Ebay selling is made easier with pre-filled data from Muze
Written: Oct 18 '03 (Updated Feb 20 '05)
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| Full Review |
Although I joined ebay a few years ago it was just five months ago (May 25, 2003) that I became actively involved in the buying and selling of items on the site. Previously I purchased wanted videos for my household, such as The Lion King, Space Jam and I Am Sam. I would do a search for the item, use buy it now to complete the transaction and pay for the item via paypal or sending a check.
I honestly had no clue how the site worked for selling and never did follow the links for seller central or live help. I knew from the disability related email groups I am in to use “autism” for my search and scout for what others were selling. This is what led me to take the plunge. I noticed many books being sold that I owned and decided to start there.
The first step was becoming ID verified, which I hoped would attract buyers to me since I really did not comprehend feedback at this time. In fact I had never left it and noticed I had a few under my belt already. The process takes under ten minutes and will be billed ($5.00) to your account. There are several options for paying your fees with ebay, so I chose to hook up a credit card for monthly payments. You can change this to a one-time payment with paypal fees, includes gift certificates or anything points, or a checking account, which is called ebay direct pay. You can also go into preferences, which is found under My ebay and check status of your invoice, change the credit card or notify them a check or money order will be sent. This must be done before they bill your credit card though. When you receive the invoice – mine is at the end of each month, there is a 5-7 day period before they will charge your credit card. Until that time each time you sell another item the fees will increase, making it appear that your bill will be higher, but do not worry because once your payment has gone through they bring your total current. For example, I get the invoice around the 2nd day of the month and by the 15th the fee total is current.
The next step was to create an About me page, this is through the preferences link located in the My ebaysection. If you ever want to update that page this is where you will need to do so as well as changing your email account. I printed out pages on selling and moved over to paypal to make my account paypal preferred. In order to qualify for this you need to insert into your auctions that paypal is the only online form of payment accepted. You will also have to sign up for their debit/atm card and can get up to 1.5% cash back when using it. I use mine at the post office when sending packages.
I could not tell why there were various numbers in the feedback section of sellers and buyers. Then I learned when I started selling that the number does not increase when a member has already made a purchase. I have many repeat buyers and I continue to purchase products from the same members, for example with Avon products and therapy related items as well as Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokemon cards. I posted the first night about ten items and woke up the next morning to see I had sold more than half of my auctions. I used the same techniques at ebay that I did when I first joined epinions. With epinions to find writers to learn from I went through the web of trust and clicked on names from comment sections. On ebay I clicked on feedback links to see the members buying and selling. I read through the auctions on those who seemed to have bids on each of their items. I learned key words to include in my auctions and how to write a winning title.
The thrill of selling an item was really intense and continues to be an instant rush of adrenaline. I scout out items in my house and then search the site to see what the going price is and decide if I should sell now or wait for later in the week. I click on to watch auctions and have been amazed at the stuff that sells. The selling point with ebay in keeping me as a seller and buyer came in the form of congratulatory emails when I hit milestones in my feedback. This was so exciting to see my efforts being rewarded and kept me going full speed ahead.
I received emails when I hit 25, 50, 75 and 100. I would receive my email for hitting 75 when I had already achieved 100, but was happy to get it just the same. Now I am closing in on 500 and hope to get another one. I have contacted customer service through the help link and within a 24-hour period a personalized response was sent. There are generated emails with links to assist you in the meantime and then surveys to give feedback on the response from the customer service representative.
When you arrive at ebay.com you can either do a search at the front page, but I find clicking on search and using the form with further options more useful, because the one on the front page will not include titles and details within the auction. I regularly search for items being sold in Los Angeles and have used the same feature when selling my AB-Doer and a bicycle. For pick ups you can enter specific data in the shipping section and let the buyer pay COD. I have had three successful auctions this way.
I observed many teachers and therapists selling items using keywords at the bottom of their listings, this sort of turned me off at first but then I incorporated my own key words within my listings. For many items I use Autism in the heading and mention autistic or other related disabilities in the listing. As a result I buy and sell to many other families who have children who are autistic. I bought a weighted lap pad, sold a weighted vest and a car restraint system. I have sold back issues to magazines that reference autism. The system I had for three plus years while writing reviews on epinions was to always save receipts and boxes the items came in. This was beneficial in writing reviews, but then I would toss out the box. Now with selling on ebay the box must remain because it helps to sell the item with the original box. I was able to cut and paste paragraphs with details from toy reviews into my ebay auctions with ease.
