Before you can play the Net auction game, you have to get on the team. Registration is absolutely free and it only takes about five minutes to fill in some information. Once again, I must point out that we are using eBay rules primarily because the other sites have mostly copied their lead.
STEP #1 -- Register. There are three requirements for registration...1) You must be 18 years old. Recently, the horrified parents of an 11 year old boy discovered that their son had bid over $300,000 on eBay items. The sellers were not amused!
2) You must provide a credit card number. It costs nothing to browse eBay listings, yet to participate in any way requires a number. Buyers pay nothing to the auction sites. Only sellers pay charges.
3) You must have a valid e-mail address.Next comes personal information to insert. Please note... you will be asked to check whether you prefer SSL transcription or not. The answer is yes. Secure Sockets Layer makes your information much less vulnerable to the After-School-Hacker Club. Privacy is a tough Internet issue. Don’t make it any easier for the snoops to find out about you. In fact, it is wise to only shop at sites with SSL.
Provide eBay with your name, address, telephone number and e-mail address. Unless you tell the truth here, you won’t be an eBay member. When you are buying and selling, there is frequent communication between you and your auction site. Depending upon your ambitions, you may want to create a separate e-mail address just for your auctions. It is more efficient if your auction messages are separate from your family reunion ones.
eBay promises that your personal information will be given only to law enforcement agents or eBay’s watchdog program, “Verified Rights Owners.” They only reveal information if fraud is involved. Other users may need your contact information to complete a transaction. eBay guarantees that they will send you an e-mail giving you the name and full contact information of anyone who requests information about you.
STEP #2 - Choose your User ID.• Never give your password to anyone
• Don’t pick anything obvious. Of course -- but what is obvious? I have often used the years of my children’s birthdays. How many strangers have this information?
• Change your password if you think anyone else might have it.
• Stay away from really weird and funky names that might turn people off. “Son of Sam” might be amusing to you but it also might cost you a lot of dollars!
• Refrain from using words that might reflect negatively on your products. “Garbageman” may convey an image you don’t want.
• Don’t make your ID too long -- “GreatguidefortheLewisandClarkexpedition” might be a tad difficult!
• Don’t use underlined names because they are a big pain.
• Don’t use ALL CAPS names because many Net users consider this SHOUTING.
The auction sites have some rules of their own to consider…
• They don’t want case sensitive names like SyDnEy.
• Foul language is prohibited.
• No names with just one letter. Some symbols, such as & and @, are prohibited.
• IDs that use the company names, like “ebayseller,” “amazonkid” or “yahoocowboy” are prohibited because they seem to imply that you are an employee.
STEP #4 -- Agree to have a personal page. eBay, for example, has created “About Me.” The way eBay views it, their members are part of a community, a family. And anyone who wants to share information about themselves is welcome to do so with a personal Web page.
Here is what you can do with a personal Web page...• Create a storefront for yourself.
• Show off your fabulous finds.
• Display your items up for bid.
• Educate the world about your favorite hobby.
• Promote who you are in the eBay community.
If you browse the eBay categories, you will see that very few people take advantage of this option. Privacy is such a hot issue on the Net that it seems like a personal page is a contradictory idea. But a personal page is an absolutely fabulous marketing tool. Take advantage of it. You get free advertising on some of the most heavily-traveled consumer locales in the world.
Again and again, eBay urges its trading community to check feedback, to check the reputation of the seller. When you auction your products or services, you can be sure that many buyers will indeed do just that. The Internet is famous for its anonymity but that isn’t wise if you want to sell over the Net, whether on an auction or not. If your customer doesn’t trust you, she isn’t going to buy. Period.
When you go to a store, do you buy brands that are familiar to you? Would you buy a highly technical product without knowing the company and having contact information easily available? Personally, if there is no way to contact an Internet company, I don’t buy from them -- ever. The more confidence you inspire, the more money you will make. So what’s the million-dollar answer to the question, “Do you want a personal page?” Yes, yes, YES!
OK. Now what do you put on your page? 1) Be creative and think about what would inspire confidence. Definitely include pictures. Allow your customers to see you as a human being like them. This is very reassuring. For example, if you sell dolls, definitely include a picture of yourself surrounded by dozens of your little friends.
2) The best kind of information reinforces your expertise. Perhaps you sell cars, own a garage and can personally verify the condition of everything you sell. Or you teach classes on pottery and ceramics, which you also auction. You have written a book on antique jewelry and you sell bracelets and necklaces. You own a restaurant and you sell specialty food items and cookbooks.
• Show pictures of items you have successfully sold in the past, and always mention your Web site, if you have one.• Use testimonials if you have them. What you say about yourself will never be as believable as what someone else says.
• Don’t use those hokey, phony ones, “Joe S. of Utah says ...” Nobody, but nobody, believes those. Use pictures, if you can. Provide contact information.
• Be subtle. But if you have a business or a Web page, always include references to it. For example, if you specialize in paperweights, you might say something like…
“After several years in the business, I have learned how to recognize the most valuable paper weights. In fact, if you would like to read my article on ‘The Ten Most Valuable Paper Weights in North America and How to Recognize Them,’ you can download it for free on my Web site paperweightking.com.”
STEP #5 -- Provide your credit card number. The fees for selling an item are very minimal. In fact, selling on an auction site has to be the biggest bargain in town. Sellers are charged an insertion fee when a product is placed for auction. If it sells, they are charged a final value fee, based upon the final price of the item. Each seller receives an invoice for the previous month’s fees.
In my first week in business I made over $1,000. (Actually, it was $1,027.53.) Out of that amount, I paid eBay $38. A very minimal cost for doing business!
So where do you stand now?You are registered, have your personal page and are ready to begin an actual transaction. Actually, you are more than ready. You are roaring to start.
Now here’s a strange-sounding statement... The best way to make money is to spend some money! So get ready to buy something you really want…
