eBay Shopping Secrets

Ricky Lim asked:


Salehoo is a wholesale and dropshipping directory started by Jimmy Huber. It claims to offer you the best wholesale prices by the best wholesalers. It is primarily targeted to ebay sellers who are selling products on ebay.

So the big question is Salehoo scam? Well, I heard not so good things about Salehoo. The main complaint about Salehoo is that some of the distributors and wholesalers that were supposedly certified by Salehoo were actually scam companies.

Some members have been scammed and the orders they have placed never came. Nevertheless, as a ebay seller, I was interested to know more about their wholesaler sources. I’m always on the lookout for cheaper wholesaler and dropshippers and decide to check out Salehoo.

The first thing I wanted to do was to do a search for the product I was selling on ebay for many years and see if I could find a cheaper wholesaler than the one I was using.

I did find about 5 wholesalers but the prices were slightly higher. Anyway, I decided to email one of the wholesalers and ask about the price. It was from the united states and so I though I can save on shipping cost since the wholesaler I am now getting is from Hong Kong and shipping was a little expensive.

I managed to get a reply after a day and they seem legitimate when they provide their business contact, address, business license number and so on. Shipping prices are lower and so I decided to engage them in a trial order.

I’m happy to say the company was legitimate and planning to use them in future. However, I believe not all companies listed in Salehoo are legit and it pays to do some research and call them if necessary to verify they are legitimate wholesalers.

Dave Simpson asked:


 

Recently, I decided to buy a Coach purse for my wife she’s always had a hankering for one and I had some brownie points to earn – you know how it goes. The problem with designer purses is that I haven’t got a clue – I don’t know a Gucci from a Prada or a Wal-Mart special – so I was ripe for the taking. However, applying some sensible techniques kept me safe. First off, let me say, most sellers on EBay are genuine – I know because I built up a good business selling CD media there, became a Platinum Powerseller and made lots of genuine contacts along the way. But unfortunately, this doesn’t apply to everyone. It is not uncommon for sellers on EBay to try and scam people by selling them fake goods – especially items like designer Coach purses. Luckily, it is often quite easy, with a bit of care, to spot these fakes as I shall explain.

The first thing I did was, naturally, check the sellers feedback – this is always a good starting point when buying anything on EBay. I try and avoid anyone with a low or no feedback. This doesn’t mean that they are dishonest – they could be new to EBay – but they could also be a scammer who uses multiple accounts to rip people off, or even worse they could be someone previously banned starting up again. A good tip if you really want to buy an item from someone with low feedback is to e-mail them a specific question first, genuine sellers will always respond quickly – after all they want the sale – no answer – don’t buy! So, I chose a seller with lots of feedback – over 1100 in this case, and then went through this with a fine tooth comb. I specifically looked for negative feedback and mentions of fake Coach purses. It’s worth noting that hardly any seller has 100% positive feedback – there could be many reasons why this is the case - but in my experience anything over 95% should be ok.

The next thing I looked at was the listing itself. I’m always suspicious if the photo is lifted from the manufacturer’s website. You can tell by just visiting the website – in this case I headed over to the Coach purse website - and compared the images there, they weren’t the same ones so it showed me that the seller had probably taken the photos themselves – meaning that they at least had the item! Another trick is to check the larger image – if there isn’t one, and it’s just a thumbnail then the seller has almost definitely just lifted it off someone else’s site, and I immediately become suspicious. A good photograph will also show any imperfections, fake badges, poor quality material and so on, so if it is a fake, don’t expect the seller to be drawing your attention to these things!

Although this seller specialised in Coach purses, another thing I always look out for is anyone who lists multiple items of the same kind of thing. This is especially true for items like designer purses, since, by their very nature, they aren’t made in large quantities. There are websites out there that sell these items in large quantities, and I find quite often they are all fakes.

Satisfied with the feedback and images, the next thing I did was to closely read the sellers description of the item. I was especially looking for mentions that it was an authentic Coach purse. Quite often, the more devious fake sellers will try and wriggle out of any possible problems with EBay by being ‘creative’ with their descriptions. For example, they may use words like ‘genuine reproduction’, ‘manufacturers overstock’ and so on to basically hide the fact that it’s not the genuine article.

