Auctions Articles

10 Tips For Being A Better Seller

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If you've got this far, you've got the basics of eBay. There are a few things left, though, that you might not have thought of trying. Quite a few of these tips go against the advice many give for eBay selling - some are a little risky and some are just odd. They're all worth a try, though, and I'm sure you'll find at least some you want to keep using.

1. Keep more records. It might sound time consuming, but you'll actually find it easier in the long run - less time spent trying to figure out which item that cheque you got this morning is for.

2. Post without payment. Don't even wait for payment to clear! That might sound risky, but it'll mean that the buyers get their items more quickly - for small items, you might find it worth the occasional loss to give such quick service.

3. Post every day. Once you start shifting a high volume of items, go and post them every day - again, they'll get there more quickly, making your customers very happy. The best way to do this is if you have items small enough to drop in a postbox.

4. Encourage an auction mentality. Don't have a Buy it Now price, and make it very clear when it's the last or only stock you'll be getting in. Always refer to winning bidders as 'winners'.

5. Mention every defect your item has. Now why would you do that, you might ask? The answer is that it builds credibility: the small hit you take from the slight flaws is nothing compared to the big boost in trust you get for admitting it. People bid more when they trust the seller.

6. Say how you got the item. Don't be afraid to go off on a tangent and give all sorts of fun details of how you got hold of what you're selling - it gives your auction character and, again, builds trust.

7. Accept odd payment methods. Sooner or later you're going to get a buyer who wants to pay by sending cash in an envelope, or something equally unusual. Why not let them? Be flexible.

8. Don't be afraid to sell low. Let the occasional item go for a really low price to a good buyer. You might only just break even on the item, but the person who got that bargain will be back again and again.

9. Give free shipping for a certain number of orders, or orders over a certain amount. People might buy something else they don't want as much, just to get the free shipping. (Amazon use this strategy to great effect).

10. Ship worldwide. Take the time to investigate the prices, and be nice to international customers - imagine how much you're expanding your market. That's not to mention the effect of people bidding highly for items that are rare in their country.

Another way to make it easier is to be a better seller is to use some of the many third party eBay tools that are available. The next email will take a look at a selection of tools you might find useful.

Ebay Part Time Or Full How To Decide

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Going full-time as an eBay seller is living the dream: making a real income, working from home, being your own boss and all the rest of it. It's the promise of a million scams, and it's finally come true - at least for some.

What they don't tell you in the success stories, though, is that becoming a full-time eBay seller is by no means for everyone. You really, really ought to try it part-time before you even consider taking it up full-time, and even then, caution is advisable. Before you burn your suit, here's a list of questions you should ask yourself.

How Much Do I Earn From eBay Now?

Work out how many hours a week you spend doing eBay-related things (be honest here), and divide it by the average amount of profit you make in a week. If you were doing full-time hours, would you earn as much as you earn now?

Do I Have a Good Job?

Think about what you might lose if you give up your job to focus on eBay. If you're in a well-paid job with good promotion prospects then it's well worth reconsidering: you might get a few years down the line and wish you'd stayed in your traditional job, as you'd probably be the CEO by now.

Would I Really Make Much More Money?

Unless you're selling a large quantity of small goods, most of what you do on eBay will be waiting for auctions to end - and you can wait at work just as easily as you can at home. This is why whether you would make more money on eBay really depends on what kinds of items you're selling - for low value items, going full-time could be a good move. For high-value ones, the chances are you'll hit the limits of how much money you have to invest in inventory long before you hit the limits on your time.

Is my Home a Good Place to Work?

Quite apart from anything else, you might find that the dream of home working is more of a nightmare in reality. People can start to depend on you to get things done that need to be done during the day. If you have a wife and children then they can resent the fact that you're in the house but refuse to have anything to do with them for large parts of the day. Giving in to any of these things and stopping work for a while will cause your profits to fall.

Can I Survive if it All Goes Wrong?

In the end, would you be able to get by if you had a month or two where you sold literally nothing? Or would you be desperately looking around for a job and cursing the day you ever discovered eBay? That's the real test.

