The Official eBay Guide to Buying, Selling, and Collecting Just About Anything
320
The Official eBay Guide to Buying, Selling, and Collecting Just About Anything
320eBook
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Overview
Aunt Fannie's cameo pin collection...the cartoon-character lunch boxes you had in third grade...that cast-iron doorstop you bought for $2 but is really worth $200....Whether you're a busy buyer, an avid seller, or just a fun-loving browser, you'll find countless collectibles like these on eBay, the world's largest person-to-person online trading community.
Now -- in this official primer from the popular Internet site that has revolutionized the collecting world -- the experts at eBay unlock the secrets of successful online buying and selling, for everyone from the enthusiastic beginner to the seasoned pro. Featuring an introduction by Pierre Omidyar, eBay's founder and chairman, and packed with tips and stories from "eBaysians" all over the country, The Official eBay™ Guide is the only authorized book that shows you how to
* BUY SMART -- unraveling the mystery of value, bidding to win, and learning how to spot the really good stuff
* BE A SAVVY SELLER -- from writing the perfect item listing to collecting payments from your happy customers
* LEARN FROM THE EXPERTS -- top eBaysians, Ambassadors, Power Sellers, and eBay employees lend advice and share secrets for success
* FIND THE GREAT STUFF -- how to work garage sales, flea markets, tag sales, estate sales, and even the other kind of auction
Packed with invaluable resources, information, and practical tips, The Official eBay™ Guide also features entertaining stories about the millions of people who make up the eBay community. It's your must-have companion for mastering the art of buying and selling an astounding range of collectibles and items, from the practical to the whimsical.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781439146712 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Touchstone |
| Publication date: | 05/11/2010 |
| Sold by: | SIMON & SCHUSTER |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 320 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
How to Use This Book Welcome to The Official eBay™ Guide to Buying, Selling, and Collecting Just About Anything. This book's mission is to help you be a successful eBay user. On a point-and-click basis, eBay isn't hard to master. But there's much more to eBay than words and images on a screen. The world's largest person-to-person, auction-format online trading site has spawned, for many people, a new way of life. Getting the most out of eBay means -- among other things -- mastering new technical skills, searching for amazing stuff (both online and beyond), understanding the economics of the collectibles market, becoming a savvy buyer, perhaps running your own small business, and interacting with other traders (and friends) who make up the eBay community all over the world. In this book, we attempt not only to demystify the technological intricacies and philosophical underpinnings of eBay, but also to help people get the most satisfaction out of building their collections, no matter what they collect. The book is organized into five sections: The book follows a logical progression of its own, but each chapter is also designed to stand alone. This book contains the collected wisdom of many eBaysians, but if you can't find what you're looking for, let us know so that we may include it in a future edition. Success on eBay comes from sharing. Send your feedback and tips for eBay success to: ebayguide@ebay.com. Copyright © 1999 by eBay Inc.
Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction by Pierre Omidyar, Founder and Chairman of eBay Inc.
How to Use This Book
Part I
The Thrill of the Hunt
Chapter 1
Welcome to the World's Largest Person-to-Person Online Trading Community
The eBay Revolution: The Mouse That Roared
The Four Pillars of eBay
Who Makes Up the eBay Community?
Before eBay/After eBay
Meet Our Extended Family
Mastering the eBay Way in Five Easy Steps
Why Buying on eBay is Safe
A Nickel Tour of the Site
What Makes eBay Auctions Unique?
Traditional Auction vs. eBay Auction
Chapter 2
The Perfect Setup
You Gotta Be in It to Win It: Technical Stuff
The Need for Speed: Bits and Bandwidth
Registering to Become Part of the eBay Community
What's in a Name?
What eBay Charges Per Item
Going Dutch
Who You Are: Picking a Handle and Password
How eBay Keeps You in the Loop
Community Customs
Why Spam Ain't Kosher
Chapter 3
The Quest for Amazing Stuff
Homing In, Category by Category
The Big List at a Glance
What You Won't Find
Finding What You're Looking For
The No-Frills Search
Follow the Leader: Tracking Like-minded Bidders and Sellers
Personal Shopper
Gallery Hopping and Shopping
Beyond Collectibles: Everyday Wonders
Real Estate Reality Check
The "Great Collections" Connection
Kruse Control
Chapter 4
Let the Bidding Begin
Demystifying the Bidding Process
What It Means to Bid
Retracting a Bid
You Absolutely Positively Have to Have It: Bidding to Win
Capitalism for the Rest of Us
Up and Up: Bidding Increments
Cracking the Bid Code
Understanding Reserves
Dutch Auctions
Do Your Due Diligence
Good Questions to Ask
Part II
Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow
Chapter 5
Putting It on the Block
Details, Please: Listing Your Item for Sale
The Key to Winning Titles
Some Like Plain Vanilla
The Great Listing Checklist
Files with Style: Using HTML
Say It with Pictures
A Host of Options
Off-the-Shelf Software
Chapter 6
Taking Care of Bidness
Name Your Price
Is It Really What You Think It Is?