So, at last I picked my Coach purse, and decided to bid. After all that work, I was determined to win, and to be honest I probably paid a little over the odds – guess I don’t always get it right on EBay. My final safeguard was to pay using PayPal. Not only is it the simplest way to pay since EBay bought them over, but they also gave me around $2000 dollars in coverage if something went wrong with the purchase. I knew that if the purse did end up being fake then I could dispute the transaction and still get my money back.

The end result was that my wife’s new Coach purse arrived safe and sound 3 days later and she loved it! Another good EBay purchase.

Jenny How asked:


e looking to profit from the eBay business, then the first thing that you have to do is to get sufficient information about making money online. Many people often make the mistake of jumping into the online business quickly without being prepared first.

This could lead to a variety of problems with could curtail your ability to make good profits online.

By reading a variety of information sources on the web, you can read a lot of tips about what products tend to sell well online.

There are many articles that could give you ideas about the resources available to you, which you could sell to people on the other side of the world.

Another thing that people could do in order to be well informed involves going to actual local seminars and discussions on e-businesses.

The time spent on research can be truly worth it in terms of increasing your capability to make money online.

You could also go to online forums to get ideas about the needs of the people in your area. If you figure those things out, that means that you can be a very wise entrepreneur and order from Ebay or other such sites those products and then sell them to your local market. With such a method, you can be almost certain to make great profits.

Perhaps you would then want to establish a web site to sell products from Ebay to your local community. You may need to invest on Internet security to make sure that your Internet business is as safe as possible from all sorts of risks and scams.

Another thing that you should know about involves how to have the products that you’re selling delivered to your customers overseas. you must be very familiar with things like foreign exchange rates and delivery costs in order to maximize profits.

Without knowing these things, you could be in danger of actually losing money instead of making sizable profits.

You should also constantly read tips that will expand one’s available online income sources. Affiliate marketing is one of the methods that could help people already into trading on Ebay.

By joining an affiliate scheme, you could make money by referring visitors to your site to other people’s products. That way, you could get a pay per click revenue source or perhaps even a portion of the sales profits.

By reading accounts on the difficulties that people might have had in auctioning and buying items online, you would have an idea of the many pitfalls to avoid. There are also legal matters that you always has to keep in mind.

The laws of the country that you’re in or the laws of the countries you’re dealing with might require certain taxes or prohibit the trading of certain materials. It always pays to be informed on such matters in order to make sure that all trades in Ebay are legal.

With sufficient information and a lot of resourcefulness, any entrepreneur can be sure to make good money by getting into the eBay business.

brad schepp asked:


Want to make a mint on eBay? Thought so. Here are the best sources to help you on your way, based on our years of experience writing books and articles about eBay. They’re in no particular order.

1) AuctionBytes—Online newsletter that covers the auction biz—and not just eBay. Full of great articles, a searchable archive, and two (count ‘em) types of newsletters you can subscribe to. If you’re not reading AuctionBytes now click on this link immediately http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab (then come back and read the rest of this article).

2) eBay’s Site Map—eBay can be a real challenge to navigate, no doubt about it. Here’s a quick way to get to whatever area of eBay you’re interested it. Use this once and you’ll be using it all the time. http://pages.ebay.com/sitemap.html

3) Auction Software Review—Do you list more than 10 items per week? If so (or you just aspire to one day) you should be looking at ways to make listing as easy as possible. You should be looking at auction management software. This is a great site for getting a good fix on what’s “out there.” Updated often. http://www.auctionsoftwarereview.com/

4) Negative Neutral Feedback Tool—This one is for buyers and sellers both. It doesn’t take too many times paging through screen after screen of feedback comments before you wish you had a tool like this one. This handy site lets you enter an eBay member’s ID, and then go right away to any negative or neutral comments he or she has received. What a timesaver. www.toolhaus.org

5) Nortica 500 and Nortica 200 lists. These lists compile eBay’s top sellers as ranked by feedback (Nortica 500), or the number of positive feedback comments they’ve received in the past 30 days (Nortica 200). Review these lists to get a feel for who’s doing things right. The seller’s IDs are hyperlinks so you can easily go immediately to their listings. We know PowerSellers who track this as closely as stockbrokers track what’s said in the Wall Street Journal. www.nortica.com/userarea.

