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Documentation by C. Kless (Revised 2-18-09)

Some Interesting eBay Facts

• Founded September 1995 • 212 million registered users as of 2006 • 724,000 Americans report eBay is their primary or secondary source of

income • At any given time, there are 19 million items available on the site (300

times the number of stock keeping shelves and bins in Wal-Mart). • eBay’s Gross Merchandise Vale (total value of all successful closed

listings on eBay) = 44.3 billion • The largest item ever sold on eBay? A Jumbo Jet! • On an average day:

o A lamp sells every 120 seconds o A small kitchen appliance sells every 60 seconds o A power tool sells every 60 seconds o A diamond ring sells every 83 seconds

Source: USPS Selling in eBay seminar, 2007. Many thanks to Arleen Twist for providing updated information!

eBay University There are tutorials available on eBay to help you with learning to sell. To find them, go to www.ebay.com and go to the Help tab in the menu in the upper righthand corner of the homepage. From the drop down list of related links, select Learning Center.

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On the eBay University Learning Center page, under How to Sell, click on free tutorials. Choose from any of the audio or video tutorials to receive step by step instructions in how to sell items on eBay.

Becoming an eBay Seller First, you need to register for a free eBay account (a prerequisite for this class). To establish a seller’s account, you will need a credit or debit card and a checking account. This information is required to help keep eBay a safe place to buy and sell. Also, when you put items up for sale, eBay charges small listing fees (starting at 30 cents).

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PayPal PayPal is a website which offers secure online transactions. When you have an account with PayPal, you can send or receive funds on the Internet without revealing your credit card number or bank account information to a third party. While it is not necessary to use PayPal for eBay transactions, PayPal is widely utilized on eBay and offers some benefits for an eBay seller. Pros:

• PayPal is instantaneous, debiting or crediting your account as soon as the transaction is completed.

• PayPal has a complaint process by which sellers and buyers can resolve disputes.

• Not using PayPal may reduce your potential to buy or sell because many people prefer the speed and convenience it offers.

• As a buyer, you will have to provide account information only to PayPal, not to every merchant you transact with.

• A buyer pays no PayPal fees. Cons:

• You will most likely be phished and receive spoof emails from people looking to access your PayPal account. (Forward all phishing emails to spoof@PayPal.com!)

• You will have to provide personal financial information to PayPal. • As a seller, you will have some PayPal fees.

To open a PayPal account, go to www.paypal.com and click Sign Up.

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On the next page, choose whether you would like to set up a Personal, Premier, or Business account. Unless you are planning to start your own business through eBay, you will just need a Personal account.

To fill out the account signup form, you will need a valid email address (preferably the one you used to register with eBay) and a valid credit card or debit card (debit cards are accepted if they have the MasterCard or VISA logo displayed on the front). You may also provide a valid bank account, but this is optional unless you want to upgrade to a Business or Premier account. You will also need to create a password, but not a username; you use your email address to log in to PayPal. Listing an Item for Sale Before you go to eBay to list an item for sale, you will want to take a photograph of your item. The best way to do this is to use a digital camera, ideally one that has 2.0 megapixels or better resolution and a macro setting (allowing it to focus 1” from the surface of an object). You can also take a photo with a regular film camera and either have it converted into digital format by the photo development lab or digitize it yourself using a scanner. If your item is flat (like a baseball card), you can just scan the item itself.

Make sure you have at least one good, high quality photo of any item you are trying to sell on eBay. This is your best marketing tool! Many items will not sell at all without a decent image. For this class, we’re going to use the image on the left, which can be found on our flash drives.

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Start Selling eBay makes listing your items easy with their step by step form. To begin, click on the Sell tab on the menu at the top of the homepage. Then click the big blue button that says Start selling.

Select a Category Next, you’ll have to select a category for your item. You can browse through the categories, or type in at least three keywords about your item to see eBay’s category suggestions.

