…It began long ago in a galaxy far, far away. One woman struggles relentlessly in her quest for the ultimate wonders of the universe. To seek out new fortunes. To discover the hidden treasures of a yesteryear. And after years of arduous searching, with countless risks upon her life she discovers a New World. The future (ED: Have you had enough build up yet?). She discovers ‘eBay’.
And here she tells her story in her usual melodramatic and irritating style in the sequel to ‘Tales from an Arctic Victorian Auction Room’ in ‘EBAY: THE DISCOVERY OF A WARMER PLACE!’…
“Captain’s log. Stardate 17893695689900 (ED: Get on with it!).
“Today, I was calculating the atmospheric pressure of a new planet in sector 7, when a bug caused a glitch on my interface and displayed a puzzling new selling portal created by intelligent lifeforms. Its name is eBay and can be found at co-ordinates www.ebay.co.uk. They call this means of selling ‘auctions’. Looking back at ancient texts written by The Old Ones, auctions allow beings to sell goods to the highest bidder. Most items have either been used by the seller previously or are bought cheaply to sell to others at the portal at a profit. (It actually rather reminds me of a race of species called the Shaggians who would sell their dead woolly animals, once they had been used for whatever purpose, to the Carnivons who would feed on them).
“At the gateway (or homepage, as it is called by users) to eBay there are a variety of examples of goods that are being sold at that moment. This homepage is very simple, but has a great deal of information, which I could browse in order to learn the selling habits of these creatures.
“First of all, there are comprehensive guides on the portal of how to buy and sell on eBay. Most of this information seems fairly logical but there is advice on how to bid and pay for items – something that I will explain later on.
“The first thing I had to do was register. Even though I didn’t have to in order to browse. But for bidding and selling the registration process has to be endured.
“Registration is very straightforward and requires only basic details and a creation of a username and password. Afterwards I received an ‘email’ that requested me to click on a link so that they knew that my email address existed.
“Once registered, I had my very own section of the site, which would allow me to keep track of items that I was bidding on and items I was selling. There were other additional sections, which also seem very useful. One of them allows me to save my most used searches. Another allowed me to list my favourite sellers. But more interesting than that was a feedback page.
“The feedback page on the site allows other buyers and sellers to comment on how well you buy and sell on eBay. Once an auction has closed and you have either paid for an item or have sent an item you are selling to someone who has paid, feedback can be left in order to let other people know how good you are. I find this somewhat self-congratulatory, but I am assured by others on the site that it is useful to know when you send someone money and they have a good feedback rating that they are fairly trustworthy.
“After registering, I wanted to probe this phenomenon further. What can this thing really do? What can I sell and what can I buy?
“Again, at the homepage I discovered that there’s a vast array
of categories of items that are sold. Anything from CD’s, Books, Computers, Collectibles, Antiques, Clothes and even Food.
“When clicking on one of the categories, lists of items being sold are displayed, where the most recent to sell is at the top and the longest date is last. When I went into CD’s, Tapes and Records there were over 57,000 items being sold! On this discovery I thought that I would be here for the next millennia going through all of these items, but I then noticed that there is a ‘search facility’ which allows me enter keywords in a box using text, where all results would be listed which include my keywords.
“So, using the search facility I typed in the keywords “Star Trek” and again the results were startling with 2,170 items listed. Items can however be narrowed down into results from sub-categories such as Collectibles, Videos, Books etc.
“The results that were listed were extraordinarily detailed. Each auction listed gave the name of the item being sold, the starting price, current price and how much longer the auction has to run – even down to the last minute. When I found an item I was interested in I could just click on the title and I would get a full description, it’s condition, and delivery costs of the item. I am told though, and have noticed that some sellers aren’t very good at this and don’t include enough details for you to make an informed decision. There are also links where I could view the sellers other auctions, their feedback and even to ask them a question about the item they’re selling. This I found particularly helpful when sellers hadn’t included enough information.