6) eBay Financial Information–If you sell on eBay you better also care how well the company’s doing financially. You’re an employee of sorts (but don’t count on getting those sweet stock options just yet). Even more important than the financial stuff are the eBay services and products eBay’s putting muscle behind (eBay Express, Skype..?). eBay’s Investor Relations area provides easy access to recent analyst presentations by Meg herself, as well as annual reports and other information goldmines. http://investor.ebay.com/index.cfm

7) eBay Radio–Reading from a screen all day is hard on the eyes, as if you needed to be told that. That’s why it’s a good idea to get your information through other means sometimes, and eBay Radio is as good an example of that as any we can think of. The host is the avuncular Griff who often has eBay experts on with something to say besides “buy my product.” http://www.wsradio.com/internet-talk-radio/network.cfm/station/eBay-Radio.html

Terapeak—eBay’s been around since 1995 and millions (billions?) of items have passed through it. So there has to be more information available some place about what’s selling and who’s selling it then what you’ll find on the site. Terapeak is one of those places. Here you’ll find data on what’s selling, when it’s selling, what listing enhancements successful sellers used and a whole lot more. Trust us. It’s worth checking out. It’s not free, but it’s not expensive either. http://www.terapeak.com/

9) The Seller Sourcebook–Once of our favorite PowerSellers, Stephintexas, told us about this site featuring easy-to-use eBay tools. We’re talking about auction templates, listing generators and the like, that aren’t expensive and don’t require multiple college degrees to get the hang of. http://www.sellersourcebook.com/

10) Amazon. Sorry, I write for a living and I’m going to plug books as learning tools. Not just my own, such as eBay PowerSeller Secrets, eBay Million Dollar Ideas, and How eBay Really Works (sneaky, eh?), but the others out there that will help you in your quest to be an eBay Titanium PowerSeller (sound the trumpets)! http://www.amazon.com/. Good luck!

John Case asked:


Tips for Selling on eBay(R)

* The first thing you should do is sign up an account with Paypal.com. Once your account is set up, follow Paypal’s instructions to verify your address and account. This will help build buyers’ trust in you as a seller. Paypal will help you easily accept payment from buyers as well as pay wholesale suppliers securely.

* NEVER respond to an e-mail from Paypal that asks you for your login information, or asks you to follow a link to a login page. This is a scam known as “phishing.” A typical message might include scare tactics such as “We have noted an illegal login attempt to your account” or “You have added a new e-mail address to your account.” If you follow the link, you will be directed to what LOOKS like a Paypal login page, but your login information will actually be sent to crooks, who will promptly use your info to clear out your account. Paypal will NEVER send you an e-mail asking for your login info. If you receive a suspicious e-mail, you should forward it to: spoof@paypal.com and they will reply to let you know if it is authentic or not.

* Never respond to an e-mail from eBay that asks for your login information. Some bogus messages appear to be from interested buyers. For example: “Is your product still for sale? Let me know!” or “I sent payment 2 weeks ago! Where is my product?” Another common message is: “Update your eBay information within 48 hours, or your account will be suspended!” Again, your login info will be forwarded to scammers who will use your eBay ID to artificially drive up prices on their own auctions, or use your eBay ID to run a fraudulant auction in which they collect payment for an item that doesn’t exist. If you receive a suspicious e-mail, forward it to spoof@ebay.com and they will let you know if it is authentic. If you want to respond to a question from a buyer, it is safer to login to your eBay account, and go to the “My Messages” section, and reply directly through eBay.

* When buying from a wholesale supplier, ALWAYS pay through a credit card, or Paypal. NEVER pay for products through Western Union. Many Western Union clerks do not require ID for the seller to pick up the money. It is too easy for a wholesaler to collect the money and not send your order. If a wholesaler insists on Western Union, simply look for another supplier.

* If you pay a wholesaler through an escrow service, use only escrow.com. If a wholesaler insists on another escrow service, simply look for another supplier.

* Before buying from a wholesale supplier, be sure to check eBay for similar items and calculate if you can sell for a competitive price and also get a profit.

Each and every day, an average of $86 million changes hands through eBay(R) auctions. Every day, an estimated 2 million people use eBay(R) to buy things they can not find in stores, or to get rid of things they do not use any more in order to make room in their house. But did you know that 430,000 eBay(R) run a full or part-time business from their homes? Of course, there are the big product sellers, who auction off things like new cars, real estate, or computers. However, there are also normal people running eBay(R) business from their homes, not only selling things that are no longer needed around the house, but selling everyday consumer goods, and making a full-time income from it.