For example, for our practice picture, you might type in words like “jewelry,” “brooch,” “pin,” or other descriptive terms. eBay will give you a list of suggested categories; just click the checkbox next to a category to select it. You can pick a second category if you feel your item fits into more than one, but there is a fee for listing in more than one category. Try to pick an obvious category, where people searching for items like yours would think to look first. Once you have selected your category, click Continue.

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Filling Out the Sell Item Form Now you’re ready to fill out the eBay listing form. As a practice exercise, you can fill out the form as we go through this handout; just don’t actually submit the listing at the end of the page! There are two versions of the listing form: a simple one with just the selling essentials, and a more detailed one with additional options. For this class, we’re going to go through the more detailed form, so click Go under the More listing choices option.

The first part of the listing form is your category, which should already be filled in. If you change your mind, though, just click Change category to pick a new category. NOTE: If you are working on a listing form and want to complete it at a later time, click Save for later at the top of the listing page. eBay will save your work so you can return to it some other time.

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Next, you’ll need to write a Title for your item. You can use up to 55 characters. Try to think of keywords potential bidders might use to search for your item and put them in the title, along with any special details about your item. If you want to provide additional information, you can enter a Type and Material description for your item, as well as (for a $0.50 fee) a Subtitle.

Now it’s time to add your picture! Click the Add pictures button and find your digital image to add it to your listing. The first picture is free, but each additional picture costs $0.15. You can also pay extra for the Gallery option, which allows photos to appear in a result list after a keyword search.

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You may want to consider including multiple photos if your object is large or multi-dimensional, so you can show several different views. Remember, your photos must be accurate! If your item is damaged in some way, describe the damage in the item description and document it in your photos. The next step is to write a description of the item you’re selling. Include relevant details, such as what makes your item unique, the condition of the item, and any features and benefits of the item.

If you want to jazz up your listing, you can pay a $0.10 fee to add a theme and picture layout to the page with one of eBay’s Listing Designer templates. You can also add a visitor counter to keep track of how many people look at your item.

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In the next section of the form, you’ll indicate the pricing of your item and the duration of the auction. You set your starting price, indicate the quantity of items you have to sell, and decide how long the listing will be up on eBay (no more than 10 days). You can also choose to donate a percentage of your profits to a charity organization.

NOTE: It’s a good idea to list items over a weekend, because auctions tend to move faster then. As eBay suggests, you should search completed listings to get an idea of how much to ask for your item. Look for similar items in a similar condition and see what they have sold for recently on eBay. This will give you a good idea of the demand for the item and how much people are willing to spend to get the item you’re selling. Ultimately, an item is only worth as much as someone is willing pay for it! If you want to, you can add more contact details to give buyers additional ways to reach you beyond your eBay account. Always use caution when giving out any personal contact information!

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Next, decide how you would like to be paid for your item. Most eBay sellers use PayPal, but you can also choose to accept credit card or other methods of payment. Click Add or remove options to see payment options besides PayPal.

Be aware that PayPal does charge some fees when you receive funds for a sold item. Below is a summary of PayPal’s fee system; check out their website for more details.

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Next you must provide shipping terms. Decide where you will ship items (within the continental United States or beyond), what shipping service you will use, and how much you will charge. You can charge a flat rate or calculate shipping based on the destination and size of the item. eBay offers a Shipping Wizard that can help you figure out how much to charge.

NOTE: If you are planning to operate as a business or sell many items, contact the Ohio Department of Taxation for guidelines on how to handle sales tax. Finally, you can add any other information to your listing that you’d like buyers to know. Make sure to specify a return policy.

You can also decide on buyer requirements. One of the most common complaints sellers have is that buyers bid, win, and then don’t pay. A seller can reduce the chances of unreliable sellers by putting in buyer requirements, such as only selling to users with a certain amount of positive feedback, or specifying that a certain amount of negative feedback will get a user’s bid cancelled. Before submitting your listing, be sure to preview it! This will show you how your listing will look to potential bidders. (And remember, for the purposes of this class, don’t hit Continue at the bottom of the page!)