To Reserve or Not to Reserve?
Establishing Payment Methods and Terms
Perfect Timing
Payments Made Easy
Sorry, You Can't Bid on Your Own Auction
Getting the Shipping Straight
Happy Returns
Final Touches
Forget Something?
Sellers, Please Stand By
Knocking Off Early
Canceling Bids
Your Item Didn't Sell
Building a Business on eBay
Part III
Making Contact
Chapter 7
The Bidding Is Closed -- Now What?
Buyer Meet Seller, Seller Meet Buyer
You've Got Mail
Tracking Down Email Addresses
I Want a Cookie
Temporary Parking: Escrow Services
Shipping News: Getting Out the Goods
Ordering Supplies on the Net
Stamp Me -- I Must Be Dreaming
Closing the Loop: Leaving Feedback
Chapter 8
SafeHarbor and Happy Trading
Heading for SafeHarbor
Suspicious Minds: Identifying and Reporting Bad Behavior
Stake Your Claim: Insurance Against Fraud
Violations eBay Responds to Automatically
It's the Law: Prohibited, Questionable, and Infringing Items
Protecting Your Privacy
eBay's Privacy Policy
Making Your Experience More Positive
When a Deal Goes South
Best Remedy Prevention
Escrow Services
Who Was That Masked Man? Reaching Out to People Beyond Email
Chapter 9
When You Need a Friend
For Do-It-Yourselfers
By the Boards
eBay Customer Service Boards
Peer-to-Peer Support Boards
Talk the Talk
Giving Back
Part IV
You Are What You Collect
Chapter 10
Collecting Your Thoughts
Why Do People Collect?
Collecting vs. Accumulating
When Does a Collection Start? When Does It End?
Kids' Kollections
Getting Picky: Building and Upgrading
Chapter 11
The Mystery of Value
Separated at Birth: No Two Collectibles Are Exactly Alike
Eight Is Enough: The Collectibles Checklist
Mint to Be
Consult Before You Clean
Distinguishing Price from Value
Car Collecting Caveats
Where Passion Meets Price: Collecting as an Investment
Ready, "Set," Go: Collectors' Series
How Limited Is a Limited Edition?
Chapter 12
Becoming an Expert
Mastering the Details
Training Your Eye -- and Ear, Nose, and Fingers
Immersing Yourself in the Market
Research, Research, Research
Chapter 13
Where the Action Is
Making the Rounds
Collector Connections on the Web
Special Sources for Established Dealers
Chapter 14
Out In the Field
Marketplace 101
Dealing with Dealers
Haggling with the Best of Them
Price Check, Aisle Six
Everything's Negotiable
A Tax Break for Dealers
Mood Breakers
Maximizing Your Auction Action
Beyond Negotiating: The Law of Averages
Finders Keepers: Shopping Etiquette
Tricks of Trading
It Happens to Everyone: Buying Mistakes
Part V
Putting It All Together
Chapter 15
My eBay and Other Ways to Keep Track of It All
My eBay
Simple Spreadsheets You Can Create
Chapter 16
Documenting the Goods
Creating an Inventory
Insurance
Appraisals
Questions for the Appraiser
Collector, Appraise Thyself
Coming to Your Town: The Antiques Road Show
You Can't Take It With You
Going Public: Donating to an Institution
Trailblazing a Library
Appendices
eBay Site Map
eBay Category Overview
Index
Introduction
First, a confession: I'm not a real collector. But I like to consider myself a collector by proxy -- someone who's interested in other people's collections. As many people know, my wife, Pam, collects Pez dispensers, and it's become part of the eBay legend that I invented the Web site just so she could pursue this hobby. The truth is, long before I clued in to her Pezmania, I had been thinking about how to create an efficient marketplace -- a level playing field, where everyone had access to the same information and could compete on the same terms as anyone else. As a software engineer, I worked for a couple of Silicon Valley companies, and I had even cofounded an early e-commerce site. This got me thinking that maybe the Internet was the place to create such an efficient market. Not just a site where big corporations sold stuff to consumers and bombarded them with ads, but rather one where people "traded" with each other. I thought, if you could bring enough people together and let them pay whatever they thought something was worth (in other words, have them bid in an auction format), real values could be realized and it could ultimately be a fairer system -- a win-win for buyers and sellers.
