can insert pictures, special formatting, eBay links, and headings. Want It Now: Want It Now page http://pages.ebay.com/wantitnow/index.html lets buyers post requests for hard-to-find items and allows sellers to respond to those requests with eBay listings. Daily Deals: This page displays items ending soon with deep discounts, usually between 20% to 90% off, with zero bids and free shipping. This list gets replaced with new items continuously through out the day. eBay Pulse - http://pulse.ebay.com/ : It is a daily snapshot of current trends, hot picks, and cool stuff on eBay. It is changing dynamically and it’s a great way to catch a glimpse inside the world of eBay marketplace. Copyright © 2005 ASCPL All Rights Reserved Exploring eBay! 5/16/2012 11:25:51 AM/MMS 3 of 21 Categories The set of categories by which items are organized on eBay, such as Antiques, Books, Computers, Musical Instruments, etc. You can browse the categories and look at the lists of items until you find something you’re interested in. This is an alternative to doing a keyword search, where you enter words and get a list of items that contain those words. If you are looking for a unique item and know exactly which category to use, it’s the best way to get the defined search. Selecting the most appropriate category is essential for a seller to ensure maximum exposure of his/her listing. Successful searching on eBay First and foremost, eBay searches are not case-sensitive. Imagine which words a seller might use to describe the item that you’re looking for. Try several different options and combinations – but do not use more than two or three words at a time to ensure a variety of results. Search commands are ways of narrowing your search to get more specific results. Use Advanced Search Commands for more specific searches. Use specific words for more-targeted listings. For example, use Bee Gees posters to look for posters. Do not type in Bee Gees only. Place quotation marks around the group of words if you’re looking for items containing certain words in a particular order. For example, “Gone with the Wind”. Place a minus sign immediately before the word to be excluded (no space) if you do not want that certain word to be included in your results. For example, Dr. Scholl’s –sandals will not produce any sandals by Dr. Scholl’s. You can place all words that you want to exclude from your search in parentheses separated by commas such as Dr. Scholl’s – (sandals,sandles). This example will catch those sellers who may misspell sandals. If you’re looking for items that contain either term, place them in parentheses separated by commas. For example, (Christmas dress) (green,red) will look for green or red Christmas dresses. If you’re looking for items that contain words starting with a particular sequence of letters, use an * at the end. For example, chin* buddh* will retrieve items that contain words such as China, Chinese, Chinos, Chinook, and chintz, as well as words include Buddha, Buddha’s, Buddhist, and Buddhism. Specify a date, color, or brand for a closer match. For example, type Barbie dress 196* when you’re looking for a Barbie dress in the 1960s. Type red Christmas dress to look for Christmas dresses in red colors. Do not limit your search to titles alone. Check “Search title and description” box to ensure more results. eBay, in some cases, will expand your search to include a plural and/or an alternative spelling of your search word(s), provided you do not put terms in parenthesis. Searching for book, will retrieve items containing the keyword book or books. Searching for grey would bring back items containing the keyword grey or gray. Thus, if you want to only search for a specific spelling of word, simply enter the keyword or phrase in quotes or in parenthesis. For example, searching for “Tom Clancy” book will only retrieve items that include exact keywords Tom Clancy Book or Tom Clancy Books and not the additional items that may include the term Tom Clancy. eBay’s search engine searches for and, or, and the just like any other word. Do not use those terms unless in cases of looking for items with particular terms such as “Truth or Dare”. Copyright © 2005 ASCPL All Rights Reserved Exploring eBay! 5/16/2012 11:25:51 AM/MMS 4 of 21 Do not use extra punctuation unless it’s expected to appear in the title or description. Examples include Dr. Scholl’s, N-Sync, and t-shirt. Finally, do remember that sellers misspell words. Trying some misspellings can find items that do not get much traffic specifically due to the misspelling. In that case, you may find an auction with very little bidding competition. There are websites that are designed