Some of the quick items I sold this summer and continue to observe many purchasing include the following
Wiggles videos, Thomas the tank videos, magazines and train toys, wizard of oz video, lexmark printer cartridges (empty and new), franklin scholastic books, horrible harry series of books, Zoo tycoon, Eric Carle books and Shel Silverstein’s Where the sidewalk ends, mothering magazine back issues, autism books, audio self-help books, puzzles, leap frog items and Land Before time videos and especially the sing along ones.
The items I purchased that were hard to scoop up and had to hang up to the last minute include:
lexmark printer cartridges, carbon monoxide detectors, Joy Berry books, the Curious incident of the dog in the night-time, First snow of winter (VHS), halloween costumes, Discovery Toys marbleworks, MAC cosmetics and tinted moisturizer. I still cannot keep up with the bidding on Mi Vida Loca – this is a video that is hard to find. Also David’s Mother in VHS is impossible to locate.
Since I started the site has been making changes and upgrading consistently. There are more options with drop down menus when selling clothing, books and videos. Just this past week the Muze database has been integrated as pre –filled data for the books, music and video sections. I already sold a few items using this feature and amazed at how quickly an item can be placed up for auction, compared to just a few short months ago.
The pre-filled data is available after you select the category video, music or book. Once you have the subsections this comes in the form of title, isbn or upc or director. I did find many books that I have with no stock photo available. You also have the choice of adding your own photo to the auction. The first photo is free and takes a minute on dial up connection. The second and additional photos cost 15 cents. If you have an item you want to relist or sell a similar item, these two links bring you to the option of changing the pre-filled data. You do this by changing the isbn or upc # or the title and if there are more than one options they have them listed plus a spot to check mark which one you want to sell.
Be careful using this feature because it also gives the data from Muze as the title for your auction. A quick revision can make it stand out with some personalization from the seller. You can use html code in auctions but not in the titles. The data you have entered for shipping will be there for all your auctions. The two options for shipping are to list a set price or to enter the weight, method of shipping, zipcode of origin and the amount, if any, you want to add to the shipping. This is not visible to the buyer, only the seller knows. You can only have one option with the shipping calculator, but I use the details box for shipping to let the buyer know the method I have used and what alternatives there are available.
Shipping can be done via media mail (this takes 2-9 days and costs $1.42 for 1-2 items and then $1.84 for a larger item), plus you can ship a box via media mail method. This must be music, books or movies. It helps to note on your packages the shipping method before arriving at the post office. Parcel post is for packages and takes the same amount of time. First class, third class (takes long), priority mail flat rate envelopes ($3.85) and then express mail, global mail (two days small package $5.00) and then UPS or Fed Ex.
I was selling many extra cases I had of diapers and ensure plus. For the ensure I used a UPS authorized dealer, their boxes and dropped them off. If you want UPS to come you need to have an account and it costs $5.00 for the pick up fee as well. I had one customer who had an account with Fed Ex and they paid for them to come and pick up several items.
Paypal and ebay are owned by the same parent company, so they are integrated with their menus. It is easy to click on pay now with the paypal button. On the screens for ebay under seller and buyer it shows for 2-30 days your items and when the item has been paid or if the buyer is using other means to pay it will change to payment status. If they use the other auction tools these might show up as dashes and sometimes it does not work, and shows not paid when in fact it was.
Another useful upgrade is the paying system for more than one item to the same seller. You no longer have to go straight to the paypal site and click on send money, cut and paste the item numbers. When you click on to pay, the site will have the breakdown of all items. In the preference tab on your page you can pre-arrange your combined shipping breakdowns. I did this and then changed it because I sell many diaper packages and cannot combine on them, but will for books, toys and videos.
An example would be you can check mark the box to have the highest item as the shipping with each additional item costing $1.00 or an amount you want. There are a few other options in that menu to help you, or you can just mention in your auctions that you will combine shipping. There is a box to check for sellers to have it on their auctions showing they combine shipping and if they prefer paypal.
