When and How to Withdraw Your eBay Bid (and Why You Might Not Want To).

eBay are a little strict about letting you withdraw your bid. They call it a ?bid retraction?, and have a stringent set of conditions that you must meet before you are allowed to do it. Here are eBay?s three acceptable reasons for withdrawing a bid.

You made a typographical error: This means that you accidentally typed the wrong amount into the bid box, bidding a far higher price than you meant to. This can be scary: imagine bidding $100 and accidentally adding an extra ?0?! You are entirely allowed to withdraw your bid in this situation, and bid again if you want to.

The item?s description changed: If you bid on something and then the seller updates the description, you have the right to withdraw your bid. It wouldn?t be fair, after all, to force you to take something that you now realise you don?t want.

The seller is uncontactable: If emails to the seller bounce and they don?t answer their phone, then the auction obviously can?t continue, and you can cancel it.

So How Do I Retract My Bid?

eBay hide away the bid retraction form a bit, because they don?t like people using it. You can find it by going here: http://cgi1.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?RetractBidShow.

Now all you need is the item number from your auction: this can be found on the item description page?s top right corner. If you can?t see it on the page, look in your browser?s title bar, and in any emails eBay have sent you about your bid on the item. Choose one of the three allowed reasons, click ?retract bid?, and you?re done.

Are There Any Consequences?

Well yes, there are. The more unethical among you might have considered that you could just cancel bids anytime you feel like it by saying that you accidentally entered the wrong amount. eBay are one step ahead of you. Each time you retract a bid, it is counted on your feedback page for all to see ? and anyone with a lot of retracted bids looks more than a little dodgy. eBay also say that abusing the bid retraction feature could get you banned.

So is there a way to retract your bid without facing a penalty? There is if your seller is nice, and most are. Sellers can cancel bids on their auctions at any time, and if you email them with a half-decent excuse then most will be more than happy to do this for you. After all, it?s not in their interest for their item to go to someone who won?t like it, as you might leave negative feedback.

Of course, retracting your bid should still be a rare thing: you won?t win auctions that way! If you?ve followed us this far, the chances are you?ve won an auction by now, or you?re close ? but you might be a little puzzled about what to do next. Our next email will give you a few pointers.

The Power of eBay ?Store Newsletters?.

eBay Stores come with a very powerful feature: store newsletters. When buyers add your store to their favourites, you can offer them the chance to join your mailing list. You can then send highly targeted emails to people who you know were at least interested enough in your products to add the store to their favourites.

How Do I Send Them?

First, you need to get some people to sign up for your newsletter ? this will happen with time, as people buy from you and browse your store.

Once you?ve got a few subscribers, it?s worth sending out a newsletter. To send store newsletters, go to My eBay, click ?Manage My Store?, and then click ?Email Marketing?. Once you?ve done that, click the ?Create Email? button, and you?re away.

All you need to do now is write an email subject and a message, choose any items you want to include in the email, and specify who you want to receive it. The subject and message can be something relatively generic, like ?here are my latest deals? ? it?s the targeting that?s important, and eBay?s is powerful. You can choose to only send an email to people who?ve bought from you in the past, or only to people who?ve opened your email before.

It is important to note, though, that you can only send one email per week to a mailing list.

The Ups and Downs.

The downside of store newsletters is this: they?re expensive. A basic, $15.95 per month store only comes with 100 emails, while $49.95 comes with 1000. Even the $499.95 anchor store only comes with 4000! Extra emails for all stores cost 1 cent each. That?s $1 per hundred extra emails. If your mailing list has a significant number of people on it, then that?ll get really expensive, really fast.

Surprisingly, though, it can often be worth it, despite the cost. It?s very rare to send out a newsletter to a mailing list of a hundred and not get at least one sale, and you?ll often get three or four, even to small lists.

Measure Your Success.

Each time you send an email, eBay produces a report telling you how well that email did. You can view these reports on the ?Email Marketing? page by clicking the subject line of an email you sent.

This report will show how many people received your email, how many opened it, the number of clicks it generated on your items and your store, and the number of bids and Buy it Now purchases that resulted from the email. Some of the numbers might be too low, though, as many people use email software that displays email in plain text format and so stops eBay from collecting statistics. Also, you will notice that you?ll have more success if you send out emails regularly, as people will start to expect them, and react in a more open way ? don?t expect the Earth from your first email.

