How To Of Everything

If you buy or sell big ticket items on eBay, you need to know about the available escrow services. An escrow service is designed to protect buyers and sellers from being ripped off. The funds for the sale go to the escrow service, and then the seller ships the item to the buyer. Once the item has been received, the funds are released from the escrow service to the seller.

In some instances, both the item and the funds go through the escrow service, and the service makes sure that the buyer gets the item, and the seller gets the money. There is a small fee for the service, and it is usually a fixed percentage of the sale price. It is up to the buyer and seller to decide who will pay the fees. Often, the fees are split between the buyer and seller.

If you want to use an escrow service, there is only one service that eBay recommends, and they back that service up. This service is Escrow.com. Over the years, there have been many ‘look-alike’ escrow services, using variations of the escrow.com domain name, but they have shown to be less than reputable companies. Make sure you use the services of escrow.com for the greatest protection.

Many first time sellers have one thing in common – they fail. Many of them fail time and time again, never understanding what is going wrong. They do hours of research looking for the perfect item to sell, get the auction set up, and wait for the bidding to begin. Hours go by and no bids are placed. Days go by, and there are still no bids – or there are very low bids. Finally the auction ends, and it turns out to be a total failure. Considering the huge number of sellers who run eBay auctions, there are specific things you must do, and specific things you must not do if you are to be successful.

There are many reasons why auctions fail. The most common reason is that the item is not in high demand. This problem can be avoided by doing the necessary research to determine which items sell well, and which items should be avoided. This research takes a great deal of time – but in the end, you will find that it is ime well spent.

Another reason for eBay failure is pricing. No matter what your reserve price is, your opening bid price should never be more than $50 or so. This is how you  will attract potential bidders to your auction. If you set that opening bid too high, most people won’t even click the link to read the description for your item. Another pricing problem is lack of research. Before you set your reserve price, you must determine what the item is really worth, and the price similar items have sold for in past eBay auctions.

Poorly written descriptions are another cause of failed auctions. Poor grammar and misspelled words drive people away. Failing to post a picture of the item will also keep people from visiting your auction page. Make sure that your description is well written. This is essentially your ‘sales copy.’

Shipping prices scare people away from auctions if they are too high. Find the lowest shipping prices that you can find, and consider paying for the shipping yourself if it won’t cut into your profits too much. Do not charge handling fees.

Offer great ‘customer service’ for all of your auctions, and ask your buyers to give you feedback. If the items that you sell are everything that you said they would be, and you offer great customer service, you can expect wonderful feedback – and this feedback will help a great deal in your future auctions.

Countless people have been scammed and defrauded on eBay. eBay is a fun place to bid on items and to sell items – but you must know how to recognize a scam, and how to avoid them, them or you quickly join the ranks of those who have lost their money to eBay scams. Of course, if you are scammed, there are some actions you can take the correct the situation – but in many cases, the scammer does indeed get away! The best option is to avoid being scammed.

You can easily avoid many scams with the payment method that you use – whether you are a buyer or a seller. eBay owns Paypal, and in most cases, Paypal is the payment method you should use. First, as a buyer, if you are scammed or less than satisfied with the item when it arrives, you can dispute the charge easily, and demand a refund. The seller must reply and show proof that the item was shipped, and that it arrived in the condition that you expected, or Paypal will return your funds to your account.

As a seller, you can protect yourself by only accepting Paypal. This will eliminate the chances of receiving a bad check or having the buyer dispute a credit card charge. Instead, they must dispute the charge through paypal, and you of course will be able to prove that you shipped the product. You cannot, however, prove that the product arrived in the condition that was expected. In this case, you should demand that the product be returned to you before the refund is issued.

Another common scam that buyers use is the bidding scam. This type of scam is run either with two separate eBay accounts – with one person in control of both of them, or with two friends with separate eBay accounts. A very small bid is placed on your item, using one account. This is followed by a very high bid, from the other eBay account. Right before the bidding ends, the high bid is cancelled or withdrawn, leaving the low bid as the winning bid.This bid can only be avoided by setting a reserve price – the lowest bid that can be placed is the same as the reserve price that you set.

If you are an eBay seller, you can further protect your auctions by placing a notice on your auctions page, declaring that you have the right to back out of the sale if you suspect potential fraud. As both a buyer and a seller, also beware of spoofed emails. These emails appear to be from eBay. The email may claim that you need to verify your information, and ask you to login to your eBay account, using the link provided. If you follow that link, the site looks exactly like eBay, but it is actually a scam to get your eBay login details, as well as your credit card details! eBay will never ask you to do this. If you suspect a spoofed email, report it to eBay immediately!

Don’t let scammers ruin your eBay fun! Just use good common sense, and a reasonable amount of caution, and everything should run smoothly. Report suspicious activity to eBay, and if a deal doesn’t feel right, simply back away from it and move on to the next auction.