If you made it through all these questions, then I guess you're cut out for the eBay life - and even if you didn't, you'd be surprised just how far you can get part-time. In our next email, we'll show you how to think like the eBay elite: the PowerSellers.

Ebay Auction Starting And Ending Day Strategies

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It's usually when auctions are about to end that they get half their bids - sometimes they even get their only bids. If you want your item to sell for a good price, then, it makes no sense to let it finish on a day and time when no-one's going to be around to care.

Selling to Business.

If you're selling business equipment and have mostly business customers, you should really aim to have your auctions finishing between 9am and 5pm on weekdays. It is worth, however, trying to avoid mornings and avoiding the 'lead-in' and 'lead-out' that takes place on Monday and Friday themselves.

Selling to Home.

If most of your sales are to private customers having it shipped to their own home, then you want your auctions to finish when these kind of customers will be around. Unfortunately, these times are the opposite of what they are for the business customers. The ideal time to catch a home customer is on a Sunday evening.

List for Durations.

In order to get your listings to end on a particular day, you can simply change the duration of your auctions depending on what day it is. For example, if you mostly sell to home customers and the day today is Thursday, then your auction needs to run for either 3 or 10 days to hit a Sunday. If you sell more to business and the day today is Friday, then:

a 1 day auction would be bad (finishing on Saturday),

3 days would be alright (Monday),

5 days would be good (Wednesday),

7 days would be good (another Friday),

and 10 days would be alright (Monday again).

You could draw up a little timetable of when you should and shouldn't be listing depending on the days of the week - make it red, amber and green, traffic light style, and stick it on your wall.

Schedule Listings.

Of course, if that all sounds like too much trouble then there is an easier - if more expensive - way of doing things. Simply use any of the many tools that let you schedule listings (almost all listing programs and sites do) - you can set the start date for any day and time you feel like.

Be aware that you might have to pay a few cents per listing for this if you do it through eBay. With some software, you may also need to leave your computer on all the time, so the software can start the auctions when it's supposed to. The advantage of this method, however, is that there will be no per-listing fee, since the auctions were scheduled through your computer and not through eBay.

If it's the home market you're after, then you might not have realised what one of the most powerful things to sell on eBay is. I'll give you a clue: it's not consumer electronics, or media products. It's what eBay is famous for. Check out the next email for more.

Tips for Selling Collectibles on eBay.

Yes, collectibles! Collectibles are where eBay started, and they're still one of its biggest areas - however much they might want you to believe they're not. eBay's most hardcore and long-time users are almost all collectors of something or other - it is quite common to post what you think is a mundane item, only to have collectors suddenly go to war over it because it is somehow linked to something they collect.

Collectors are the people on eBay who really do pay top-dollar for things that seem like junk to you and I - not to mention to the people you'll be getting your stock from! That's why you can make so much profit on collectibles. Here are a few tips.

Go to people's homes. People's homes are full of things that someone out there collects - they are the best and cheapest source of collectibles out there. Sure, you might find something if you hang around at enough garage sales, but you'd have competition. Getting invited to people's homes to look around should be a dream for you, and one you're doing your best to make a reality.

Buy on other auction sites. You'll be surprised how much money you can make if you buy the collectibles that people sell on smaller auction sites like Yahoo Auctions, and then list it on eBay. These sellers will often be perfectly knowledgeable about their item, but simply getting a lower price because they serve a smaller marketplace. Sometimes you can almost double your money.

List in non-collectible categories. If your collectible doesn't have a category of its own under 'collectibles', you might prefer to list it in a category that has something to do with the item but nothing to do with collecting. What you will often find is that people browsing a category for their favourite thing will pay more for your collectible than actual collectors would.

Do lots of research. Never list something you think might be valuable without searching and searching to dig up every piece of information you can on it. Everything you find out is likely to be useful when you come to list it.

List every tiny, tiny detail. Remember that collectors really care about the most seemingly insignificant things. An item from one year can be worth thousands while the one from the year before is near-worthless, or an item that is one shade of a colour can be worth far more than one of a subtly different shade. It's not worth puzzling over and it's not worth trying to pass your items off as something they're not - just make sure you put absolutely everything you know in the description.