to search items with misspelled words on eBay site. Try http://www.fatfingers.co.uk/Default.aspx to find your luck to take advantage of searching eBay items with misspelled words. Types of Auctions There are three types of auctions on eBay. 1) Normal: Similar to a silent auction and is designed for one item (or package). The seller sets a minimum bid to start things off. 2) Reserve: A reserve price is the minimum price a seller is willing to accept for the item. A bidder can still use a minimum bid just as in a normal auction, but the reserve is the secret minimum to buyer. Only once the reserve has been met or surpassed, the term (reserve met) will appear beside the bid amount. Until that happens, the reserve has not been met and the caption will read (reserve not yet met). If you do not see either of these, it’s not a reserve auction. The seller is not obligated to sell the item if the reserve price is not met. The winning bidder must meet or exceed the reserve price and have the highest bid. This type of auction is also designed for one time (or package) only. 3) Private: In this auction, the bidders’ identities are kept secret though the seller is notified the winning bidder’s identity, and only the winning bidder’s. Copyright © 2005 ASCPL All Rights Reserved Exploring eBay! 5/16/2012 11:25:51 AM/MMS 5 of 21 Step by Step searching on eBay 1. Let’s start with a simple search by using a search entry box in the upper right hand corner. Let’s suppose that we are looking for a ‘toy’ or a ‘figure’ on Television Character, “Diego” from “Dora the Explorer” Children’s show. Type in “Diego” without any quotes in the search box. PLEASE REMEMBER ANY OF YOUR SEARCH RESULTS WILL NOT LOOK EXACTLY LIKE THE EXAMPLES FOLLOW FROM HERE ON. EBAY IS A DYNAMIC WEB SITE AND UPDATES ARE BEING APPLIED ONLINE EVERY SECOND. Result page also shows how to sort. By clicking on “Sort by Category” will list the items in more defined mode. If you want to skip the bidding and purchase items with Buy it Now option only click on your search term “diego” here under search results. Also notice eBay suggests Related Searches that include all possible other search words more suitable for our purpose. 2. The result also shows many sports related items not intended in our search. By clicking on the left pane to where it says “TV, Movie, Character Toys”, narrowing search results further to reach “Dora the Explorer” will eliminate unrelated search results. See below. To further narrow down to finding toy figures of Diego, type in another word “figure” in your search box next to your original search term “Diego”. Notice, each search result has all the words ‘Diego’ and ‘figure’ in their titles. However, not all sellers might use the words in the title to describe their auction. Try checking ‘Include description’ box in case the seller puts important keywords in the auction description but not in the title. The Copyright © 2005 ASCPL All Rights Reserved Exploring eBay! 5/16/2012 11:25:51 AM/MMS 6 of 21 search would bring more items that match not only the title but also in sellers’ description and should look similar to this. See below. Let’s analyze the following search results page carefully. On this page, the All Items tab on the top is activated – that means we are looking at all items mentioned below: 1. Items that are being traditionally auctioned. 2. Items being traditionally auctioned and, at the same time, sellers offer buyers with “Buy It Now” option. 3. Items that are only listed with “Buy It Now” price by sellers. If you are interested in looking at items on auctions only click on the Auctions only tab. Similarly, to look at items with options only, click on Buy it Now only tab. Some items may appear in both categories, since a seller can post an item in auction style and at the same time give buyer an option to purchase the item immediately with option. Setting a Price on eBay There are a number of options that a seller can use when setting a price on eBay. 1. Auction-Style Listing Price: List an item for sale by setting a minimum bid for a fixed length of time and let the market decides the price. 