Getting Started on eBay
By Jonathan Berohn
By now you’ve heard about the great deals you can find on eBay —or how much money you can make selling stuff on eBay. What’s a little harder to find is reliable information on how to get started, and how to make eBay work for you.
Creating an Account
The first step is creating an eBay account. You probably don’t want to use you actual name simply for privacy purposes. Create some sort of nickname that you can remember, and also pick a password that you can remember—and write it down. When you create an account, you should set up an account to pay for your purchases (and accept money for your sales). The easiest way to do this is through PayPal . Paypal is an electronic payment system that lets you link your payments to a bank account and also use credit cards to make and accept purchases. You can link your Paypal account directly to your eBay account to make things even easier.
Building a Reputation
The main way that things work on eBay is by reputation. Every time you complete a transaction, the other person you deal with can provide feedback on you that other users can see. Additionally, each user account name always appears with a number next to it. That number is the net positive feedback response (minus the negative responses) that each user has received. When you want to buy something, it’s a good idea to check out the sellers feedback and number before making a bid. By the same token, if you want to sell items, it’s a good idea to buy a few small things first so you have some record of positive feedback that potential buyers can evaluate.
The Auctions
When you make a bid, you are committing to buy that item. If you back out, that’s when you start earning bad feedback. Do that a few times and you’ll never be able to buy or sell anything. In short, make sure you really want what you bid on. It’s also a good idea to check out some similar auctions before you bid to see what kind of prices people are paying. That way you won’t get stuck either paying to much or buying something you really weren’t interested in.