When you are listing items that require close research and description down to the tiniest detail, however, don't be tempted to steal someone else's work! Whatever you do, don't take another seller's description and try to pass it off as your own, as this could have all sorts of consequences for you. Our next email gives you a guide to eBay's policy on 'description theft'.

How To Choose The Right Ebay Product Category

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Some people think it's easy to choose the right eBay category, and often it is. Sometimes, though, it might not be quite clear exactly what to go for.

Why is it Even Important?

Plenty of people use the category system to find items, when they're not looking for something specific. If your item is listed in the wrong category - or you've just given up and listed it in 'Everything Else' - then these people aren't going to find your auction.

Also, listing items in the wrong categories is against eBay's rules, and eBay say they will remove any auctions that are wrongly categorised. They don't often actually do this, but it's not worth the risk - especially since breaking any rules can cause them to penalise your account, including losing PowerSeller status if you have it.

So What Can You Do?

eBay will suggest categories for you when you sell your item, if you type in a few words to describe the item on the category selection page and click 'search'. You can make the best of this feature by typing in exactly what your item is, with brand name and model number (if any), so that eBay can find the best category for you.

If that doesn't work for you, then search yourself for items like yours, and pay attention to which category most of them seem to be in (you can see this near the top of each item's description page). Try different words and see which ones come back with the most results. You can also browse through all the available categories from eBay's front page.

Remember that the more specific the category is, the better - use as many subcategories as are appropriate. Don't just list your HP laptop in the 'Computers' category, for example - list it in 'Computers > Laptops > HP'. Don't worry: your item will still appear in the 'Computers' category, as well as 'Computers > Laptops', because items listed in subcategories are always listed in every category above.

Take some time to look through all the categories and get familiar with the way eBay as a whole is laid out. After all, that's better than getting a few months down the line and finding that you still think of eBay's category system like it's some kind of scary jungle.

What if More Than One Category Fits?

Don't worry, eBay have you covered. For a small extra fee, you can list your item in an extra category, to increase the number of potential buyers who will see it. This isn't always worth it, though - some items only really fit properly in one category, and listing them in extra categories is just a waste.

Once you know where to list your item, the next step is to write your auction's title. The title is the most important thing about your auction - the difference between a good title and a bad title can be the difference between $10 and $100. That's why I'll take you through the dos and don'ts in the next email.

The Scoop About Purchasing Wholesale Products For Resale

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There are a lot of advertisements both within the opportunity magazine world and the Internet promising to provide you with great selling products at extreme discounts for you to resell for profit. These advertisements claim to offer "hot-selling" products at deep discounts for the eager entrepreneurs to buy and resell. It sounds easy - just buy the products for wholesale, mark them up a few bucks, and sell them online. So why isn't everyone doing it? What's the catch?

Well let's take a look at how it works...

An eager entrepreneur sees an advertisement that says something to the likes of:

Make Money on the Internet... Distributors Needed for Our Unique Products!

We Provide You with the Hottest-Selling Products at Rock Bottom Wholesale Prices!

The entrepreneur then clicks on the ad for more information. Usually the information consists of a lengthy advertisement describing the huge sums of money that can be made by reselling the company's wholesale products. The wholesale company will further entice the entrepreneur by providing a showcase of their products (books, computer programs, knick-knacks, etc.) that claim to all be hot sellers. Alongside each product the entrepreneur will usually find a suggested retail price and a "wholesale" price.

Sounds good, huh? Well, before we answer that, let's follow the process through. Let's say the entrepreneur takes the company up on their offer (and many do). The entrepreneur will likely be required to purchase a bulk order of the product(s) and/or a membership fee to be paid before products can be purchased at the discount level.