2. Buy it Now Feature: These items are identified with “Buy it Now” icon paired with “Buy it Now” price on search result page. There are three ways for sellers to use this Buy it Now option. a. Auction-style: Seller sets a minimum bid for an item and at the same time offer a “Buy it Now” option to potential buyers who may desire to avoid bidding and make a purchase immediately. If a buyer is willing to meet Buy It Now price before the first bid comes in, item sells instantly and terminates the auction. OR, if a bid comes in first, the Buy It Now option will be available for a limited time. Then auction proceeds normally. (In Reserve Price Auctions, Buy It Now disappears after the first bid that meets the reserve.) b. Fixed Price: Most common alternative to using auction-style format. It lets you list an item for an unchanging, set price, with no auction-style bidding. c. Buy it Now paired with Best Offer: If a seller offers this option, you can suggest a price that you’re willing to pay for the item. Copyright © 2005 ASCPL All Rights Reserved Exploring eBay! 5/16/2012 11:25:51 AM/MMS 7 of 21 3. Classified Ads: Similar to printed Ads in the papers, Classified Ads connect buyers and sellers, who then complete the sale outside of eBay. You'll see "Classified Ad" in the item listing and search results. You can find items or services that don’t fit into standard categories and can deal personally with the seller. Classified Ad sales aren't backed by eBay services and protection, including Feedback and problem resolution and are offered only for certain items. Let’s examine the right part of the search result page as follows. 1. 2. 3. This is an example of pure auction style. There is one bid on the item; the highest bid being at $4.99. A seller charge flat shipping rate $6.99; and the auction is ending in 1 day, 12 hours and 47 minutes. This is an example of pure option by seller. Seller offers free shipping with a fixed price for the item $11.99. Time left is 6 days, 8 hours, and 58 minutes. This is an example of a combination of an auction paired with option. The item has gotten no bid yet; the minimum starting bid price is at $8.99; however, an interested buyer can buy at $24.99 by using option right away and terminate the auction; charges flat shipping rate $7.95; and the auction is ending in 2 days 8 hours and 35 minutes. You may also see another option as “Buy It Now” or “Best Offer”. You can negotiate the price with the seller, giving you the opportunity to buy the item at a lower price than the Buy It Now price. The seller can accept, decline, or counteroffer your Best Offer. You may customize your screen to view the only information you want to view by clicking on the “Customize View” link. You can switch among three view styles List, Gallery, and Snapshot. You can also use Advanced Search form to narrow down your search in more specific way. We can limit our search to specify items fall within our price range, items from a specific seller by using seller’s User ID, items on Completed Listing list, items available in US only, etc. See below. Copyright © 2005 ASCPL All Rights Reserved Exploring eBay! 5/16/2012 11:25:51 AM/MMS 8 of 21 On the left pane In Advanced Search Form If you want to see what an item has sold for, you can search for completed (ended) listings. Completed listings are listings that have ended within the last 15 days, whether or not the item sold. Since many of these listings ended with a winning bidder or buyer, you can look at them to determine how high you should bid or what the market price is. As a seller, you can also decide what starting price you should use in an auction-style listing. Check the box on Completed listings only in the Advanced Search form or on the left pane of your search result page to do a research on the price of the item before you buys or sell. For serious eBay users, eBay introduced a new service called eBay Market Research in November of 2005, as a new subscription service to give buyers and sellers a view into millions of eBay listing, bidding, and pricing trends. The paid service gives subscribers access to data, charts, and graphs, that show the prices eBay’s 168 million users have paid in any auction over the past several months, based on their subscription levels. For more information, check out at http://pages.ebay.com/marketplace_research/index.html Further, there are special pages where members can post messages to the eBay Community about various topics. There is a discussion board for just about any eBay topic you can think of. You can post questions, learn valuable tips, share your experiences, and connect with other eBay users. Check out at http://hub.ebay.com/community to learn more on the Community Group. How to learn more details about an item When you click on an auction title, the first thing you see is the basic information on the auction. Note that the auction title and the auction number are at the top of the page. Copyright © 2005 ASCPL All Rights Reserved Exploring eBay! 5/16/2012 11:25:51 AM/MMS 9 of 21 Current bid: shows the accurate current bid for that moment. It is crucial to refresh your browser button to learn the latest current bid from time to time. Place