The secret of eBay(R) success is finding products to sell that match your interests and lifestyle, locating a reliable wholesale supplier, and mastering the system of putting up auction pages on eBay(R) in order to keep your seller fees to a minimum while maximizing your profits.

Here are some tips for selling on eBay:

* Remember that eBay users will buy based on cost as well as reliability of the seller. If you have a relatively low feedback score, and you are selling the exact same item at the exact same cost as a seller with feedback of 3000 or more, you are not going to make many sales.

* Create e-mail template message to communicate with buyers. You should make at least three messages: one for when you receive payment, one for when you send the order, and one to send approximately two weeks later, to check if everything is OK. Good communications are essential in building good feedback ratings.

* Feedback is very important. Always leave positive feedback for buyers as soon as payment clears. If a buyer has not left positive feedback by two weeks after the close of the auction, send a follow up e-mail. Be very careful about leaving neutral or negative feedback. Even if you have a valid reason for leaving negative feedback,once you leave negative feedback, the buyer is likely to retaliate with negative feedback, harming your reputation. Instead, use eBay’s “Send an invoice to buyer” or “Report an unpaid item” functions.

Jackson Bleu asked:


Read through this checklist and save yourself time and aggravation. A bit of due diligence will help you avoid eBay scams.

Only buy items with photos. The photograph is a good way to insure the seller actually has the item. No photo is a good indicator of a scam.

Check the photo against catalog photos. Many scammers use photos taken from other auctions or from online catalogs. Look for the background and lighting. Professionally taken photos have better lighting, and clearer backgrounds.

Check the seller’s user history. This is on the feedback page and will say something like this: “Member since: Saturday, Aug 13, 2001 Location: United States” New sellers or sellers who have been members for a long time, but not as active sellers are more likely to be committing auction scams.

Check the sellers eBay feedback. If the seller has few feedbacks or recent feedback as a buyer, but not as a seller this may be a clue. It’s easy to get feedback by buying cheap items. Check the items the seller has been buying and selling. There are links on the feedback page to the auction the feedback relates to on the right side of the page.

Do an eBay search for auctions by the seller including completed auctions. Check to see if he has sold the same thing before. If he has, ask the earlier buyer if they got theirs yet. Here’s a link to the search form.

Make sure the address you send payment to is the same as the seller’s registered eBay address. If it’s not the same address, it may be a tip off to a scam. Here’s the link to get the seller’s registered address.

If you are buying something expensive call the seller. You can get the telephone number with the link above. You have to bid on the item in order to get the contact information. This is a great way to avoid eBay scams. If you buy something and don’t feel comfortable, call the seller.

Ask for advice from knowledgeable sources. If you are buying antiques or collectibles, you should get an idea of the value and rarity before buying. Since most collectibles you see on eBay were mass produced, you will get the chance to buy others.

Educate yourself. Learn about the items you are interested in. Go to antiques stores and shows to see what is available. When you factor in shipping costs and uncertainty about the condition many items are cheaper to buy locally. You will make new friends who share your interests, and will not fall prey to eBay scams.

Have a friend go over and look at the item. I bought some trains last year out of Northern California. (I live in Arizona.) I had one of my friends drive over and look at them. He paid the seller and then mailed me the trains. I sent my friend a check to cover the purchase price and then gave him something for his trouble. This is a bit more work, but much safer than sending large sums of money to a stranger.

Search for information online. Use Google.com to find out more about the specific item you are interested in. You might discover it cheaper at a store, or find out the item is really common and be able to find one later from a less risky source.

Ask the seller questions. This will give you some information about the character of the seller. If you are unsure about the condition, ask for additional photos. The best way to avoid an eBay scam is by getting to know the seller.

Check the payment options. If the seller only takes money orders or wire transfers it might be an eBay scam. If you can pay with a credit card, this will give you additional protection. Almost any- I wanted to all, but am sure there are exceptions- credit card transaction can be reversed by calling the issuing bank. Some sellers only take money orders to avoid bounced checks. If a seller refuses to take anything but a wire transfer run.