Now, let me say this, everything that we covered up to this point can be legitimate. However, the problem is, many of the companies advertising wholesale products are NOT legitimate wholesale companies. In fact, they're far from it. I've found that most of all the wholesale promotions you see kicked around the Internet fall into one of the following three scenarios:

A) The discounts (wholesale prices) offered on the products are not low enough for you to make a profit, and the products are either outdated or have very little demand

B) The discounts (wholesale prices) offered on the products are low, but the products are either outdated or have very little demand

C) The products are actually in demand, but the discounts (wholesale prices) are by no means low enough for you to make a profit

Again, this is my opinion, but I found that the above three scenarios just about sums up 99% of every wholesale product purchasing program you can find throughout the opportunity magazines and Internet marketplaces. Let us examine each one of the above scenarios individually...

In Scenario A:

You are given an insignificant discount on products with little to no demand. Unfortunately, this is the most common scenario. In just about every instance, the company which is offering the products markets itself as a wholesale provider for the product, but in fact they are just a middleman in the middleman-chain handling the transaction between you and the product source (or another middleman). As a result the discount will not be significant, probably in the 20% range, which is simply not enough of a discount even if the products had a high demand.

In this case, the discount rate in which you receive means nothing, because the products have no market demand. Your wholesalers (middlemen in your chain), however, will make a profit. Each level of wholesaler, including the manufacture, will make a percentage of the profit off of your initial bulk purchase. Or if the vender doesn't require a bulk purchase, but instead requires a membership fee, then that membership fee is usually divided up the chain as well. They are fully aware that once they sell you a given quantity or membership, you will not be back because of the low product demand.

In Scenario B:

Your discount rate is significant, but the products have little to no demand. This is another common scenario that is usually the result of dealing with fewer middlemen (wholesalers).

The company providing the products may actually be a legitimate level-1 wholesaler, meaning, it purchases products directly from the product manufacture, however, the wholesaler knows the products have been around for years and already marketed to the point where there is very little demand for the products. The best thing for the wholesaler to do is take what it can get for them by selling them for extreme discounts to inexperienced resellers.

Again, the goal of the wholesaler is to sell you a bulk purchase. As in the first scenario, the wholesaler is fully aware that the likelihood of you coming back as a repeat customer is very low, so the goal is to make a profit once and to get rid of slow moving products.

In Scenario C:

The products offered are in high demand, but the discount rate is insignificant. This scenario is almost always the case with products that are in high demand. Here you will likely find the company offering the product to be a high-level (level-3 or higher) wholesaler, or the actual product producer, which is not a true manufacture. The term high-level wholesaler is the term used to describe the number of middlemen between the wholesaler and the product manufacture. A level-3 wholesaler indicates that there are two middlemen between the level-3 wholesaler and the product manufacture.

There are many high-level wholesalers that are offering products that are in high demand for resale. However, as discussed in the middleman-chaining article, a high-level wholesaler simply cannot provide a significant discount to you; therefore you cannot make any profit on the resale.

Product producers are not true product manufactures. A true product manufacture is dedicated exclusively to manufacturing products and distributing those products to wholesale companies, which in turn distribute the product to distributors. A product producer likely sells the same products to the general public (retail). In essence, they compete against you, and since they control the product and price, they will always win.

The lure in Scenario-C is the demand of the product. You already know the products sell well, you have probably seen them marketed for a little while and there may be some industry buzz going around about how good they are.

In this scenario, the wholesaler (or product producer) will typically offer a low 10% - 15% discount on the product for bulk purchases claiming this is an excellent opportunity to jump on board and make a killing off the high demand. Entrepreneur's usually buy into this and end up purchasing several units to find that once they add in their operational cost of advertising the products they, at the very best, break even with a bunch of lost time.

You see, there are costs associated with doing business including: advertising, support, handling orders, etc. As a result of these costs, in most cases, you simply cannot make money with a 10% - 15% discount, even if the product is in high demand. Even an experienced entrepreneur would not make a sufficient profit at the 10% - 15% discount rate; they likely wouldn't waste their time with that rate.

In conclusion, the underlying problem with any of these scenarios is that the products are not being purchased from a true product manufacture or level-1 wholesaler. Instead the products are being purchased from middlemen, or the products are being purchased at a low discount rate from a company that is competing against you for sales. In either case, you will be unsuccessful.