Bid: You may input your bid price here and click Place Bid button. It also shows you the minimum bid price to enter. You can click on Watch this item button to save in your My eBay if you are not ready to bid yet but want to wait the activities on the auction. Time Left: tells how much time has left on this particular auction. Bid #: gives the bid history with number of total bids for that moment. By clicking on the number of bids shown next, an interested buyer can find out which eBay user bid at what time and what was his bid amount but not their maximum bids that may have taken place days or hours before a listing ends Item location: indicates where the seller lives or does business. That will determine whether a buyer will have to pay sales tax if he wins the auction. Returns: indicates whether the seller will accept returns or not. Shipping costs: when seller uses flat shipping rate, no matter how far the item has to be shipped, the shipping cost will be the same. Mostly, sellers of these types limit their shipping to certain geographical area. However, when seller uses a method to calculate shipping costs, location of an item will make a difference in total cost of winning an auction. Also note that some sellers make their profit on shipping and handling. They charge a lower price for the item and a high price for shipping and handling. You may report on those sellers by clicking Report item on the item listing page on the right pane. You must login and select a specific reason of your report. Copyright © 2005 ASCPL All Rights Reserved Exploring eBay! 5/16/2012 11:25:51 AM/MMS 10 of 21 eBay Store: If a seller has an eBay Store, you will see Visit Store symbol. See example. Clicking on seller’s User ID will provide you more information on seller’s ID history, other items for sales by the same seller. Take the time to read feedback comments on seller especially if you are thinking of bidding/buying on a pricy item. The color star next to the number indicates the level of feedback score points. By scrolling down the page, you will get to the auction ad where seller has a chance to provide all the information necessary to help the buyer make a decision to bid. As a bidder, this is your chance to get all the information you need to make an informed decision. If you are not satisfied with what seller provides in that section, you can always contact the seller to get more information by using “Ask a question” on the bottom left. The other tab describes the seller’s shipping, payment and return policy. Seller’s payment instructions may include more than the usual payment method. Seller may also state that he would not be able to ship the item until 7 days after the bidding is closed since he would be out of town, for example. It is crucial that buyer beware any particular requirements and statements made by the seller before bidding. You can bid without proper information, a choice you may regret later. A. Bidding on an Item You will need to register with eBay before you bid anything. Registration is free, fast and easy. You will choose a user ID (your eBay name, which is a login name) and a password. (Note: For security purpose, NEVER use your birth dates, your children’s names, addresses and MOST IMPORTANTLY, YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER as password. An alphanumeric combination that is nonsensical and only unique to you is recommended. Also never use the same password for more than one website or service.) Right on the top of the auction webpage, you can place a bid. If you have not registered or signed in yet, you will get a webpage that requires your login and password when you click Place Bid button. Copyright © 2005 ASCPL All Rights Reserved Exploring eBay! 5/16/2012 11:25:51 AM/MMS 11 of 21 Your bid must equal at least this amount plus one increment higher. The bid increment is the amount by which a bid will be raised each time the current bid is outdone. It is predetermined based on the current high bid. Click on the Place Bid button when you are ready to submit your bid. eBay can automatically bid on your behalf up to your maximum bid (Automatic or Proxy bidding). Proxy bidding works as follows: 1. When you place a bid, you enter the maximum amount you'd be willing to pay for the item. Your maximum amount is kept confidential from other bidders and the seller. 2. The eBay system compares your bid to those of the other bidders. 3. The system places bids on your behalf, using only as much of your bid as is necessary to maintain your high bid position (or to meet the reserve price). The system will bid up to your maximum amount. 