There are many options for buyer protection. With paypal when you make a purchase you can add the fee they highlight for certain type of goods. There is now also a buyer protection slogan that will be on your auctions when you have qualified. The other day I saw the link to see if I was eligible, lost my connection and cannot access it again.
Other options for shipping items include delivery confirmation and insurance. Some sellers include these in their fees, some only take paypal, others only accept checks. Many will state in the auction that with a feedback of say 30 or 50 they will hold a check, or if the amount is under $20. Most auctions mention the ten day wait period for paying, and most want contact within three days.
One more system change at ebay is the non paying bidder alert program. When you make a purchase a generated email might be sent, this depends on the preferences the seller has chosen. Then the seller may send an invoice, or if they use venido or auctionworks, etc. they want you to follow that link and input all the data that is already in paypal. These optional sites also generate many emails each step of the way, you can turn them off once you have received one. They come form when the item was sent, when feedback was done, etc. This becomes annoying quickly. I prefer personalization and stay away from those with all the fancy stuff and rules that make it impossible to follow.
After three days you can send a payment reminder and if no contact has been made file a Non paying bidder alert. This program now has pop-ups that will not allow members who have received 1-3 of these from making further purchases. That is until they clear up their accounts. This poses a problem for sellers because in the past week I have had two buyers that took over 20 days to mail payment. I had already filed the NPB and left negative feedback. There is also a final value fee that ebay.com charges sellers(after the ten day wait period you will get credit for this fee when filing NPB), this is deducted in the same manner as the insertion fee. This is based on a percentage of the sale and goes higher according to the preset amount you listed your item. I think this is why many start their auctions at 99 cents and also instead of selling something for ten dollars they do it for $9.50. For all my auctions the fee is lower than 50 cents most of the time.
It helps to scan a copy of the envelope showing the postmarked date to prove later on with Square trade – it costs $20 for a mediator and to remove feedback. The site has community workshops to learn the new systems that are being put in place daily. There are community boards and live help as well. Last month I decided to join two ebay related yahoo groups to keep abreast of the changes taking place. Make sure you join a group that does not allow posting of auctions!
My one minor complaint is I wish there was a column in the buyers and sellers pages to show who the seller and buyer is for bidding auctions that are current. When an item sells you can see the member id, but I have made the mistake in the past of paying for an item and not remembering I was bidding on other items from the same member. The new system should help with that so when you click on to pay it might show the auctions current. I have not tried that as of this date.
There is a limit to 30 items you can watch and then you need to delete some. The auctions are only on the site for 90 days, but you can access them on your page for thirty. By clicking on feedback you can find the older items you have yet to post on. Another tip is to print out your invoice or use the accounts tab on your page to view older invoices and get item numbers that way.
The fees you can incur on the site can really add up, by using bold and placing your auction in another spot, listing in two sections, more photos, and listing for more than the standard seven days. The options are for one day, three, five and ten or set your own date. The buy it now costs five cents and is a great option, most of the time. I get most of my sales using this feature, but new members tend to purchase this way too and to avoid no sales and lost fees some members do not use this.
The block feature is a bit different on ebay than epinions. You can block a member from bidding on your items and this screen usually comes up when you file for non paying bidder alert. There are ways to find these links through the site map and browsing. You can ask a question ahead of time to the seller and contact other members. Because my member id is (autismfamily) I have received many emails from other parents asking me about autism, usually they are newly diagnosed. There have been some occasions when members send me photos of items trying to get me to buy stuff. There are ways to submit members for harassment and trying to get you to buy off the site.
There are many terms used within auctions and through out the site that make the experience confusing to new members. Some that I know of are as follows:
NPB – non paying bidder
OOP – out of print
NWT – new with tags
NWOT – new without tags
BC – back cover
FE – first edition
Feedback can be positive, neutral or negative. I have left neutral when the clothing items I have received were smelling of smoke or the wrong size as stated. It is imperative to mention if your home is a smoke environment and also if you have a smoke and pet free home. I received one article of clothing that had a dryer sheet on top of it, made for a nice smell and a personal touch. Another one sold me a NWT kids pajamas that needed to be soaked in woolite, and then washed separately in washing machine, it really stunk up my bathroom.
