Category Archives: eBay

dealing with that huge Internet bazaar.

Paypal Protection – Maybe?

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I do a fair bit of shopping on eBay, and I count on that little message in the auctions:

“Pay with PayPal and your full purchase price is covered”

In fact, it was specifically for that reason that I bid on a electronic tool today – even if the seller feedback was zero.

Because, as they say, if there’s any problems, they will make good on it. After all, that’s the reason for the policy – to encourage buying.

Odd thing, though – I couldn’t pay. As far as later purchase, no problem. But every time I tried to pay for that item, I got an error message. So, I checked out their help section, and followed their instruction for this problem (wait 15 minutes and try again). Still, no go.

But here’s the kicker – their next suggestion was to pay the seller directly on PayPal. However, if I followed their advice, I’d void the Paypal Protection, which specifically says I only qualify if I

“Send the payment to the seller through: The eBay “Pay Now” button, or The eBay invoice”

No exceptions – and certainly not direct payment by email.

Put simply, if you follow Paypal’s advice, you end up letting Paypal off the hook if that zero feedback store goes belly up, or sells you junk.

The cynic in me feels this is not an accident, but I’ve emailed Paypal in case the cynic is wrong. However, business is full of examples where a company is happy to have customers disqualify themselves from benefits, even leading them down the primrose path to do it. But it’s still not nice, and if Paypal IS doing this, I hope they change their policy ASAP.

Because I’m NOT bypassing the protection plan in this case. It’s their encouragement for me to buy, and so I did. Now they have to do their part, by protecting me. If they don’t like that, then don’t offer protection – but expect me to buy less in the future.

New eBay Changes – DSR Fixes?

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I’ve already discussed the eBay ‘free listings’ offer. Now they announce a change to the selling system, including a new ‘Power Seller’ criteria, and changes to the DSR (Detailed Seller Ratings).

There’s much more of course, but it’s the DSR adjustments that most interest me. Previously, buyers could rate a seller from 1-5 in satisfaction on a variety of categories. And if the average went too low, a seller could actually be banned (and as Melissa of The Scrapbook Exchange points out, that ban can come very innocently).

Now, rather than average scores affecting you, the emphasis will be on low scores (rating 1 or 2) and the total of them; also, international ratings won’t be included, so if Customs holds on to that box, you won’t suffer for their mistake.

eBay seems to be working hard to make their site the popular experience it used to be. I for one am glad to see them back off from banning people (the old feedback system worked great for years). I hope it continues…

eBay and Free Listings – Market Research Bonanza

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Previously I mentioned eBay had offered free listings (five per account).

While I already covered regularity (a chance to cheaply get back into eBay selling), and high ticket items (ones that would be costly for a ‘regular’ listing), I left out a biggy – market research.

Five items free per month gives you five chances to see if a market works – or about one auction a week. It may not seem like much, but it’s FREE – and free means you can test and test and test without pain.

Take for example you want to offer art. To sell at any reasonable price would mean expensive auction listings week after week – and possibly giving up too soon. With the five, you can have your art up week after week – and that means exposure. Track the visitors to the auction, and you have market research that can really help you (for instance, what captions get people in? What times/day of week seem best?).

Don’t get me wrong – this is very low-tech testing for a real business (which would be better to budget $100 or more per month for listings, a store, etc.) But people don’t have huge chunks of money right now. So the free listings are effective for them.

Go to eBay right now, and set up a weekly auction for something you’ve been wanting to try. And see if it works. Who knows? eBay may have just given you your next business, and it costs them next to nothing…

eBay Has Free Listings – So I’m Selling Off My Domains!

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eBay as offered free listings for awhile now – five free per account.

It’s a great jump-start for them, and even if they don’t make money on the front end, they do when people buy, and in the meantime, eBay volume is up (nothing is worse for selling than an empty store).

How to make the most of it?

Be creative. Now is the time to sell that high-ticket item you couldn’t afford to list before. To test, I’ve listed two of my domains to see what interest there is – and to gauge how popular eBay domain selling is these days:

My eBay Domain Auctions

Also, be frequent. Five free auctions means you can list one per week. Frequent auctions gives the impression you are doing well, and it’s well worth aiming for. Offer one item a year, and don’t expect visitors to take you seriously.

With this new feature, eBay should see a real surge in sellers – and believe me, when there’s lots of deals, people DO buy on eBay!

It’s eBay Auction Time Again!

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As I’ve mentioned in the past, I sell on eBay. I’d like to say it’s only for the experience, but the extra money is nice, too. Plus, there’s something slightly addictive about getting your feedback higher and higher (I’m nearing 500)…

But last Monday was a rare treat – all auction listings were 10 cents apiece. These special occurrences are well worth planning for, and I was ready this time.

What to do?

  • Have auctions ready to go (I have html copies of the auctions on my hard drive that I just cut and paste in).
  • Put the high priced ones up now – the higher the better (since you save more on each).
  • …and list a lot of them.

You may not sell, but the exposure is great – and at 10 cents each, it’s hard to lose money.

In my case, my sales are arranged roughly this way:

  • I always offer eBooks at low cost – it’s a great way to get feedback points, and it gives customers a chance to check my service and support out before spending big money.
  • I occasionally offer my Promo-Cal calendars at a deep discount (eBayers love discounts!), but this time I also added my PromoWords and PromoQuotes programs.
  • A few of my custom Windows calendars from Gift-Cal.com
  • Some of my domains.

The domains of course are the big-ticket items. I’m offering a selection of my 4WDN (4 word domain name) locations, as well as putting HomeBusinessInsight.com on the block (I’m concentrating now on BigBizBlog.com)

Some are developed; some aren’t. But the great thing is that over time I’ve gotten most of their Page Rank to 4 and to 3, AND indexed in the search engines. For a new business looking to get noticed, these domains can make a great location (or even doorway site), so I suspect I’ll sell a few – all part of my master 4WDN plan…

In any case, feel free to drop by and look around – and get yourself a deal or two!