4. If another bidder has a higher maximum, you'll be outbid. BUT, if no other bidder has a higher maximum, you win the item. And you could pay significantly less than your maximum price! This means you don't have to keep coming back to re-bid every time another bid is placed. Copyright © 2005 ASCPL All Rights Reserved Exploring eBay! 5/16/2012 11:25:51 AM/MMS 12 of 21 Example of Proxy (Automatic Bidding): This is what the bidding result page shows for an active item: Once you click on Show automatic bids on the top right, you can see the bids took place as below. Copyright © 2005 ASCPL All Rights Reserved Exploring eBay! 5/16/2012 11:25:51 AM/MMS 13 of 21 Tips on Bidding 1) Only bid on what you decide to buy. Make every bid a serious one. You will earn negative feedback from this practice and after enough infractions you will be permanently suspended from eBay. Learn all you can about the item. Thoroughly review the item description. If not enough information given, ask the seller questions. Research the item’s value. Print sources such as catalogs and price guidelines available in your local library, local market ads, regular online merchant stores, and other auction websites such as www.ubid.com can provide valuable information on possible market price of an item. www.yahoo.com has a shopping page where your search of an item would provide list of vendors selling a particular product with comparisons on prices. Google Product Search http://www.google.com/shopping is also a price engine website launched by Google Inc and does the similar thing as Yahoo. Check the feedback about the seller. Normally, higher feedback score is a good sign. However, check on actual feedbacks, especially negative ones, to find out how serious the problems that earned the seller the negative points. Often, you will also find seller’s rebuttal to the buyer’s negative feedback. Decide the maximum you're willing to pay for the item. Make sure the item is legal and allowed. Use extra caution if an item is listing significantly below the manufacturer's suggested retail price. Without seeing and touching the item yourself, authenticity is all in seller’s promise. Don't assume without confirmation that claims about an item's condition or value are true, or that photographs are accurate. Get an escrow if you cannot lose more than $500. Get the item appraised by an expert agreed by both you and the seller for valuable items. Time your bids. Watch the “Time Left” for an auction. Click on “Watch this item” feature to track the items you wish to buy. If you bid too early you may drive the price up prematurely. However, if you are not going to be around at the closing time and you really want the item, consider “proxy bidding”. 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) B. Retracting a Bid You can retract a bid if you desire, but you open yourself to eBay strike. Get two or more strikes from different sellers and you'll find yourself blocked from a lot of listings. You can find the option to “retract your bid” at the bottom of the confirmation page after your bid. Unless you have a darn good excuse, you should not retract. There are, however, a few exceptional circumstances (described in the User Agreement you agreed upon signing up with eBay at registration) under which you may retract a bid. These are if: You made a typographical error and entered the wrong bid amount. For instance, you bid $99.50 instead of $9.95. If this occurs, re-enter the correct bid amount immediately after you retract your bid. If you do not place another bid, the retraction will be in violation of eBay's policy and could result in your suspension. The description of an item you have bid on has changed significantly. Copyright © 2005 ASCPL All Rights Reserved Exploring eBay! 5/16/2012 11:25:51 AM/MMS 14 of 21 You can't reach the seller. This means that you tried calling the seller but his or her phone number doesn't work, or you have tried emailing a message to the seller and it comes back undeliverable. C. Following up with your bid/Watching Go to My eBay on the navigation bar. It features a record of your bidding. See below for an example summary page of how you can keep track of your biddings, items you are watching, and other convenient eBay services. You can also check messages sent by other sellers, buyers and email confirmations on your bids from eBay immediately after your bidding. eBay also sends you an email message acknowledging when you are outbid or when you win the auction. If you are not in a hurry to buy a particular item, or if you cannot find what you seek, search for an item in Advanced Search, and from your results page, click on Save this search and alert me later next to the