To avoid these situations, you absolutely must avoid the middleman-chaining effect, and be sure that you are getting quality products that are in demand, up-to-date and have good profit margins. You can protect yourself to a great degree by thoroughly examining the company you intend to do business with. For example, whenever you run into a product dealer requesting a bulk order or membership fee, make sure you have solid answers to as many of the following 10 questions as possible:

1. How long has the company been in business?

2. Does the company buy directly from the product manufacture (no middlemen)?

3. Is the company a member of the BBB or BBBOnline?

4. What is the volume of products they move each month?

5. What is the demand of the products (sales statistics)?

6. Is there a product guarantee?

7. Is there a delivery guarantee?

8. What are the delivery options?

9. Is there a guarantee the products will always be available when ordered?

10. What is the return policy?

The responses you get from the above 10 questions will almost always filter out the product dealers that simply do not have quality products or simply cannot perform to your standards. This filtering process is quick and will save you major headaches in the future.

Ebay Scams To Watch Out For Or You May Be Next

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There are many eBay scams out there to keep an eye out for when you are selling on eBay. This article will cover a few of the known and not so known scams to be aware of. Whether you're a causal seller, or a professional seller on eBay, you need to know about these scams so that you can take measures to prevent or recognize if it's happening to you.

Bid Shielding

This scam is something you need to watch out for as a seller on eBay. Basically the scam is run using two separate eBay accounts. The scam works like this. You put your item up for auction. Let's say your item is worth $100 and you have no reserve. The first bidder (scammer) comes along and bids $5 on your item. Right after that, another bidder working with the first bidder comes along and bids $200 on your item. Since your item is only worth $100, you receive no more bids for the duration of your auction. Right before your auction ends, the first bidder backs out and cancels their bid, leaving the $5 bidder the winner, effectively shielding all other potential bidders because of the $200 bid.

Because of the potential for this scam it is always good to have a reserve on your auction. Also, I would put some sort of disclaimer on your auction stating that if you suspect bid shielding on your auction, you reserve the right to back out of the sale. It's always a good idea to keep an eye on your auctions and watch for this type of behavior. If you suspect this is happening to you, be sure to report the parties involved to eBay right away.

Wholesale List Scam

This scam takes advantage of the fact that many people don't pay close attention or read the fine print on an auction. This scam is targeted at buyers who are looking for deals on electronics and technological items on eBay. The wholesale list scam is basically an auction that looks like the seller is offering a great deal on a product like an iPod for example. They may have a buy now price of $40 for an iPod that is worth $150. However, if you actually read the fine print on the auction, you will find that you are not really buying the iPod. In fact you are purchasing a wholesale list.

To avoid this scam, just be sure that you read the entire details of the auction before making a bid or a purchase. Basically, just use common sense. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is, so read the auction carefully.

Bad Check Scam

This eBay scam is exactly what it sounds like. The bad check scam is simple. Someone purchases your item and sends you a check as payment. You receive the check, and send out the item. However, 2 weeks later you find out the check bounces and now you are out your item and the money.

To avoid this, simply do not send out any products until the check has cleared.

Spoof eBay Emails

This eBay scam is an attempt to get your personal information and/or eBay account information. Basically the scammer sends you an email that looks like it's from eBay. The email may direct you to a website (that also looks like eBay) where it asks to you verify your information. In reality, the website is created by the scammer to collect your personal information and use it for identity theft. The scammers can be very tricky and make everything look very official.

To avoid this scam, you need to be wary of any emails that you get. The first thing you need to check is the email header. Emails from eBay, will have "@ebay.com" as the last part of the senders email. Also any links that are in the email may be directing you somewhere other than where they say they are. Also copy and paste the links into your browser, and only visit official links that start with "www.ebay.com". If anything seems suspicious to you, forward the email to eBay and wait for their response. They will let you know if it's legitimate or not.

In conclusion, most people you run into on eBay are good honest people and not out to scam you. You may do business on eBay for years and never run into any of this. However, occasionally these things do happen so it's important to use common sense and use your best judgment when it comes to this stuff. Just be aware that it can happen, and take the necessary precautions and you will be fine. There's a lot of money to be made on eBay, so don't let anything scare you off. Keep yourself armed with knowledge and information and you will be successful out there in the auction world!