Other members wrap items in bags that smell of smoke or tissue paper. How you package an item can reflect in your feedback as well, since the item can arrive wet or damaged if not secured in box or envelope. When you first start selling and/or buying on the site it is wise to change your preferences for the emails you receive via these transactions, otherwise you will get emails everytime you list an item, sell one and then when not sold. Also you can get emails showing you items similar to those that you lost at auction and when you place a bid and the member is selling more items they will appear on the screen, that is if the member chose that option for their buyers.
The options and deals are endless. I highly recommend this site, first by searching the items you want or will be selling and watch how the auction goes over a few days and then try your luck. If you want to see an item you just looked at you can do that as well as refresh the screen when inputting data so you do not lose it. The home page is always up to date with the time of year and selling featured items as well as doing one penny specials for listing fees, buy it now and one day listings. If you receive emails from the site per your preference you will learn all the important announcements and upcoming specials. There are also counters that are placed on the auctions for free and you can go to the andale site, sign up and access your auctions there and edit counters with other options. At first I was obsessed with the numbers and checking the counters. I no longer go there to check statistics or to edit my counters.
I am enjoying the site so much and look forward to every sale I make and purchases too. I have met so many great people through the site that it has been a truly rewarding experience. The first month I got 100 in feedback and made that my personal goal for each month to achieve. I did so until 300, then my minivan broke and my kids were no longer able to get to summer camp and getting to the post office was not an easy task. Once I surpassed 300 I got my first negative feedback. I was quite upset by this but now that I have received another one and one neutral it is not really that disturbing. It takes a long time to move that percentage mark on the feedback too. I was at 99.7 and then it went to 99.8 and with one feedback of negative that was in retaliation, I dropped to 99.5.
The pages for buying and selling are self explanatory, they show the date the auction started, beginning bid, number of bids and are color-coded. Those in red are ending in the current 24-hour period. A green bold means you are winning and the red price indicates you are losing that bid. The site also has a toolbar to download and turbo lister to make the experience faster and easier. At this time I have not tried either of these and believe they are both free, until you upgrade within them.
Depending on what you do on the site you will be brought to the sign in page to verify you are the member you say, and then you bid on the item with the maximum amount you are willing to pay. Sometimes auctions are cancelled by the seller and also by ebay. I have experienced both and as a buyer. It is impossible to retract a bid unless it was a mistake in entering an amount like you meant $10 and did $100.00.
I tend not to bid on items with reserve prices because that is still confusing to me. It will show reserve not met, but you have entered a higher amount in your maximum. Also selling multiple items can be done in various ways. One the person can buy it now or they all bid at the same time, that is also a bit complex. The one recent change I liked at first was the option for sellers to make buyers who purchase with buy it now pay instantly with paypal. A good idea, but now that you can make one payment through the system when you purchase from the same buyer it does not make sense to do so I have not opted for this.
There are options to save your favorite searches and favorite sellers, and now they are selling ebay gift certificates. This will be good for the holiday season. There is a new program that has been in place for a few months called ebay anything points. These can be used to pay for purchases like the gift certificates. You do need to sign up for these programs to earn the points, these include Lending Tree and Netfllix and mileage and travel programs. When you go to sell an item you can choose from a previously used category making the listing easier to start. The browse functions are easy to use and the everything else section has lots of odds and ends, includes the mature section. When you look through a sellers auctions, you will see a red link that states you need to verify you are of the legal age to view. This takes you back to sign in but I always get lost after that because it does not take me back to the item I was trying to view, instead it takes you to the mature audiences section. There are 25 items in one page of listings per seller. I have chosen the option to have the buyers email address listed so I can contact them easier when going through my pages of sold auctions.