results. Indicate that you want eBay to email you for a specific time period whenever items are listed which match your search terms. Sniping: It is placing a high bid in the closing seconds of an auction-style listing is within the eBay Community. Sniping is part of the eBay experience, similar to raising your hand at the last second at an open auction, and all bids placed before a listing ends are valid - even if they're placed one second before the listing ends. If you are online at the auction ending time, and there are (or if you anticipate) other bidders, open the auction page in two windows so that you can be prepared to make quick follow up bid. It’s a good idea to SIGN OUT of eBay and SIGN IN again to avoid delaying the bid, if eBay asks you to sign in right after you bid. Make sure to reload the auction page to see the latest current bid. Copyright © 2005 ASCPL All Rights Reserved Exploring eBay! 5/16/2012 11:25:51 AM/MMS 15 of 21 1-click bids To help you avoid being outbid, e-Bay now offers 1-click bids during the final 60 minutes of a listing. When you click the 1-click bid button, eBay automatically raise your bid by one increment. To use 1-click bidding, you need to be signed in to eBay and have at least one bid on the item already. Shill Bidding: It is a prohibited practice on eBay when a bid is deliberately placed just to raise the price of an item artificially. To avoid appearance of involvement in this activity, family members, friends, and individuals living or working together, or sharing a computer should not bid on each other’s items. D. Payment Methods on eBay Check out the latest payment methods on eBay on this link: http://pages.ebay.com/help/pay/methods.html. As of May 2012, eBay accepts the followings payment methods. Important: Sellers can’t require you to pay using payment methods that aren’t allowed on eBay. And if your seller wants to change payment methods after the listing has ended, you can insist on paying with one of the methods specified in the seller’s original listing. For more about safe payment methods, see Accepted Payments policy. E. Security Concern The Internet in general is a hotbed of fraud schemes, and eBay is definitely an attractive place for these con artists. Anonymity provides an easy path to cheating people out of money. But while eBay users are anonymous on the surface, eBay almost always knows who they are. The good news is that eBay has a superb system for establishing reputations. In most cases of fraud committed through eBay, the victims do have some remedy. The reputation (feedback) system, in other words, Trust, comprises the heart and soul of the eBay system. Copyright © 2005 ASCPL All Rights Reserved Exploring eBay! 5/16/2012 11:25:51 AM/MMS 16 of 21 In order to make buyers feel safer when making purchases on eBay, eBay laid out eBay Buyer Protection on their main page at this link: http://pages.ebay.com/coverage/index.html. In addition, eBay recommends independent escrow service at http://www.escrow.com for any purchase, but typically is used for purchases of $500 or more. It is a licensed and regulated company that collects, holds, and sends a buyer's money to a seller according to instructions agreed on by both the buyer and seller. Typically, once the buyer receives and approves the item from the seller within an agreed time frame, the escrow service then sends the payment to the seller. Consult this eBay page http://pages.ebay.com/help/pay/escrow.html before using one to avoid fraudulent escrow services. The most common type of buyer fraud is simply not paying for an item. Sellers can deal with non-paying bidders by filing an Unpaid Item dispute. To avoid buyer fraud: Always check the feedback of your bidders. If a bidder has excessive negative feedback, you may be able to cancel the bid. You can add buyer requirement in your listing. Read details on Selecting Buyer Requirement Page. Keep in mind, however, that in purchasing via credit card a buyer can always ask the credit card company for a charge-back on an item with which he or she is dissatisfied. That creates the risk that the seller ends up refunding the purchase price. If your buyer doesn't pay, after an appropriate waiting period, eBay provides options to deal with unpaid item. Read more details at what to do when the buyer doesn’t pay page on eBay site. There are two main ways that seller can commit fraud: The item the buyer purchased is dramatically different from how it was described in the listing; or the item simply never arrives. To avoid seller fraud: Always check seller feedback before placing a bid. Ask all relevant questions before bidding on an auction. Some sellers