As part three of my two part series about eBay, I decided to expound on it one more item – and deal with feedback.

If you’ve been with eBay for any length of time, you’re aware of feedback. Feedback is the uncensored comments from buyer to seller (and seller to buyer) about each transaction. It is supposed to be a great rating for how each is doing, but ends up failing somewhat.

The reason is simple – no one wants to ‘rock the boat’, and so negative feedback is rarely left – even when it is deserved. Any negative feedback is often reciprocated, and ends up hurting everyone. I’ve even seen it used for character assassination – one person selling car manuals ran afoul of a competitor, who then made a few purchases, and left some quite nasty (and negative) comments, rendering that eBay ID useless (once feedback goes to -4, eBay steps in and deactivates the user ID).

Recently, I was blessed with some negative feedback. Fortunately, the buyer made a mess of it, and I got it removed (a rarity, as eBay avoids touching feedback whenever possible).

So knowing your way around feedback is a handy thing, and worth a little time researching. To that end, I found a free guide I’m offering for download on this site (click and save locally – it’s a PDF file). It’s one of the better feedback guides, and one you won’t find often on eBay (eBay rules make feedback guides particularly hard to list).

And if that ebook isn’t enough, I’m also offering a guide I wrote. It’s my ‘top 40′ tips on eBay – they’ve helped me out, and it’s a worthwhile read if you’re into eBay.

With that, I’m all ‘eBay’ed out, and so it’s time to move onto other business topics…

Selling on eBay is important for a business – but it makes sense to buy from there as well.

Although the most obvious reason to use eBay for any business is to save money, that’s not the only one.

For instance, one reason to buy is to see how it’s done. While selling gives you customer support training, buying shows you how professionals are already doing it. Buy from people with high feedback (and little or no negatives) to see how the best handle matters.

Of course, buying is also good for feedback. If you’re planning to sell there, you’ll want feedback behind your name to give others confidence (and increase sales). The easiest way is to just go out and buy items.

Contacts are another little-known feature – even buying from people, I’ve met some that I keep in contact with. I’ve actually worked with sellers I’ve met on eBay – one of the benefits of networking.

And as with selling, buying can get you into market research. Can’t find that item you want? There may be a need out there just waiting to be filled. And looking for items can get you face to face with other useful ones. While looking to digital eBooks for business, I came across auctions for website templates – some of which later went into my sites.

eBay is the ultimate bazaar. If you’re selling, you just open a display, and wait for walk-by (browser-by?) traffic. And for buying, ebay gives you a chance to save, and save big.

Whether you’re a business on a shoestring, or just want to improve your marketing skills, consider eBay as a viable option for business – you may get more out of it than you bargained for.

I don’t have to tell you about eBay – the premier auction site for just about everything and anything. It can be a great way to unload extra junk – or buy new junk from someone else!

But for the businessperson, especially one on a shoestring budget, eBay is a boon, both for buying and selling – for just about any product you can imagine.

I’ll get to buying tips – but first, look at some key selling benefits:

1. You can get up and selling quickly with low overhead.
2. It can generate names and contacts for your business.
3. It gets you into customer support.
4. It can be a great source of market research.
5. It can help to test ideas and advertising.

1. If you’re working on your website, researching your market, or any other work, keep doing it – but find a little time to put an auction or two on eBay, and see what happens. You may end up making a few sales, and that can mean cash flow – and as anyone in business will tell you, cash flow is very, very important, especially early in a business (when cash usually flows in the wrong direction).

2. You can also use eBay to generate interest in your site. Every eBay how-to guide I’ve read says the same thing – it’s rare to make eBay your sole sales outlet and succeed. The key is to use eBay to make money – but always drive traffic to your site for repeat business. This way, instead of paying for advertising to get visitors, your visitors are paying you – and since they’ve already bought from you, are more likely to buy again.

3. Customer support is an often overlooked part of eBay dynamics. Frankly, I’d recommend eBay auctions just to see how order filling suits you. You’re going to get annoyed customers, mixed and crossed messages, and very unhappy people – just like in any business. eBay is a cheap way to find out if you can tolerate it. It also lets you practice your customer skills, so when someone later rings you up with a complaint, you’re ready.

4. eBay can also provide an excellent research tool. With millions of auctions, looking at what sells or not can give you concrete information on buying trends. Simply put, if it’s selling on eBay, your chances are much better than if it isn’t. And how often it sells, what it sells for, how many bidders – these all give good indications as to how your product might fare.

5. Finally, eBay gives you cheap copy writing practice. You can list an item to sell for as little as 30 cents – where else can you test ads that cheaply?

Try this – write an ad for your product. Put counters into the ads (available when you list). Then place it three times in the same section at the same time, but with a different auction title (the first thing eBay visitors will see). Try that a few times, and you’ll likely figure out the best title – for a very low cost. From there, adjust items and listings, and you’ll start to find how best to advertise your product – invaluable for when you start spending your advertising budget in earnest.

This is just the tip of the eBay ‘experience’ – moving on, I’ll talk tomorrow about some key points for business buyers on eBay.