By now, you?re probably getting pretty good at selling on eBay ? isn?t it nice to have all those satisfied customers? Not to mention the money? However well you?re doing, though, there?s always room for improvement. The next email will give you ten tips for being an even better seller.

What?s Your eBay Reputation Really Worth?

Your eBay reputation is everything you are on eBay ? without it, you?re nothing. Your reputation is worth as much as every sale you will ever make.

If you?ve ever bought anything on eBay (and the chances are you have), then think about your own behaviour. Buying from a seller with a low feedback rating makes you feel a little nervous and insecure, while buying from a PowerSeller with their reputation in the thousands doesn?t require any thought or fear ? it feels just like buying from a shop.

A Bad Reputation Will Lose You Sales.

In fact, a bad reputation will lose you almost all your sales. If someone leaves you negative feedback, you will feel the pain straight away, as that rating will go right at the top of your user page for everyone to see. Who?s going to want to do business with you when they?ve just read that you ?took a month to deliver the item?, or that you had ?bad communication and sent a damaged item?? The answer is no-one.

Your next few items will need to be very cheap things, just to push that negative down the page. You might have to spend days or even weeks selling cheap stuff to get enough positive feedback to make anyone deal with you again.

It?s even worse if you consistently let buyers leave negative feedback ? once you get below 90% positive ratings, you might as well be invisible.

You Can?t Just Open a New Account.

Besides eBay?s rules about only having one account, there are far more downsides than that to getting a new account. You literally have to start all over again from scratch.

You won?t be able to use all the different eBay features. Your existing customers won?t be able to find you any more. Your auctions will finish at a lower price because of your low feedback rating. Opening a new account is like moving to a new town to get away from a few people who are spreading rumours about you: it?s throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

A Good Reputation Will Get You Sales.

When a PowerSeller tells me something, I tend to believe them. They can be selling a pretty unlikely item, but if they guarantee it is what they say it is, then I trust them ? they?re not going to risk their reputation, after all. This is the power of a reputation: people know you want to keep it, and they know you?ll go to almost any lengths to do so.

This is true even to the point that I would sooner buy something for $20 from a seller I know I can trust than for $15 from someone with average feedback. It?s worth the extra money to feel like the seller knows what they?re doing, has all their systems in place and will get me the item quickly and efficiently.

You really will find selling on eBay so much easier, and there?s only way to get a good reputation: make sure you please your customers every time. But some customers can be, well, just a little difficult to please. In the next email, we ask: is the eBay customer always right?

When and How to Cancel an eBay Auction Early.

One day, you might decide that you want to end an auction early. Before you do, though, you should consider why you want to do it: cancelling auctions upsets buyers and upsets eBay, and there might be a better to way to get what you want.

I Want to Change my Listing.

If you just want to revise your listing, you don?t always need to end it. For listings that have more than 12 hours left to run and haven?t received any bids, you can revise almost everything. You can remove the Buy it Now price or reserve price, change the duration of the listing, or add listing upgrades.

If the listing already has one or more bids, then you can still add upgrades, or add to the description. You add more pictures too, if you want to. Once the listing gets into its last 12 hours, however, what you can do becomes far more limited, even if it has no bids: you can only really add to the description.

It?s a very bad idea, by the way, to cancel one listing and ask bidders to bid on another listing for the same item instead. The chances are they?ll be annoyed with you, and won?t bother.

The Item is No Longer for Sale.

Perhaps you sold the item to someone else, you lost it or it got broken. Whatever happened, if you no longer have the item to sell, you should remove your listing ? in fact, this is just about the only situation when eBay allow you to.

However, you need to make sure you get the listing removed quickly ? if you leave it to the last 12 hours, eBay will refuse to let you remove it, whatever has happened. This might seem cruel, but it?s there to stop people from backing out in the last few hours because they want to try again for a better price.

So How Do I End My Listing Early?

You can do it at this page: http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?EndingMyAuction. Just type in the item number and hit ?Continue?.

Now, be very careful. The option you almost certainly want to choose is ?Cancel bids and end listing early?, NOT ?Sell item to high bidder and end listing early?. You?ll be asked to choose a reason why you ended the listing, and then it will end. Your bidders will be emailed to let them know what happened.

Note that ending a listing early because it looked like it wasn?t going to get a good price is against the rules, and eBay could come after you and get upset.

Speaking of breaking the rules, if you?re selling software on eBay, did you know that there are special rules that apply to you? Plenty of sellers have no idea, and are being caught out every day ? that?s why our next email will explain the rules clearly for you, just in case you need to know.