think that if they don't say what condition the item is in, it's the buyer's fault if he bids on the item assuming it's in good condition and it turns out to be a piece of junk. Always leave negative feedback for unscrupulous sellers -- this makes it harder for them to continue committing fraud. Should you have any unresolved disputes between you and the seller/buyer even after using all resources to reach a concurrence, go to Customer Support and Select Resolution Center to report your problem. Though eBay allows sellers to change their User IDs, it is not recommended since a User ID plays an important role in a member’s reputation. A good reason and example of changing a User ID would be when a seller wants to reflect a new line of business. Normally, a member who has changed User IDs keeps the same member profile. Change of a User ID would be indicated by icon next to the User ID for 30 days. Copyright © 2005 ASCPL All Rights Reserved Exploring eBay! 5/16/2012 11:25:51 AM/MMS 17 of 21 eBay Glossary: To find out what a particular eBay term or icon means, visit http://pages.ebay.com/help/account/glossary.html. eBay also has “Trading Assistants”, who are independent business owners, who will list your product and sell it for you for a fee on eBay. Read at this link about more on them. http://ebaytradingassistant.com/directory/index.php?page=home APPENDIX The following pages show examples of phishing scams many con artists are trying to use on eBay and PayPal customers. Phishing is sending an email to user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate business or enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information such as passwords and account numbers that will be used for identity theft. First and foremost, neither PayPal nor eBay addresses you as in a general format, “Dear PayPal” or “Dear eBay member”. Second, even though the link in the e-mail looks like an eBay or PayPal URL, once you click on it, you can see in your browser's address bar that you're not at eBay at all. Phishing Email that appears to be from PayPal to a customer Copyright © 2005 ASCPL All Rights Reserved Exploring eBay! 5/16/2012 11:25:51 AM/MMS 18 of 21 Phishing Email that appears to be from eBay to a customer What do you do when you receive a phishing email? DO NOT RESPOND TO ANY OF THESE EMAILS. You should immediately delete it since it’s not only sent to you with the intention to steal your identify but can be loaded with viruses. Upon opening the email, your computer can be attacked by viruses. If you are a regular eBay and PayPal user, you should consider downloading eBay Toolbar and Account Guard on your computer. The easiest way to download the eBay Toolbar is on the www.download.com by cnet group. Search the words “eBay Toolbar: and you should get to this link: http://download.cnet.com/eBay-Toolbar/300012512_4-10153544.html?tag=mncol;1. eBay Toolbar reminds you when listings you're bidding on are about to end, and even lets you choose from a variety of alert times. Copyright © 2005 ASCPL All Rights Reserved Exploring eBay! 5/16/2012 11:25:51 AM/MMS 19 of 21 Once you have downloaded, your eBay Toolbar will always be there when your open your internet browser. From your eBay Toolbar, you can manage your bidding, selling activities from one location, My eBay tab. You can get to the Security Center in one click. See below. You can even search items on eBay by placing search terms in your eBay toolbar search button without being actually at eBay website. See example below. You can customize your eBay Toolbar to turn on/off what you want to see. Click on the drop-down arrow next to eBay, select Toolbar Options and select Customize tab to do so. Copyright © 2005 ASCPL All Rights Reserved Exploring eBay! 5/16/2012 11:25:51 AM/MMS 20 of 21 BIBLIOGRAPHY www.eBay.com www.howstuffworks.com Sinclair, Joseph T. eBay the Smart Way: Selling, Buying, and Profiting on the web’s #1 Auction Site. Fourth Edition. New York, NY. AMACOM, 2005. 381.177 Si616e 4th ed. Sinclair, Joseph T. eBay global the smart way: buying and selling internationally world's #1 auction site. New York, NY. AMACOM, 2004. 382 Si616eg on the Miller, Michael. Absolute beginner’s Guide to eBay. Indianapolis, Indiana. Que Publishing, 2003. 381.1702 M649ab. Holden, Greg. How to Do Everything with eBay. Emeryville, CA. McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2004. 381.177 H726h. Collier, Marsha. eBay: Timesaving Techniques for Dummies. Indianapolis, Indiana. Wiley Publishing, 2004. 381.177 C699et Copyright © 2005 ASCPL All Rights Reserved Exploring eBay! 5/16/2012 11:25:51 AM/MMS 21 of 21
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