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Intergalactic Shopping Vortex

eBay Top 1000 Search Terms

EBay by the numbers

9: Number of minutes between the sale of SUVs on eBay.

$18: Cost of an eBay share when company went public in September 1998. After splits, it's worth $760.32 as of Friday.

95: Percentage of eBay's sellers that are individuals or small businesses.

$729: Value of goods sold on eBay every second.

10,000: Number of people who visit eBay Motors every month.

19 million: Number of items on the site at any given time, more than 300 times the number of stock-keeping units in a typical Wal-Mart.

86 million: Number of registered eBay users in 2003. That is up 36% from the year before and almost on par with the population of Vietnam.

$6.7 billion: Value of cars, used and new, sold on eBay in 2003.

$20 billion: Dollar value of goods sold on eBay in 2003, $6.5 billion more than the annual revenue of Gap clothing stores.

$40.9 billion: EBay's stock market value. That is $11 billion more than the market value of 100-year-old Ford Motor.

Shopping Guide

I have been a member of eBay for over 5 years now. In my opinion, eBay has set the standard for online auctions and is the future of commerce and trade. One of the great things about eBay is that it is probably the only place on the planet where everything is for sale and there is a buyer for everything. Things you never dreamed even existed can and are up for sale every day. You can find all kinds of exotic collectibles, strange one-of-a-kind items and even those elusive [Your Team Here] playoff tickets. Of course there are the more mundane items like power tools, new and used cars on ebay motors, computers, clothes, magazine subscriptions, hip-hop CDs, Star Wars movies and the nearly infinite range of everyday dreck that fills up people's closets and attics.

Getting Started on eBay

To get started on eBay you have to fill out a simple registration form. Registering will be good for eBay and Half.com. Registration is FREE and shopping on eBay DOES NOT require you to submit credit card information. However, you WILL need to fill out credit card information to SELL. What will you need to register on eBay? First of all, your name, address and phone number. You'll need to enter an email address that you can check immediately. Why? eBay will send you an email, which contains instructions on how to complete registration. You will also need to choose a User ID, the unique nickname you use to identify yourself on eBay and Half.com and a password. You will be asked to answer a secret question which will be used in case you forget your password.

Once you fill out this form and confirm your registration you are ready to SHOP! What I did when I first got started was to buy a few things to get the feel for the "eBay" process. Then I did my homework before I started selling. Now eBay has a Learning Center with courses on How to Buy, How to Sell and Advanced Selling. Check these out, especially before you start selling. You CAN make money selling on eBay; you just have to do the right things. Learn them by taking these short online courses.

Once you get started you are given access to additional features to make the eBay experience a bit easier. You will be able to keep track of auctions that interest you by clicking on the watch this item link on the right of all auctions near the price. Auctions you select to watch are all listed together and can be accessed by clicking on the my eBay link at the top right of all eBay pages. You can keep track of a maximum of 30 eBay auctions. If you wish to watch more than 30 eBay items you might want to consider adding a folder to your Internet Explorer, Netscape or other browser's bookmarks and just putting them all there with appropriate descriptions. Keep those auctions you are most interested in your watched auction section though so you can quickly access them and the amount they are up to. Bidding on anything on eBay is a contractual thing and you should bid only if you are willing to follow through. After bidding you will be sent an email confirmation of your bid from eBay. By each seller's name you will see a number which represents a feedback system, higher positive numbers denote more succesfully completed transactions. As you succesfully complete eBay transactions you too should start to get a positive feedback number. 100% positive feedback is a precious commodity on eBay. Guard yours carefully! That means when buying, follow through and pay for your item quickly. When selling, deliver what you promise. Go beyond the call of duty and get your repeat customers.

Browsing on eBay

1. You can browse an entire category or collection of categories.

If you use this method you must first find a related category to browse. You can either drill down from the categories listed on the front page of eBay to find such categories or search with relevant phrases for a specific thing that interests you and then browse all listings in the category that the item is in. It is wise to bookmark a category of interest or add an item from a category of interest to your collection of auctions you are watching so you can return to it quickly. Since items are constantly being added its wise to check back every one to three days to see if anything new has been added.

2. Searching for stuff on eBay.

Some things are never in relevant categories or are part of such large diverse categories that you will have to search to find them. Things like Star Trek phasers (replica and authentic) which are listed sometimes in toy categories, or general sci-fi, or one of the tv or movie prop categories, are an example of a thing found best by just searching for it with specific phrases like Star Trek Phaser, and Star Trek prop. Searching with phaser alone returns a bunch of unrelated items. This demonstrates that specific phrases work best for finding items and also be aware of typos and spelling variations that sellers might use in auction listings. You can use the search box below to search for things for sale on eBay right now. How about Yankees or Red Sox playoff tickets? Try it!

