E-Bay is My Way!
Written: May 06 '01
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The Bottom Line
If you can't find something you really want, try Ebay, it might be there.
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Ever since my daughter learned how to read, she would always be found with a book in her hands. She loves to read, it is her passion! When your child loves to read, as a parent, you find your self indulging them with the world of books. My daughter read books like The Baby-Sitters Club & Nancy Drew. My house soon turned into a children's library.
We decided, well my daughter decided, to cut the ties and get rid of some of her books. We had a garage sale and we displayed the books, hoping to have someone buy some. Well, unfortunately no one did. I think maybe one book was sold for 25 cents.
Then it hit us E-BAY!!! We went to Ebay and searched their database to find out if some of her books were there being sold. Yes indeed they were. So we decided to join Ebay and list her books.
What is Ebay? -- Ebay is an online auction site where people list items that they want to sale. Buyers looking for specialty items can go to Ebay to see if someone is selling that item and bid on it.
Signing Up
Signing up for an account at Ebay was simple. I went to their homepage and looked for a way to sign up. There it was in a big blue circle, "Welcome New Users". So, I clicked on register.
I was transported to the registration process.
1. What country did I live in?
2. What is your email address?
3. Your name, address, and phone number.
After a few pages you will be asked for a user name, password, a credit card number and a few other things. When we were done with the process we decided to list a set of her books.
Listing Items
Listing an item on Ebay is very simple. You will need to come up with a price you want to sell the item for and you will need to know what shipping will cost. Our first mistake was not knowing what the price of shipping was. We ended up selling a lot of books and did not ask much for shipping. We had to pay more to have the items shipped.
After you have decided what and how much you want to sell something for, all you need to do is log into Ebay and hit the button that says Sell. The instructions for listing your item for sale are very easy to follow. Ebay also has a few other options you can purchase to make your item stand out or more attractive to potential buyers.
You are also given several choices on how long you want your item to be listed at Ebay. We always choose 7 days. The maximum days you can list an item for is 10 and the minimum is 3 days.
Waiting
When the posting process is complete, all you have to do is wait for someone to bid on your items. Sometimes the "wait and hope" that someone bids on your items, can be a long process. When the bidding process gets going you can have multiple people bidding on your item. Other times one or even no one will bid on your item.
When your auction duration is up, you contact the winning bidder and work out payment information and where the items need to be shipped. This is up to the buyer and seller, not Ebay. Ebay will eventually help if you are unable to get your own results.
Cost
There is a cost to listing your items on Ebay. Depending on what you sell and how much of an opening bid you are asking for determines the price that Ebay will charge you. Since my daughter listed her books at a low price, the cost for each listing was 30 cents.
After your items have been sold, Ebay does charge you an additional fee based on the closing dollar amount of the items. They charge 5% of the final closing cost up to $25. If the item is over $25 then you take the amount over the $25 and there is an additional 2.5% on that amount.
Categories
A few of the categories that Ebay has are: Books, coin, dolls, electronics, Sports memorabilia, and real estate. They have many other categories too. As Ebay states, "Over 5 million items for sale!"
There is more to Ebay than just buying and selling. I have not used the options, but Ebay has a newsletter, a chat site, and message boards.
Overall, Ebay is a great site to help the buyer and seller get in touch with each other. If it wasn't for Ebay, my house would still be filled with books
Recommended:
Yes
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About the Author
Location: California
Reviews written: 235
Trusted by: 403 members
About Me: "If I live another day, Make mine a Chardonnay!"
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