What You Need to Know BEFORE You Get Started on eBay.

So you?ve decided that you want to get started as a seller on eBay. There are a few things that you really need to know before you go and throw yourself in at the deep end.

What to Sell.

First off, you need to know what it is you?re going to sell: what?s your speciality? You?ll do far better on eBay if you become a great source for certain kind of products, as people who are interested in those products will come back to you again and again. You won?t get any loyalty or real reputation if you just sell rubbish at random.

When you think about what to sell, there are a few things to consider. The most important of these is to always sell what you know. If you try to sell something that you just don?t know anything about then you?ll never write a good description and sell it for a good price.

You might think you?re not especially interested in anything, but if you think about what kind of things you usually buy and which websites you go to most often, I?m sure you?ll discover some kind of interest. If all else fails mention it to your friends and family: they?ll almost certainly say ?Oh, well why don?t you sell??, and you?ll slap your forehead.

Out of the things you know enough about, you should then consider which things you could actually get for a good enough price to resell, and how suitable they would be for posting. If you can think of something of that you?re knowledgeable about and it?s small and light enough for postage to be relatively cheap, then that?s great!

Don?t worry if you think the thing you?re selling is too obscure ? it isn?t. There?s a market for almost everything on eBay, even things that wouldn?t sell once in a year if you stocked them in a shop. You?ll probably do even better if you fill a niche than if you sell something common.

Tax and Legal Matters.

If you earn enough money, you should be aware that you?re going to have to start paying tax ? this won?t be done for you. If you decide to sell on eBay on a full-time basis, you should probably register as a business.

Prepare Yourself.

There are going to be ups and downs when you sell on eBay. Don?t pack it in if something goes a little wrong in your first few sales: the sellers who are successful on eBay are the ones who enjoy it, and stick at it whatever happens.

Anyone can sell on eBay, if they believe in themselves ? and if you do decide it?s not for you, then the start-up costs are so low that you won?t really have lost anything.

If you?re ready to start selling, then the next thing you need to know is the different auction types, so you can decide which ones you will use to sell your items. Our next email will give you a guide.

The Myths and Magic of eBay Drop-shipping Vendors.

If you?ve never heard of drop shipping, then prepare to be impressed ? it sounds like every eBay seller?s dream. With drop shipping, you don?t have to keep any stock at all. You simply list auctions for what your drop shipper sells, without actually seeing it yourself.

Each time something sells, you let them know, and they deliver it for you ? directly to the customer. They?ll charge you a near-wholesale price for the item they delivered, you charge the customer whatever price you agreed, and then you pocket the difference as profit.

The Magic.

Just think of the sheer amount of trouble this takes out of eBay selling. You don?t have to find space in your house to keep your stock in, or money to buy it with. You don?t have to take any risk by buying things that might not sell. You don?t have to deal with suppliers. You don?t even have to pack or post the auctions yourself. Wow! Can you imagine how good this would be if you could pull it off?

But, as with all things in life, if it sounds too good to be true?

The Myths.

Drop-shippers don?t do deals with just anyone ? any drop shipper who says they?ll take orders from unregistered businesses is likely to be a scammer. They might not send out anything at all to your customers, or you might send out very poor quality merchandise that they will then return to you for a refund.

Also, beware of companies that claim they will put you in contact with drop shippers for a fee ? they are inevitably rip-offs. At the end of the day, the best way to find drop shipping companies is to contact them in the ?real world?, not by typing ?drop shipping? into a search engine.

Doing it for Real.

If you want to make a profit with drop-shippers, be prepared for it to be quite a small one: you?re not going to make sales on eBay at a big mark-up from drop shipping prices. You will also have to accept that you can?t inspect stock before it gets sent out, and some of your descriptions might not be as good as they could be.

You should also be prepared for a few frustrating experiences with your drop shipper, as they might not share the same customer service values as you. The first time you?ll realise that they never sent something to one of your buyers is when you hear about it from the buyer a week later.

If you can accept all these things, though, and find a reputable drop shipper, then there?s money to be made. Good luck!

If you?d like to give up a little more profit and control over your eBay business to save the trouble of doing everything yourself, then you might be interested in eBay consignment centers. You can sell your items at an eBay consignment center by just leaving them there. Stay tuned to these emails for more.

What Else Belongs on Your eBay Shipping Box?

