EBay for Dummies (47 page)
Authors: Marsha Collier
Tags: #Electronic Commerce, #Computers, #General, #E-Commerce, #Internet auctions, #Auctions - Computer network resources, #Internet, #Business & Economics, #EBay (Firm)
Selling from Your Own Virtual Storefront
After you’ve shopped the eBay Stores, you may be thinking that this is a good place to open your own store. There’s great news on that end because eBay Stores have the most reasonable rent on the Internet. At an eBay Store, you are not constrained by the auction format of a 1-to-10-day maximum. You can list your fixed-price items in your eBay store on a “good till cancelled” basis.
I don’t like to pull punches with my readers, so let me give you a bit of advice. Opening an eBay store without a large stock of items, or many items that you stock in multiples, makes no sense. Opening an eBay store is really for experienced sellers — those who make a business on the eBay site selling merchandise they’ve bought for the purpose of reselling. Retailers who come to the eBay site to expand their business can be successful with the stores, but certainly it helps to know the e-commerce ropes already. (You can always read my
eBay Business All-In-One Reference,
2nd edition (Wiley) to catch up on all you need to know).
Too many readers new to eBay e-mail me after reading this book and tell me that they opened a store and have had no sales. You must list a bunch of items on eBay in the auction format (or fixed price) to draw people to your store — simple as that.
Paying the landlord
The rent for an eBay store is as low as $15.95 per month. Featured stores have a rent of $49.95, and anchor stores (just like your local department store) pay $299.95 a month. Featured stores’ listings are guaranteed to rotate through the special featured section on the eBay Stores home page. These listings also appear on the top level of their category directory page. Anchor stores get extra promotion, and their logos are showcased in the stores’ directory pages. There are also other benefits to owning a store: cost-per-click advertising, sales management tools, and lots of promotional benefits for your merchandise.
The reasonable pricing behind eBay Stores is a remarkable bargain. For as little as $15.95 a month, you have the opportunity to sell your merchandise to over 140 million registered users! See Table 11-1 for eBay Store listing fees.
Table 11-1 eBay Store Listing Fees | |
Starting Price | Listing Fee |
$0.01–$24.99 | $0.03 per 30 days |
$25.00 – $199.99 | $0.05 per 30 days |
$200.00 and higher | $0.10 per/ 30 days |
Listing fees and monthly rent can be just the tip of the iceberg if you choose to get fancy by using all kinds of options. My recommendation? Don’t spend too much on them until you’re fully entrenched in an eBay business — by that time, you’ll have the experience to know what to add and when. Stick with the basics.
The final value fees are charged as a percentage of the sale price and are different in stores than on the regular eBay site. Check them out in Table 11-2.
Table 11-2 eBay Store Final Value Fees | |
Final Selling Price | Final Value Fee Calculation |
$0.01–$25.00 | 12% |
$25.01–$100.00 | 12% |
$100.01–$1,000.00.00 | 12% |
$1,000.01 and more | 12% |
Opening your eBay store
Because this book is your introduction to eBay, I’ll just give you some ideas about opening an eBay store. In my more advanced book,
Starting an eBay Business For Dummies
(Wiley), I take you step-by-step through the basics of opening your store.
Naming your store is your first challenge. Choose a name that describes the type of items your store will carry or one that includes your user ID. Don’t choose a name that is so esoteric or overly creative that it doesn’t give possible shoppers a clue as to what you carry. A creative store name and logo are pictured in Figure 11-5.
As you can see from my store page, each store can have its own categories. You get to make them up yourself so your customers can find items within your store in an organized manner. You can define up to 300 custom categories up to three levels deep. Each category can have a maximum of 29 characters for each name in your store.
Your eBay store home page has links for your Store Information: Store Policies and About the Seller page. The About the Store Page is the same as your About Me page (which I discuss in Chapter 14).
Spend some serious time on eBay before you open a store. Study some of the successful stores. You need to have enough know-how to make your store a success!
Figure 11-5:
The eBay Stores page for my store.
Chapter 12
Closing the Deal and Shipping It Out
In This Chapter
Staying organized
Communicating with the buyer
Packing and sending the item
Purchasing stamps and services online
The auction’s over and you have a winning buyer, who (you hope) is eager to send you money. Sounds perfect, doesn’t it? It is if you watch your step, keep on top of things, and communicate like a professional.
In this chapter, I help you figure out how to stay organized by showing you what documents you need to keep and for how long. I also include tips and etiquette on communicating with the buyer so that you’re most likely to come out with positive feedback. In addition, you find out how to pack your item, assess costs, and make sure the item reaches the buyer when you say it will (oh, yeah . . . and in one piece).
Bookkeeping and Staying Organized
Although I don’t recommend lining your nest with every scrap from every auction you run, you can safely keep some documents without mutating into a giant pack rat. Until you become an eBay expert and are comfortable with other ways to electronically store your information, you should print and file these essentials:
The listing page as it appeared before the auction closed:
This page gives you a record of the item name and number and a lot of other useful information. The page also includes the auction item description (and any revisions you’ve made to it), which is handy if the buyer argues that an item’s disintegrating before his eyes and you honestly described it as just well loved.