Check the description and the tone of the ad. Does the person sound eager to sell? Does the person sound like they know what they are selling?

If the item is valuable because of its color, ask the seller for pictures with a common household item for contrast. My dad bought a rare maroon train car that was actually light red. The seller’s poor lighting caused the car to appear much darker in the photos. If my dad had asked for a picture of the car next to a can of Campbell’s soup he would have seen it was the picture making the car darker because the can would be darker.

Ask the seller about his return policy. Many sellers sell as is with no returns, some sell with returns only if the item is not described correctly. Saying the item is sold with no returns in the auction does not allow the seller to misrepresent the item, but will make it harder for you to press a claim.

Ask yourself “If I saw the item at a show, would I buy it?” Many times people bid on eBay auctions for items they would otherwise ignore . Some reasons for this are greed, ignorance, and impatience. Greed because “It’s a low price, and I can always resell it at a profit.” Ignorance is when you buy items without knowing enough about them. Impatience causes buyers to buy when they are ignorant.

Remember the seller is selling. Descriptive words like rare, uncommon, and unique are subjective and quite over used. Some items are hard to find, but most eBay auctions are for common or relatively common items. Unique is probably the most over used word in describing collectibles. Unique means there is only one. These descriptions are sales techniques to get higher bids by making you think the item is harder to find than it is. Ignore them.

Know in advance what you are willing to lose. I’ll buy any train auction for under a hundred dollars without checking the seller out because I won’t lose much sleep over a hundred dollars. You need to know your attitude and personality to answer this question.

Know when to cut your losses. If you get a eBay scam over a $50 auction, it’s not worth hundreds of hours of lost sleep. I know the scammers count on this attitude to allow them to continue ripping people off, but it’s really not worth the time to pursue a small loss. File a complaint with eBay, leave a negative feedback, then move on.

Don’t leave feedback until the item is received and you are satisfied with it. Feedback is your leverage to get a return if the item is not as described.

ALWAYS leave negative feedback when the seller is deceptive or unwilling to correct his mistakes. This is your way to warn other bidders. If you had been warned, you could have saved your money and time. The feedback system won’t work unless you are willing to leave negatives for bad transactions.

Use separate eBay accounts for buying and selling. This way your selling account won’t be damaged by retaliatory feedback when you leave negatives for others. You have to use accurate contact information when creating each account. EBay will remove feedback from accounts without accurate contact information.

Don’t fall in love with your eBay account. I use a buying account until it gets 30-40 feedbacks and then start a new one. This way no one knows what I am buying. Also, because I know I will be using a new account in a few months, I can be honest when leaving feedback.

If you have been ripped off do not threaten the seller. Ebay calls this “user to user threats” and will suspend you immediately. Some eBay scammers exploit this. They will provoke you into threatening them, then forward the e-mail to eBay and your account will be cancelled. If you have filed a fraud compliant with eBay it will be closed because “eBay does not investigate complaints from non-members.”

If you feel taken by a seller have a friend read your e-mails before you send them. Have your friend make sure they are polite and do not include accusations. Be polite and explain why you are unhappy. Name calling will not help. People make mistakes when listing items, and many sellers will make them right. When you open with an attack, you put the seller in a different frame of mind. For the same reason, don’t threaten the seller with negative feedback in the first email.

Don’t try to renegotiate the price after you receive your purchase. Explain clearly and politely why you are unhappy and tell the seller you would like to return it. I refund the purchase price and shipping both ways when I make a mistake. Sometimes I send the buyer the shipping money instead as a make good. I never do this when the buyer opens with a demand for a lower price.

In closing, remember, most items you see on eBay are common. You will see them again and again. Don’t jump to purchase something, but rather take your time and wait for the right seller and the right item.

EBay is a great forum for buying interesting items for your collection, and you can get some great deals. In the few instances I have felt ripped off, most of the time it was my greed that caused the problems. If I would have asked the seller some questions and gotten more information before bidding, I would have saved myself some grief. While there are eBay scams, a bit of prior prevention will protect you.

Have fun buying on eBay, but remember, a bit of caution will do more to protect you than anything else.

Bobby 1234 asked:


If you do not know how to identify fraudulent auctions then you will be a victim. The only question is when.