The quickest answer I feel I should give to this question is this: not your handwriting! Scrawling addresses on boxes with a pen is extremely amateurish, and you shouldn?t do it. Print your own labels instead. But what should you put on them?

The buyer?s address: This might sound obvious, but you need to make sure the full address is there, including country and zip or postal code. Make sure you spell their name correctly, too, as they might be a little insulted if you don?t.

The eBay item number: Write this somewhere discreet and quite small, in this form: ?Item number: 123456789?. Under the address is a good place. This makes it easy for the buyer to find the auction again if they need to look at it for any reason.

Your logo: Putting your logo on the shipping box looks professional, and lets your buyers see what it is that has arrived. A good logo can make the whole package look very nice, and can help build recognition of your business.

Your address: It?s worth putting your own address on the box in case the item can?t be delivered and needs to be returned to you. It looks good to write this under your logo, as it reinforces the impression that you?re a real business with a real address, not some shady operation.

Stamps: If you start to sell on eBay in a significant quantity, you might consider buying a postage meter. Again, this is a matter of looking professional ? it looks much better than having stamps stuck everywhere. It also saves you from having to weigh your items at the post office and buy stamps there.

The ?eBay Items? Debate.

Some sellers like to mark their shipping boxes with a phrase like ?eBay items?, while some feel that this is an unsafe practice that could mark their boxes out to get stolen or interfered with in the post. Whether you?re willing to risk it is up to you ? it?s probably better to be safe than sorry, though, and there will be few of your customers who get so many packages that they won?t know what yours is.

And Inside?

You?ll probably find it worth printing off a ?receipt? from eBay ? the confirmation of payment page ? and putting it in the envelope. If you want to make your customers feel even better about having ordered from you, you can also include a compliments slip, featuring your logo, your website address and a message like ?Thank you for your order. Please contact me if there are any problems. [Your name].?

Always remember: the more they like what they get, the more likely they are to come back and order again from you in the future.

In the next email, we?ll look at exactly that, using a strategy you might not have considered. You can make backend sales over and over again, simply by emailing buyers with good offers for things you think they?re going to need. See you there.

What You Can Learn from Competing eBay Auctions.

If you?ve a savvy businessperson, the chances are you?ve already taken a look at your competitors? auctions. What you might not have realised is just how much you can learn if you know what you?re looking for.

To begin with, don?t bother looking at listings that haven?t ended yet ? you don?t know what?s going to happen with them. Instead, use the advanced search page to search for listings that sold. Just go to the advanced search page, type in the keywords that you know will find your competitors? items, tick ?Completed listings only? and set the minimum number of bids to 1. Set it to sort by ?Price: highest first?.

This will show you auctions competing with yours that have recently finished, starting with the ones that sold for the most (ignore any with prices in red ? they didn?t sell). Go through and take a look, paying special attention to the following points:

Titles. What information do the top sellers of your item put in their titles, and what do they leave out? If your titles are very different to theirs, it might be time for a rethink.

Descriptions. You?ll probably notice that the highest sellers haven?t just copied text from the company?s website or an Amazon.com review ? they?ve gone to the trouble of writing a little about the item, and about themselves. Learn from their example.

Pictures. I can almost guarantee you that the listing will have very nice pictures ? not catalogue quality, but good enough to see what you?re getting. With items of any significant cost, you?ll probably find more than one photo from different angles.

Style. Is it written conversationally, or in terse businesslike language? The way you should write entirely depends on what the market seems to like ? and the market seems to like what the top sellers wrote.

Time. It?s pretty easy to ignore this as a factor without meaning to, but pay attention to when the top selling items? auctions began and ended. This might give you a few clues about the best to catch buyers who will bid highly on your item, and then you can schedule your items accordingly.

Price. If your competitors are selling using Buy it Now, you can see what the maximum is that they?ve managed to sell for recently, and set your own Buy it Now price slightly below that.

Shipping. Look around to see the sweet spot for shipping. If you can figure out a way to get your shipping costs lower than the highest sellers, then this is a great opportunity to differentiate yourself in the market.

Once you see what works, you can start to emulate your competitors ? of course you can?t just copy them completely, but you can structure your auction similarly and make sure it includes the same information.

If you want your items to do even better, then start stocking the items in your category that are the most in-demand. We?ll show you how to tell what?s selling and what?s not in our next email.

Using the eBay Anything Points Program.

eBay Anything points are a loyalty scheme, just like you might get in a shop. The buyer earns points on their purchases, which they can then redeem for money off when they pay for items through PayPal.