It is wise to mention in your listings that the shipping price is not the same for Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, Puerto Rico and other countries. You can state only selling to United States and Canada. I have made exceptions to Australia and learned my lesson when someone made a purchase in Hawaii and paid the price I had listed in my shipping option. Those who take paypal have the option of personal account or accepting credit cards. The seller gets zapped for fees so investigate before you start to learn the options and mention this in your auctions. You can specify you take paypal existing funds, echecks and credit cards, or only money orders and personal checks. I have made a few purchases from Power Sellers, but I notice that many of them have high shipping rates for items they send via media mail and they take a long time to leave feedback and use those time consuming sites for their auctions to pay and complete the transaction. There are qualifications to be a Power seller, they must meet a monthly quota in sales.
When you bid on an item the incremements are determined by the amount the item started selling for. The increments could be 25 cents, 50 cents, one dollar and more so if an item is selling at $1.25 then you could bid $1.26 or $2.88 something like that to keep your bid the highest for awhile, or use the system to have it bid on your behalf. I have not used that so cannot expand on this option.
The site can be overwhelming at first, but with some exploration you will quickly feel exhilarated. The feedback includes half.com, but that system is changing to be more like ebay.com. Before heading out to the store or purchasing elsewhere online, check out ebay, you might be pleasantly surprised. I make a $5.00 purchase for a three-year magazine subscription and got ink jet cartridges for $20 and sold empties for five!
Another suggestion I have made to many bidders and those I have met on the site is to use Epinions.com to determine the top amount they will pay for an item. You can compare prices and see via your zipcode the shipping and decide if you want to continue bidding on the book, (for example) or byy it elsewhere and let the others continue bidding outrageously. By doing some research beforehand your ebay.com experience will be enriched, while lining your pockets with more dollars.
**UPDATE** - November 1, 2003
Just this past week eBay added another enhancement. For fifty cents you can add a subtitle that will appear in searches.
Something else I would like to bring to the attention of buyers and sellers on eBay is spoof emails, imitations trying to gain your important data.
In the past two days I have received spoof emails that appear to be from eBay, but are not. It is important to open the full headers and forward these to spoof@ebay.com. You will be contacted by eBay Trust and Safety Department. The first email will be a confirmation with links back to eBay to check your account with the next email confirmation of the false solicitation.
The email I received yesterday was stating that eBay and Yahoo! joined forces and they want both my passwords. The grammar was very bad in this email and the date at the bottom was not accurate, it showed 2002. Other email spoofs try to get you to give credit card data or update your account. Do not fall for these scams.
Good luck at the site. This past week I have decided instead of relisting items to donate them to Salvation Army to help the homeless families from the fires here in Southern California. All the clothing items I have purchased that turned out not to fit my children are being donated as well as books and toys.
**UPDATE** - November 22, 2003
I recently obtained 500 in my feedback, which changed my star rating to a purple color. Within a few days I received the obligatory email from eBay noticing my achievement. I did not realize that my anniversary for the site was November 18th and on the 21st I got another email mentioning my anniversary. These are nice moral boosters from the site.
Today when I listed a video I got a message after hitting submit to check the announcement board since the site was in maintenance. I hit the backspace to save my listing and tried it a few more times. Then I looked at the announcements and nothing related to my message so I ventured over to my page and noticed the listing was there six times. Besides the help feature and community boards there is also a LIVE HELP format with a chat page to get assistance. I utilized this for the first time today. The chat window opened up quickly with a flashing note showing waiting for agent. You do have the opportunity to type in your question beforehand, which is what I did. Valerie showed up fairly prompt and offered apology for the delay and read my message. She checked with a technician and said they were not aware of any problem but did report it and advised me with step-by-step directions on how to delete the listings and then give her the item numbers for immediate credit. The whole process was completed in under ten minutes with Valerie wishing me a happy holiday season. Valerie ended the chat session and the window had a line for me to enter my email address if I wanted a chat transcript. I did that and received it quickly. Then I did the survey on how helpful Valerie was.
Today I revised a listing and used a link to a review within my listing. The site has at the same page of updating description listing a link for html help, but there was nothing mentioning links, just how to change your font(h1) and add a space(br) or make a paragraph break(p) You need to use brackets and not parenthesis. I followed the steps using links that I know from this site and it worked beautifully.
As for site announcements and updates, eBay is constantly making improvements and adjustments to the site. At the home page go to community and check the announcement and systems updates to see what has transpired just in the last week alone!