Ebay Ebook Success Tips Auction Listing Design

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This month I have encountered two small problems which have affected my eBay business. If I had spent a little more time thinking about the design of my auction listings, these problems could have easily been avoided and I would have had more time to spend on other things instead of editing tiny mistakes in nearly 100 listings. There have been many similar occasions in the past where a little more forward planning would have avoided me redesigning all my eBay auction listings. Therefore, my advice to you in this issue is to think carefully about the design of your auction listings. More time spent on your listing now can mean MUCH less time spent redesigning them in the future.

Now the two actual problems I encountered this month were the down to my PayPal address and my eBay ID. The first problem was that for some reason the Pay Now button in eBay was not working for all customers. This led to me getting many emails from buyers saying the Pay Now button is not working, or worse many people sending payments to one of my email addresses that was not registered with PayPal. The end result was me having to explain and solve the problem via multiple emails to multiple customers. So how could I have avoided this problem? Well in my actual eBay listing and Payment Policy I made no reference to my PayPal email address but included all my other email addresses. I overlooked including my PayPal email address in the listings simply because I assumed that the Pay Now button would work at all times. Obviously not. I have now amended all listings to include my PayPal email address (payments@theebookcavern.co.uk if anyone is still unsure) and thankfully since then I have had no PayPal payments sent to the wrong email address.

So now all seems fine and dandy with my eBay listings when 2 days ago I received an email stating that I needed to change my User ID because the previous one (**www.theebookcavern.co.uk**) made reference to this website. Now on eBay you can get away with this type of User ID for a while but sooner or later eBay will catch you out and make you change it. I knew this so really I should have chose a more sensible User ID instead of trying to get a little extra traffic to my website. So how does this affect my listings? Well in every listing I include a link to my eBay feedback and eBay About Me page which now needs to be changed. So that means more fun for me as I will have edit all my eBay listings yet again.

So you may be wandering OK but what's the point of this story. Well you (and hopefully me as well) can learn from my mistakes. These two examples illustrate how just a LITTLE forward planning would have saved a LOT of time for me and can do for you too. I will give you a few things to think about when designing your auction listings but you may think of more.

1) Ebay ID:- When choosing an eBay ID you need to think about using one that both reflects your line of business and also sticks to eBay policy. I know that it may be tempting to use **yourwebsitename** as a User ID but that is a violation of eBay policy and they will make you change it eventually. If you have to change your User ID then you have to change every Feedback and About Me link in all your listings. Choosing a User ID which is within eBay policy will save you a lot of time in the future.

2) About Me Page:- Do you have an About Me page? If not you should get one as it is one of the best promotion tools you have on eBay. If you do have one you really should link to it in your auctions as from the About Me page has much fewer restrictions than your other eBay pages (for example you can link to your own website). If you want to promote yourself on eBay the About Me page is the best way to do it and the best way to increase traffic to your About Me page is promote it fully.

3) Ebay Store:- If you have an eBay store then it is essential that you provide a link to it within your auction listings. Many customers who view your auctions will not know that you have an eBay store or if they do they may not know exactly what one is. If you want to maximise your sales potential you need to make as many customers aware of your eBay store as possible. Putting a simple sentence at the top of your auction listings such as "Can't wait for this auction to end? Then Click Here to purchase it right now from my eBay store" will give your eBay store maximum exposure in your eBay auctions.

4) Email Addresses:- Make sure that all relevant email addresses are included in your auction listing. Your PayPal email address must be in here to avoid similar problems to the ones I experienced. All the email addresses you wish to be contacted on should also be included as well. For example I include my PayPal email payments@theebookcavern.co.uk, my delivery enquiries email delivery@theebookcavern.co.uk, and my general enquiries email sales@theebookcavern.co.uk. Even if you only have one email address which is the same as the one associated with your "Contact the Seller" you should still include an email link in your auction description simply because it makes it easier for the customer.

5) Ebay Store Custom Pages:- If you have an eBay store you are allowed to design custom pages for whatever purpose you see fit. If these custom pages are in any way relevant to the auction then you should include a link to them too.