Do not use the Print feature on the item page because it will not include all of the seller’s description. Print the page directly from your browser.
You may think you don’t need this information because you can always look it up, but here practicality rears its head: eBay makes completed listings disappear after 30 days. However, if you use the custom link that appears in your End of Auction e-mail (see the next bullet1), you can access the auction online for up to 90 days. Print your auction page
before
you forget about it, file it where you know you can find it, and
then
forget about it.
The End of Listing e-mail you receive from eBay that notifies you that the auction is over:
If you lose this e-mail, you can’t get it back because eBay doesn’t keep it.
I set up a separate folder in my Microsoft Outlook e-mail program for my sold item e-mails. When one comes in, I read it and then drag it over to its special folder. That way, I can always check this folder for the information I need.
E-mail between you and the buyer:
In the virtual world, e-mail is as close to having a face-to-face conversation as most people get. Your e-mail correspondence is a living record of all the things you discuss with the buyer to complete the transaction. Even if you sell just a few items a month on eBay, keep track of who’s paid up and who owes you money. And more importantly, if the buyer says, “I told you I’d be out of town,” you can look through your e-mail and say, “Nope, it doesn’t show up here,” or “You’re right! How was Tierra del Fuego? Is the payment on the way?” Or something more polite. Be sure to keep that e-mail with the headers and date on it so that you can’t be accused of (ahem) creative writing.
PayPal payment notices:
You get a notice from PayPal when the buyer pays for the item. The notice has the listing information and the buyer’s shipping information. (When that e-mail arrives, the clock begins to tick on sending out the item.)
Any bank statements you receive that reflect a payment that doesn’t clear:
Keep anything related to payments, especially payments that didn’t go through. That way, if a buyer says he’s sure he sent you a check, you can say, “Yes sir, Mr. X, you did send me a check, and it was made of the finest rubber.” Or something kinder, especially if you want that payment.
Any insurance forms:
Until the item has arrived and you’re sure the customer is satisfied, be sure to keep those shipping and insurance receipts.
Refund requests you make:
If you make a request to eBay for a refund from a sale that doesn’t go through, hold on to it until you can view the credit on your statement.
Receipts for items that you buy for the sole purpose of selling on eBay:
This comes in handy as a reference so that you can see if you’re making a profit. It can also be helpful at tax time.
Someday, the Internal Revenue Service (or the government agency in your area) may knock on your door. Scary, but true. Like hurricanes and asteroid strikes, audits happen. Any accountant worth his or her salt will tell you that the best way to handle the possibility of an audit is to be prepared for the worst — even if every eBay transaction you conduct runs smooth as silk and you’ve kept your nose sparkling clean. See Chapter 9 for more tax information.
If you accept online payments by PayPal (PayPal Premier or Business members only), you can download your transaction history for use in QuickBooks, Quicken, or Excel. Additionally, these programs are excellent sources for your documentation.
When you’re starting your career as a seller, once a month conduct a By Seller search on yourself so that you can print all the information on the bid histories of your most recent auctions. Do this independently of any auction software you use. Having the listings neatly printed easily helps you see what sold for how much and when. Chapter 5 gives you the lowdown on how to perform this search.
When it comes to printouts of e-mails and documents about transactions, you can dump them as soon as the item arrives at the destination and you get your positive feedback. If you get negative feedback, hang on to your documentation a little longer (say, until you’re sure the issues it raises are resolved and everyone’s satisfied). If selling on eBay becomes a fairly regular source of income, save all receipts for items you’ve purchased to sell; for tax purposes, that’s inventory.
Tales from the formerly Type A
Confession time. When I first started buying and selling, I used to keep all my paperwork — listings, e-mails, the works. Now I keep the e-mails and receipts sent to me until I know a transaction is complete. Then they go wafting off to the Recycle Bin so that I can still find a file in my Outlook program.
These days, I stay on top of my eBay finances with online auction-management that helps me keep track of who has paid me and who hasn’t. These programs also help me figure out my expenses, profit, and other financial calculations, almost painlessly. (See Chapter 20 for more information on these programs.) They can also help spiff up the look of my auctions. Ain’t technology grand?
If you sell specialized items, you can keep track of trends and who your frequent buyers are by saving your paperwork. This prudent habit becomes an excellent marketing strategy when you discover that a segment of eBay users faithfully buys your items. An
audience.
Imagine that.
Talking to Buyers: The ABCs of Good Communication
You’ve heard it countless times — talk is cheap. Compared to what? Granted, empty promises are a dime a dozen, but honest-to-goodness talk and efficient e-mail are worth their weight in gold and good feedback — especially on eBay. Sometimes,
not
talking is costly.