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Listing Fees eBay charges 3 basic fees:

• An Insertion Fee to list an item (this is based on your asking price for the item)

• An Optional Feature Fee for special promotional listing features • A Final Value Fee based on the final price the item garners (if your

item fails to sell, you don’t have to pay this) You will also, as mentioned before, have some PayPal Fees for collecting payment via your PayPal account. At the end of your listing form, eBay will give you a total of the fees that will be charged when you list your item. This includes your insertion fee and the fees for any optional features you have added to your listing. The minimum listing fee is $0.15, for a basic listing for an item costing less than $0.99. A full list of eBay fees can be found here: pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html.

Managing eBay Sales Once you have listed an item (or multiple items) for sale on eBay, you should monitor your listings. To do this, go to your My eBay page and look at the Sell options on the menu on the lefthand side of the screen. Click on any of the categories listed (Active, Sold, Unsold, etc.) to get more information.

If an item is listed in green, that means it has a winning bidder. Items listed in red do not have a winning bidder.

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At the end of a successful auction, eBay will send email messages to both the seller and the buyer. You can send additional invoices and payment reminders to your buyers through the My eBay page. Once you have received payment, ship the item as quickly as possible, and don’t forget to leave feedback for the buyer! Fair Trading on eBay eBay has a security center set up to help you protect your account. eBay also has a dispute resolution center to help buyers or sellers solve problems they may encounter. There’s a way to get a refund on an item that has gotten no bids and has not sold on eBay, and there’s a way to offer a second highest bidder the item the bidder did not win if something falls through with the first bidder. Try to resolve any buyer-seller disputes before leaving negative feedback for another eBay user. NOTE: eBay has made some changes to its feedback policy, which took effect as of May 2008. Visit the following website for more information: pages.ebay.com/services/forum/feedback.html.

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Learn More About eBay BOOKS: Griffith, Jim “Griff”. The Official eBay Bible.

New York: Gotham Books, 2005. (381.177 GRIFF)

Karp, David A. eBay Hacks: Tips & Tools for Bidding, Buying, and Selling. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media, 2005.

(004.6783811 KARP) McGrath, Lissa & Skip McGrath. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to eBay. New York: Penguin Group, 2007.

(381.177 MCGRA) Miller, Michael. Absolute Beginner’s Guide to eBay. Indianapolis: Que Publishing, 2003.

(004.6783811 MILLE) Just for Fun . . . Cihlar, Christopher. The Grilled Cheese Madonna and 99 Other of the

Weirdest, Wackiest, Most Famous eBay Auctions Ever. New York: Broadway Books, 2006. (381.177 CIHLA)

ONLINE: About.com Net for Beginners: eBay 101 http://netforbeginners.about.com/cs/buyingselling/a/eBay101.htm eBay University Learning Center http://pages.eBay.com/education/index.html How Stuff Works: How eBay Works http://computer.howstuffworks.com/eBay1.htm So You Wanna Use eBay (And Not Get Ripped Off)? http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/syws/eBay/eBay.html

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What Should I Take Next? If you’re interested in eBay, learn what else the World Wide Web has to offer in these other Internet classes at the Heights Library. Buying and Selling on eBay Learn how to find what you want and bid successfully. We will discuss the pros and cons of this popular online auction site and how to stay safe while finding exactly what you want. Internet Beyond the Basics Learn how links, hypertext, and browsing connect us to people, places, playgrounds, and valuable information. Learn to use some of the most popular search engines. Websites with Weebly Learn how to add and edit web page content using Weebly. Best Free Stuff on the Web Learn how to manage pictures, chat with friends, and share info, using free software that you can download at home. Wikis Wikis can be used for a large variety of tasks, from personal note-taking to collaborating online, creating an internal knowledge base, assembling an online community, and managing a traditional website. Learn how simplicity makes Wiki tools a breeze. Check the current issue of Check Us Out or visit the Heights Library’s homepage (http://www.heightslibrary.org) for specific dates and times.