6) Images:- Have you put in all the images you want to use to promote your auction. If not make sure they are all included. What about your eBay store? If you have one then a store logo is a great way to promote your store, make you look more professional, and hopefully increase traffic and sales.

These are just a few of the many things you should consider before listing an item on eBay. I am sure you can think of many more. These rules are especially applicable to ebook sellers on eBay because you will be constantly re-using the same auction listing to sell an ebook because you have an infinite supply. Getting the listing as close to perfect now will save you a LOT of time in the future. Good luck!!!

Avoid The Ebay Snipers

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Sniping always occurs when a bid is about to end.

Sniping is against the rules at eBay, but in most cases, even if you report it, the sniper will get away with it. In order to avoid losing the items you want to snipers at eBay, you have to take on the sniper way of thinking. You also need to snipe in a way that will not violate eBay's rules.

Snipping can be done in one of two ways. The first way is the safest, but not necessarily the easiest.

Simply keep up with the item you are bidding on.

And make certain that you are in front of your computer and logged into the auction well before that exact time. The idea is to either bid higher than the highest bid during the last few seconds - which is what snipers do - or to just make sure that you are not outbid by a sniper.

Keep in mind that sniping is against the rules, so you should log in about thirty or forty five minutes before the bidding ends, and get your bid up until it is the highest bid. If you've been logged in for a while, this cannot be considered sniping.

Unfortunately it is very hard to bid against people who use bidding software. So here is the second method.

Snipping services are easy to find online, and they are fairly cheap. You can also buy your own snipping software. If you want to become a sniper, purchasing your own software is usually the best way to go if you bid on a lot of items.

But remember that it is against the rules, and while eBay hardly ever enforces this rule, you will be running the risk of getting banned from eBay.

Outbidding somebody is one thing, sniping is something altogether different.

What S Your Ebay Reputation Really Worth

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Your eBay reputation is everything you are on eBay - without it, you're nothing. Your reputation is worth as much as every sale you will ever make.

If you've ever bought anything on eBay (and the chances are you have), then think about your own behaviour. Buying from a seller with a low feedback rating makes you feel a little nervous and insecure, while buying from a PowerSeller with their reputation in the thousands doesn't require any thought or fear - it feels just like buying from a shop.

A Bad Reputation Will Lose You Sales.

In fact, a bad reputation will lose you almost all your sales. If someone leaves you negative feedback, you will feel the pain straight away, as that rating will go right at the top of your user page for everyone to see. Who's going to want to do business with you when they've just read that you "took a month to deliver the item", or that you had "bad communication and sent a damaged item"? The answer is no-one.

Your next few items will need to be very cheap things, just to push that negative down the page. You might have to spend days or even weeks selling cheap stuff to get enough positive feedback to make anyone deal with you again.

It's even worse if you consistently let buyers leave negative feedback - once you get below 90% positive ratings, you might as well be invisible.

You Can't Just Open a New Account.

Besides eBay's rules about only having one account, there are far more downsides than that to getting a new account. You literally have to start all over again from scratch.

You won't be able to use all the different eBay features. Your existing customers won't be able to find you any more. Your auctions will finish at a lower price because of your low feedback rating. Opening a new account is like moving to a new town to get away from a few people who are spreading rumours about you: it's throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

A Good Reputation Will Get You Sales.

When a PowerSeller tells me something, I tend to believe them. They can be selling a pretty unlikely item, but if they guarantee it is what they say it is, then I trust them - they're not going to risk their reputation, after all. This is the power of a reputation: people know you want to keep it, and they know you'll go to almost any lengths to do so.

This is true even to the point that I would sooner buy something for $20 from a seller I know I can trust than for $15 from someone with average feedback. It's worth the extra money to feel like the seller knows what they're doing, has all their systems in place and will get me the item quickly and efficiently.

You really will find selling on eBay so much easier, and there's only way to get a good reputation: make sure you please your customers every time. But some customers can be, well, just a little difficult to please. In the next email, we ask: is the eBay customer always right?

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