Over 44% of all Internet fraud complaints are about auctions according to the FBI’s joint Internet crime center. What is even worse is that according to Michael Ford, President of Elite Minds and eBay safety expert, “…almost every one of these complaints could have been avoided. Yes, I am saying that almost every fraudulent eBay auction can be avoided.”

The biggest problem new members on eBay face is a lack of information. They are able to join and be scammed in under 20 minutes without realizing it. New members do not know how the system works and professional criminals take advantage of this by leading them into well planned con games where the new member loses their money and possibly becomes a victim of identity theft.

New members should never:

1. Pay by a means that does not have buyer protection.

2. Focus on a great bargain while losing touch with reality.

3. Click links or run Trojan programs sent by email.

4. Bid without knowing how to check a seller’s history

5. Join eBay and immediately try to buy or sell anything.

New members frequently do not have a PayPal account to make payments and they may actually prefer to deal with someone who requests payment by check or money order because those are payment methods they understand. PayPal and Credit Cards give the most buyer protection. Scammers often request payments by Western Union, Bank Transfer, check or money order because they can run off with the money and never ship anything. New members should only pay by PayPal or Credit Card.

New members join eBay and find a great deal on something they want. Then they are afraid of losing that great bargain. The fear of loss takes over and they will do foolish things that they would never normally do to avoid losing their perceived bargain. Criminals often sell items just to obtain information from buyers. The crooks offer items they may not even have and then use the auction as an excuse to collect information from the buyer including name, address, credit card number, and even social security number. You should never have to give any information to a seller other than your name and address so they can ship your goods.

If it sounds too good to be true, it is. Criminals often list popular items like vehicles, electronics, and laptops at too-good-to-be-true prices hoping to snare new members who do not know better. Never focus on a good deal ahead of good judgment.

Crooks prey on fear and confusion. They will send fake email messages claiming your eBay or PayPal account has been compromised or there is some other problem and you must click a link to login. The link then takes the unwary member to a spoof or look-alike website that looks like eBay or PayPal but was actually setup by the crook. When the member enters their password, the crook then logs into their account to abuse it. Scammers will also send programs containing Trojan software which they claim is a form that must be filled out before the order is shipped. When the buyer runs the software, the criminal can take remote control of their computer and use it to send spam or steal the person’s password.

Neither new members or experienced members, should ever click any link in any email no matter where the email appears to be from.

Free software can prevent account hijacking. There is a free toolbar at MyLittleMole.com which will alert you if you are tricked into going to a look-alike eBay, PayPal, banking, or most other websites. It will also warn you if you go to any of thousands of known fraud or spam websites. If every eBay member used this software, account hijacking would be a thing of the past.

New buyers do not understand what the feedback numbers mean. Even experienced members rarely know how to truly read feedback and assume that a positive feedback rating is good. It is often not good. The Auction Inquisitor Auction Analysis software from AuctionInquisitor.com will analyze auctions and seller feedback to report common signs of fraud in an auction. This software allows eBay members to spot fraudulent auctions before they bid.

By far, the biggest problem new members face is immediately trying to buy or sell. They act before they understand how bids work or how payments are made. New users and even users who believe they are experienced need more education than they have in order to trade safely on eBay.

It is possible to buy and sell safely on eBay but only if you know how scams work so you can avoid them.

You can find more information on how to avoid scams on eBay at Auction-Safety.org

Kb Lim asked:


Starting an ebay drop-off franchise is fast catching on ebay. There are millions of buyers everyday on ebay and let’s face it, not everyone knows how to sell an item on ebay. Some people just are not interested or not familiar with how ebay works, the terms and conditions and all that stuff. They just want to sell their item and get some cash. That is where an ebay drop-off franchise comes in.

What is an ebay drop-off franchise?

It’s actually quite simple in concept. An ebay drop-off franchise store acts like the middleman in the ebay world. You bring the items you want to sell to the ebay drop-off store. The store will auction it on ebay. If it is sold, the store will send a check to you minus a certain percentage of the sale price. The store will also pack and ship the item for you.

In my opinion, this is a huge untapped market as there are lots of people who have heard of ebay but do not know or want to get involved in the whole auction process as it can be rather tedious. They are looking for people to help them sell.

So why get an ebay franchise?

Getting an ebay franchise is not cheap. It usually cost anywhere from a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars plus some ebay franchises charges a annual or monthly royalty fee ranging from 3 to 6 percent of your gross revenue.