3. You can browse items up for sale from people you have known to have items that interest you in the past.

This is an easy way to keep up on sellers you know have had items that interested you in the past. After adding one of their auctions to your watch list you can return every few days and see if they have added anything else in a relatively easy fashion. You would be surprised just who puts things up for sale on eBay including celebrities, movie studios, and "professional auction houses" like Butterfields, Sothebys, and Profiles in History.

Things to be Aware of Before Bidding

On eBay there is no screening process to determine who can or cannot list things for sale. Consequently you need to know something about the items you are bidding on especially if they are collectibles. Some things are easier to replicate than others such as autographs, movie posters, popular costumes and props. In short if it has ever been replicated in any real quantity it will be up for sale on eBay someday perhaps not exactly described as it is. For example I often see Back to the Future prop Almanacs up for sale on eBay, so many in fact that it is obvious that someone has replicated them. The same is also true of Fugitive TV Series posters. Star Trek phasers are often up for sale on eBay too. I would suggest assuming all Classic Star Trek phasers and Star Wars props to be replicas unless you have great information to the contrary. There often are modern screen used Star Trek phasers up for sale on eBay, but replicas are good and you need to know a lot about what you are getting. This holds true of famous artwork and other things where the reputation of the seller may be crucial in determining if an item is even worth seriously looking at.

Bidding on eBay

While some may just bid in the beginning the maximum amount they are willing to pay for a given eBay item, this is not necessarily the best strategy. It is often best to wait and see and just watch auctions that interest you. This way you can keep a running collection of a few things that interest you and bid on only the ones that appear to be within your price range by auctions end. Also it is human nature in an auction environment to raise ones bid to try to match someone elses. So if you bid at the last moment this will not be possible. Always keep in mind shipping as it can be a factor in items, if a seller does not list shipping it is wise to email them about this before bidding.

Paying for eBay Auction Items

It is customary to email the seller or respond to their email to you, to verify the means by which you plan to pay for an auction you have won.Some eBay sellers prefer money orders or checks. This means you will have to manually write out a check or pay for a money order, mail it, wait for them to receive it, and wait for it to cash if its a check. This means delays, effort, and and old fashioned feeling that you are dealing with a Sears Roebuck of the 1900's than the online world of the present. Fortunately most eBay sellers accept paypal which is a means for paying individuals for online auctions which speeds the entire payment and shipping process and can be conducted at any time of day. If you do not have a paypal account it would be wise to consider setting one up as you do not have to maintain a balance and can use your credit card to pay for things as you wish. Often on small value items hardcore eBay users may opt to not bid on the ones that can not be paid for via paypal because of the inconvenience. Paypal was in such widespread use on eBay, that the Paypal company was recently acquired by eBay itself. Another means to pay for eBay auction items is Bidpay, which is a means to use your credit card to pay others via money orders. In short you are charged a fee for the Bidpay company to issue a money order to another individual which is mailed and they are emailed about before it is sent.

Waiting for your eBay Packages to Arrive

This is one of the most unique parts of the eBay experience. It's the UPS men in brown, FedEx or the Post Office that is delivering your package; it's fun and you will think yourself important to be receiving eBay auction items. They may be bubble wrapped, they may be in boxes you can't get open without a lot of cutting, and there's often the lovely styrofoam peanuts. Those little peanut things really add to the experience especially on really large packages. They dump out on the floor while you sift through them for your goodies. It's like Christmas when you get your eBay package! Sometimes shipping will cost you more than the item inside but the dignitary-like feeling of having something shipped that you have to open can be one of the ultimate feelings of pride on the planet.

After Your eBay Auction Item Arrives

Let the Dealer Know

I always let the ebay dealer know that I've received his package and if it was received in good condition or not. If I don't like the condition of the item, I let the dealer know and ask if it can be returned. For example, I once ordered a disk drive that the dealer claimed was in perfect working order. When I received it, the drive looked okay, and I had dropped an email to him. However, after I installed the hard drive, I found it was defective. I sent the dealer an email and asked if I could exchange it for another drive and, if not, could I get a refund, since he claimed the drive would work. He ended up giving me a refund because he didn't have any other drives.

Leave Feedback on eBay

One note on feedback feedback is one of the more sought-after commodities on ebay. Good feedback shows, for one thing, that you can be trusted. If you have poor feedback, people may cancel your bids, and if you're trying to sell something, people may not be willing to bid on your ebay auctions. After you finally get your package and it is to your satisfaction you should consider leaving positive feedback for the seller so that others will know that this seller can be trusted. I consider it part of the exchange of doing business on eBay. In the case above, I left the dealer positive feedback because he delivered it in a timely manner, it was packaged well and he backed up his guarantee of a working disk drive by giving me a refund. If, however, he refused to back up his guarantee, I would have left him a negative feedback.

To leave feedback you can access your my eBay section , select the items I've Won and then click on the leave feedback link next to the auction you just received an item for.

In Summary

eBay is a person-to-person exchange. You follow the golden rule of "Treat others as you would like to be treated" and things will turn out okay. So what are you waiting for? Go get registered! See you there!