**UPDATE** - May 20, 2004
Today - 5-20-04 My ebay 2.0 rolled out. For a few weeks there was the option to view this page, but I wanted to wait for the actual release to avoid confusion on my part.
This is very organized and user-friendly. This summary page is divided into Selling, Buying, All Favorites and My Account. These are all accessed to the left of the main page within my ebay.
First on my ebay page are the buying reminders for the past 31 days. Blue icons are new and self-explanatory. $ - awaiting payment or need to pay, depending on whether you are looking at buying or selling. A large X means you have been outbid. * is your feedback reminder. A small box icon indicates the need to ship this many items. Next to each icon is the exact number of items for this transaction and a link for quick access.
Listed under All Buying are the sub-sections with related numbers and links for watching, bidding, won, didn't win. The options within All Selling section are Scheduled, Selling, Sold and Unsold.
All Favorites is searches, sellers and categories. For My Account there is personal information, preferences, feedback, seller account and paypal account.
I like four changes with this upgraded version. First is that under the selling page we have a column showing how many members are watching an auction. I was aware of some spyware that sellers can have on their pages that tracks the members watching their auctions, but I like this offering.
There are times that the system shows something needs to be paid when you already did. This can happen if the seller uses another system to pay through. There is now a button to click on to change status to paid and then it moves from that section. I had to do this for two auctions that I have received, but that bothersome pay now has been sitting there.
When you make more than one purchase from a seller they are all listed together, plus the shipping cost now has a column. This is available for watching bids, those you bought already and the combined amount is listed in the column. There is even an option to customize my ebay according to the icons located at the far right of the page.
With all these great improvements and new look to my ebay page I wonder why they could not add the seller id into the bidding page columns. This is shown for the watching section. In the past I was able to delete items I did not win from my ebay page. Today I was a bit surprised to find three pages containing 99 items I did not win, and would rather not see those.
I do like the feedback icon that lets me see who has yet to leave me feedback. We all know there are sellers that wait for the buyer to post before they will leave and many do not even do so. You can still bid on any of the watched items from this page and can view the last few auctions you were admiring.
There is also an icon to print my ebay page and the losing bids are still displayed in a red font. At the top of the page is a small bar with the data compiled for quick reference on bidding totals. For example this tells me I am bidding on ten items, winning five of them at a cost of $55.53.
In the sellers section you have the winning bidders member id and then you can sort via those who have not left feedback. The options now go longer than the 30 day option previously with up to 60 days available.
I believe I was incorrect when I mentioned that I liked four changes, because it seems more like 6 or 7 of them that I have utilized already.
This is an upgrade I can live with that will keep my auctions organized in a readable format.
**UPDATE** - August 15, 2004
Another change that is really useful to sellers is within the "my eBay" page. Besides seeing how many watchers there are for your individual auctions, there is a column for questions on your auctions. I recently had one listed there and was able to click on the 1 number and gain access to the question on another page and post my response.
This is good if you have more than one email account and do not have to access the one for eBay to get the questions. The only downside to this is that there was no section to check mark I would like a copy, similar to the option when you send a payment reminder and get to preview the email before sending.
**UPDATE** - February 20, 2005
At the "my ebay" page there are new sections there for communication between eBay and the members. There are messages that cover changes happening at the site. You will also get your monthly Anything points statement. There is an expiration date on these messages below the actual date they were posted. You can also delete these messages. Most of the messages I get are noted as selling or buying tips.
There is a listing of the most recent Announcements by the site. This is very helpful since members might not click on to be notified of changes to the site, so instead of searching the message boards they are listed at your page for easy access. When you click on a link to an Announcement it opens into another window.
Another new option for buying is Best Offer. I have not figured out how to insert that into an auction since I have been buying lately and not selling. But I did find it once in an auction for glitter wands at $8.99 with a link for Best Offer to click. I chose $7.00 and was contacted via the email system that my offer was committed and accepted. This offer is just as binding as a bid or BIN. A Best Offer can be retracted under certain circumstances only.
Fees have gone up for eBay sellers that have stores.
Recommended:
Yes
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? toys, clothing, videos, books, magazines
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Epinions.com ID:
bonniesayers
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Location: Los Angeles, CA
Reviews written: 842
Trusted by: 1188 members
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