However, there are some great advantages to getting one.

1) Brand Recognition

The single biggest advantage of getting an ebay franchise is that you get to be affiliated with a recognizable brand. Some ebay franchise such as “isold it ebay store” spent huge amount of money in TV advertising and marketing plus they have a huge network of stores across the country. In that sense, your franchise store gets to leverage some brand awareness without you spending any money on advertising and marketing.

2) Franchise Store Support

Another important advantage is that you can get immediate support and training needed to maintain and operate your ebay franchise store. This is especially important if you do not have sufficient experience doing business. Plus most franchises have ebay drop-off experts who can be stationed in your store when you just opened for business to guide you on the details of running the business.

3) Franchise Buying Power

Because most franchises have a network of stores, they are able to negotiate better pricing on overstock items or with suppliers.

There are a lot more advantages in getting an ebay drop-off franchise. You can visit my website where I discuss more in depth on the different ebay franchises that are available.

Darren Yates asked:


Taking the leap to full-time as an eBay seller is living the dream: earning a real income, working at home, being your own boss etc. It’s the promise of a million scams, but it’s finally come true, at least for some.

What they don’t always tell you in the success stories is that becoming a full-time eBay seller is not for everyone. You really should try it part-time before you consider taking it up full-time, and even then, caution is recommended. Before you go and burn your suit, here’s a list of questions you should ask yourself.

How Much Am I Earning From eBay Now?

Calculate how many hours a week you spend working on eBay related things (be honest here), then divide this by the average 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?

Consider what you might lose if you quit 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.

Can 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. 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.

Can I Handle Working At Home?

Apart from anything else, you might find that your dream of working at home is more of a nightmare in reality. Your family can start to depend on you to get things 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 them and stopping work for a while will cause your profits to slide.

Would I Survive if it All Went Wrong?

Could you get by if you had a month or two where you sold 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 are not phased by these questions, then I guess you could be cut out for the eBay lifestyle - and even if you were phased, you’d be surprised just how far you can get part-time.

David Nettey asked:


It is that easy registering on eBay, many people keep complaining of the fact that, the eBay registration process is the reason they have still not joined the online auction site. I hope after reading this, the perception of most people about eBay’s registration process will change.

Registering on eBay is very simple, provided you follow all the guidelines, you will be registered and become a member in no time. EBay members after joining the auction site can search and browse the various categories available to buy or sell.

EBay gives you hundreds of categories to choose from, add the sub categories that fall within the hundreds of main categories already available and you’ll find a category that has something you want. From eBay Motors to eBay Antiques, you can find from automobiles to collectibles to buy on the auction site.

Buying anything on eBay can be great fun. There is the thrill that comes with bidding and the happiness that comes after successfully bidding and completing a transaction. Buying on eBay can be very profitable just as selling, because after all, you do get bargains and this means profiting from transactions which you would not have profited from if you bought from the traditional brick and mortar store.

But hold it; do not get too excited yet. Before you can buy anything from eBay, you need to be registered first. To do this, go to the eBay website of the country you live in or to www.ebay.com and you will find your country from there. It is worth noting eBay is not available in all countries yet. You will find the list of countries eBay is available in on their website.

Registering on eBay is very simple, and free, but you must be over 18 to join. In three easy steps, eBay makes you enter basic information about yourself onto their secure database. Provide them with an email address and your credit or debit card details for verification purposes. If you do not wish to give your credit or debit card details or you do not have a credit or debit card, eBay has another option for you.

EBay will ask for an additional or secondary email address to be added to your account. This additional email address must be from an established Internet Service Provider such as AOL, the additional email address can also be from a company, organisation or school.

Next you will be asked to agree to eBay’s user agreement and privacy policy. Please do take your time to read this through, so you are fully aware of what your legal obligations and rights are once you are on their website.

EBay then sends a confirmation email to the email address you registered (or the secondary email address if a credit or debit card is not held on file). This helps to confirm that the email address you just registered is valid. This email will ask you to complete your eBay registration by clicking on a link in the email that they have sent you. Once this is done, you become a member of the eBay community and you can start bidding straight away.

EBay has a help page dedicated to registration on their website, which is worth reading if you have a problem any time during the registration process.