Buyers can also earn eBay Anything points when they use the eBay credit card, or exchange their frequent flyer miles for eBay Anything points. People think it?s really great to take frequent flyer miles they?re never going to use and get stuff on eBay for them.

How to Offer Points to Your Buyers.

Go to http://anythingpoints.ebay.com/offer.html and click ?Log In to Offer Manager?. Enter an item?s number to offer Anything points on that item.

How Does it Work?

You choose how many points per dollar you want to offer to your buyers when they pay you with PayPal. Each point costs you 1c, and is worth 1c to the buyer ? eBay don?t take anything out along the way.

For example, if you sell an item worth $500, and you offer 2 points per dollar, then the seller will receive 1000 eBay Anything points ? the equivalent of $10. You only pay for the points when the buyer actually receives them, and you can offer points on as many or as few listings as you like.

Each listing you add will get a big banner below the description, saying ?X Anything Points per dollar of the final price for buyers who pay with PayPal?. Buyers can click it for more information on the scheme.

Why Would You Want To?

Really, most sellers who offer points are doing it to get around a condition of their contract with their supplier. Many sellers only get access to goods at wholesale prices provided they don?t list them for sale below the manufacturer?s MAP, or minimum advertised price. The points allow them to offer the items at the MAP and then give their buyer money back in the form of points. It?s a bit like a virtual rebate.

The eBay Anything points scheme is good for you and for eBay, as it encourages buyers to use PayPal instead of more cumbersome payment methods. eBay are keen to promote PayPal, and obviously thought this would be a good way of doing it ? not to mention that it keeps buyers coming back, to spend their points. You will also get to be listed on the ?Earn Points from eBay Sellers? page, which is here: http://anythingpoints.ebay.com/earn.html.

Here?s another advantage for you: if you buy things from sellers who offer Anything points, you can then use those points to pay your own seller fees. Another seller gets to pay your fees for you! All you need to do is go to My eBay, then Account Management, click the Pay button, and then choose the option to use your Anything points to pay.

If you?re going to offer points, then you want your auction to end for as much as you can possibly get ? let the buyer pay for their own points! All you?ll need is our next email, all about strategies for when to start and end your auction.

Your Rights as an eBay Buyer.

When you buy things on eBay, you pay the seller before they send you anything. This means that you, as a buyer, are vulnerable to all sorts of problems. You might not get the items you have paid for, or they might be damaged or faulty. Luckily, you have two very important rights when you buy on eBay.

The Right to Receive Your Item.

Maybe the seller never sent the item, or maybe it got lost in the post. Whatever happened, you paid for the item. If it doesn?t arrive in the post as described, you have the right to a replacement or a refund, whether it?s the seller?s fault or not.

The fact that you bought something on eBay doesn?t mean that you don?t have the exact same rights that you would have if you bought it in a shop (these rights are pretty much the same all over the world). Plus, under eBay?s rules, the seller isn?t allowed to change their mind about selling you the item: once the auction ends, it becomes a contract ? you must buy and they must sell, or face eBay?s penalties.

The Right for Your Item to Be as Described in the Auction.

Sometimes sellers don?t wrap items properly, and so they get broken. Occasionally they write descriptions that are misleading or just plain wrong to begin with, leaving out vital details that would have caused you to change your mind about buying. If this happens to you, you again have the right to a replacement or a refund.

So How Do I Use My Rights?

First, you should take it up with the seller ? most will be responsive, as do not want to have their reputation damaged when an upset buyer leaves negative feedback for all their future buyers to see. If that doesn?t work, report them to eBay.

While eBay don?t have many people handling complaints, they do have a relatively effective set of automatic process to handle common problems buyers and sellers have with one another.

Finally, if that doesn?t work, then you should seek advice from consumer groups in your country, and as a last resort from the police. You should never have to get this far, though: problems on eBay that can?t be resolved easily are extremely rare.

Don?t Be Too Quick.

Remember not to get too annoyed and be unfair to the seller: nice sellers have agreed to give me refunds for undelivered items, only for me to find out a few weeks later that they were being held for me at the post office! Always try your best to communicate and think of everything that might have gone wrong: eBay works best when buyers and sellers sort out their problems together, instead of reporting each other to the authorities straight away.

More often that not receiving what they paid for, buyers have an altogether different problem: they knew what they were paying for, but didn?t realise that what they were paying for was overpriced, low quality or a scam. The next email will give you a list of tips on how to avoid being ripped off on eBay.