Around the same time, Pam (who was then my fiancée) mentioned that she wished she could find other Pez collectors with whom she could buy and sell dispensers so she could complete her collection. It occurred to me that the Internet might again be the perfect medium for accomplishing this. After all, the Net was becoming pervasive -- businesses and households were getting hooked up at an amazing rate. With such a critical mass, you'd be bound to have a few Pez purveyors -- and who knows what else? Best of all, the Net was interactive: I could imagine people not only communicating with each other one on one around a transaction, but also sharing information about their passion.
However, when eBay's AuctionWeb (the name was later shortened) launched on Labor Day, 1995, I never dreamed that the site would become the leading Internet destination for people buying and selling just about anything. It all seems more of a happy accident than a grand business design -- like that old commercial where the guy with the chocolate bar runs into the guy with the peanut butter and -- eureka! -- the peanut butter cup is born. Indeed, eBay.com is the perfect convergence of technology and great people. Person-to-person online trading in an auction format is a fascinating concept, but it merely provides an infrastructure for an even more fascinating sociological experiment. There have been millions of positive transactions on eBay, proving time after time that people are basically honest and trustworthy and eager to do a good job. Without the passion and goodwill of collectors and small entrepreneurs, eBay would no doubt have been just a blip at the end of the twentieth century.
I have to admit that it wasn't until almost a year after the first auction that I really understood who our users were. My business partner Jeff Skoll, an analytical powerhouse, had finally talked me into having a focus group, which included people from all walks of life. One of them was a truck driver who said, "I don't use eBay that much -- I'm on it only two or three times a day. But my son is on all the time. He has packages coming and going constantly." Then the truck driver and everyone else in the group asked to take a break so they could go check their auctions. Wow! Not only were these people dedicated, but I could see that eBay had become a part of their lives.
Of course, I'd been well aware that we were on to something for some time. I launched eBay on the space my personal Internet service provider allocated to me as a member. After a few months, I was getting so much traffic they kicked me off the personal site. In February of '96, I had to start charging people. My initial goal was just to cover my rising costs of Internet service; I wasn't even thinking profit. People seemed happy to pay for the service, except I was so busy keeping the site going, I couldn't even get to the mail and open the checks that were piling up. That's when I realized my little hobby/experiment had taken on a life of its own. A couple months later, I had to buy my own server and hire a part-time employee to open the mail. We were no longer working out of my house, but this was still very much a start-up company. The three of us worked out of one room and Jeff kept a suit at the office "just in case" he had to meet with some business bigwig. Neither of us quit our other jobs until August of that year.
By the time Meg Whitman joined the company in early '98 as our CEO, we realized that eBay was a collector phenomenon. But, of course, the collectors already knew that -- and they guided us. Their fingerprints are all over the site, from policies and categories to chat rooms to the new interface introduced in 1999. We listen to all user suggestions and, as we add and improve our services, we will continue to do so. eBay is today what our members have built and will be tomorrow what they want it to be. I always tell our members "if you don't like something on eBay, change it." Whether you're a collector or dealer or both, the worst thing you can be is apathetic or disaffected.
One of the most unexpected and gratifying aspects of eBay is the impact it's had on people's lives. eBay has given many people a way to achieve success on their own terms, whether that means becoming a self-sufficient businessperson, finding all the lost toys from one's childhood, or simply finding a bunch of like-minded souls. eBay's strength depends on our members' ability to connect with other members of this new global trading community.
That's what this book is all about. The Official eBay Guide is the only book authorized by our company. In the following pages, you'll find clear explanations of the ins and outs of the site, tips for selling and bidding smartly, do's and don'ts of eBay etiquette, and strategies for building and maintaining a stellar collection. In short, our goal is to help you the user be as successful on eBay as possible.
I may not be a collector, but I have found a few treasures on eBay, and sweated snipers in the process. In fact, I bought Pam's wedding gift -- a rare "Pez pal bride" Pez dispenser, of course -- on the site. (The staff then chipped in and bought the matching groom for her in another eBay sale.) Winning that for her was much more of a kick than I expected. And that's really the point of eBay -- to have fun. No matter how much the eBay universe expands, I hope we never lose that sense of wonder.
by Pierre Omidyar, Founder and Chairman of eBay Inc., Copyright 1999 by eBay Inc.