Ten Tips for eBay Buyers and Sellers

Author: Brian McGregor

1. Keep secure

Make sure your passwords are really complicated. A mix of upper and lower case letters plus interspersed numbers is best. Use what are termed as "dictionary obscure" names too, not obvious ones such as a Christian name.

2. Save time

Whenever you find you are typing the same thing over and over e.g. usernames, use a lovely piece of software called ShortKeys Lite. It's free, and you can download it from www.shortkeys.com

3. Get organized

If you use eBay regularly you will already know how quickly the emails mount up. Get your folders in your email program set up properly now! Don't delay, you will save loads of time in the coming months.

4. Squeeze your graphics

Whenever you put a picture on your auction page you add download time. You can make sure your images are compressed to the lowest file size possible by using SmartSaverPro. You can download a free trial version from www.ulead.com.

5. Quote the auction

Whether buying or selling, always quote the auction number in the subject and body of any emails about that auction. So, whenever you get a query about it from your seller or buyer you can always find the email communications about that auction.

6. Accept credit/debit cards

If you're selling, you WILL attract more bidders if you offer to take credit/debit cards. Fortunately you don't need a merchant account to be able to do this. Just open a free account with PayPal - the most used payment mechanism on internet auctions. With PayPal you can accept all the usual credit cards plus Solo and Switch debit cards.

7. Become a Search expert

When you're looking for items on eBay, don't forget the Advanced Search facility. Next to every search box you will see an Advanced Search link. You can be much more specific, and save yourself hundreds of hits which you have might have to scroll through to find the one item that you really wanted in the first place.

8. Be polite

Whether buying or selling, always try and be polite. As a priority, you want to avoid any negative feedback. Although it might appear that feedback is more important to sellers than buyers, this isn't necessarily the case. Even if you're only a buyer at the moment, you
might find sellers exclude you from bidding if your negative ratio is poor. Also, even though you might only buy on eBay at the moment, you could decide to try selling in the future. Your eBay feedback rating remains with you whether buying or selling.

9. Become a Help expert

I recommend you spend some time on eBay Help pages. Hidden in there are jewels like Proxy Bidding. No, I'm not going to explain this for you - have a look in Help!

Finally, you will noticed this is only nine tips, and I promised you ten! Well, my tenth is, if you're looking to sell professionally on eBay you should read my ebook 'The eBay Formula'. This shows you how to create successful auctions on eBay time, after time, after time. You can find out about ‘The eBay Formula’ at www.more-auction-sales.com

Brian McGregor is an eBay and internet entrepreneur. He recently created the 'eBay Master Class' for eBay sellers. For your free copy, please go to http://www.workwinners.com/ebm-request.htm