“At the bottom of each item description is the area where bids can be made. It gives the current price of the item and the minimum that can be bid. Also, there are various increments that bidding is done in, dependant on how much the bid is currently at. There is also a very useful facility which allows a bidder to state their maximum bid on an item, which is known as ‘Proxy Bidding’. Here the system on eBay is rather clever. Even though I may bid over the next bidding price, my bid will remain the same unless another bidder bids higher than me, in which case my bid will automatically increase to out-bid the other person. This will only continue until the next increment or until I have reached my maximum bidding limit or I am outbid over my maximum bidding limit. It sounds rather confusing, but for example. If I was to bid on an item that is currently at £5 and set my maximum bid at £10. Unless another person bids after me over £5, my bid would remain at £5. If then a person bids at £7.50, my bid would increase to £7.50 but I would be the highest bidder as my bid was entered first. If then someone bid at £10.50, I would be out-bid and my bidding would end. However, the clever thing about this is that if I am outbid, eBay will send me an email telling me, and I could go in and bid again.
“Another thing I can do is ‘Watch’ items that I might want to bid on at a later date.
“‘Watched’ items are stored in my own area (called ‘My Ebay’) in my Bidding page. I can choose to watch items and view these on this page to see what the current price of them are. If I then want to bid on them I can click on the item title and I will be able to place a bid on the item description page. Again, when I watch items, eBay will send me an email reminder 36 hours before the item is due to close. A very handy facility, I think.
“I have to admit, I was lucky enough to win the bidding on an item today, and so I’m in a position to explain the rudimentaries of what happened when an item is won.
“Firstly, I received an email from eBay informing me that I was the highest bidder. I understand from their policy and from what I know of this race’s Laws that this is a legally binding contract in their land and that if I refuse to pay for an item I have won, the seller would be within their rights to take me to something called a ‘Small Claims Court’.
“When the bidding has ended it is the responsibility of the buyer and seller to arrange for payment and delivery of the item. In the ways of these people, it appears to be good manners to email each other. For the seller to email the buyer to let them know what forms of payment they accept and the final amount due (as postage and packaging is usually extra), and the buyer to email the seller to confirm the method of payment they will use.
“In this civilisation there are various ways to pay for goods and it is up to the seller which forms she/he accepts. The usual ones are by personal cheques or postal orders, but there are additional payment methods that some sellers accept that are more convenient. One of these is called Billpoint and is apparently a payment method that is recommended and co-run by eBay. With Billpoint, transactions can be paid electronically using credit or debit cards. This means that the buyer can pay instantly and the seller receives their money straight away. It also means that most items will be received by the buyer within a couple of days after the auction has ended. Other payments are Nochex and Paypal, which work on the same principle as Billpoint.
“Once goods have been paid for electronically, or cheques that have been sent have been ‘cleared’, goods should be dispatched by the seller to the buyer. On completion both the seller and buyer leave feedback for one another, praising each other’s efforts in buying and selling. “As a test of this sites capabilities for selling items, I decided to sell a few items of my own: My own Mogolian Crystal collection and a rare Tubacian Foot with all claws in pristine condition, dating back nearly 2 million years.
“I read the selling tips before I commenced putting my items on the site for auction. Incidentally, they have some very useful links in this section which include postal carrier companies, although I think I will have to arrange to deliver my items to the successful bidders (Royal Mail doesn’t seem to collect items from Quadrant 6 in the Hebridis galaxy).
“Once I’d clicked on the link to sell I had to choose how I wanted to sell my items. There are two options. The first is for a standard auction; the second is to sell an item at a fixed price. It appears that most items are sold in the auctions, and it seems more fun that way.
“I then had to select a category where my items would be sold. By browsing the site previously I got a feel of where items are put (this I would advise), and decided to put them the Crystals in ‘Collectibles’ and the Tubacian Foot in ‘Antiques and Art’. I could then choose sub-categories for my items, which seemed very comprehensive and covered all aspects of those particular sections (i.e. Decorative Arts, Maps, Maritime, Autographs, Stamps, Royal Commemorative etc).
“After selecting the categories I could enter the details of my items. First of all, eBay advise that the title should be eye-catching and self-explanatory. In the description I could elaborate on the title giving specific details of dates, features etc. On the following page I can state the minimum price at which I would like to start my auction. This isn’t necessarily the minimum price that I would accept though as I can put a reserve price on my auction, where I can specify an undisclosed minimum price at which I would be prepared to sell (the reserve price is not disclosed to the bidders until it has been ‘met’).
“There are various other things that I can do to attract bidders to my auction. For instance I can include a photograph of the item in my auction, which is free to place. Additional photos can be used but will cost extra. I can highlight and use bold text for my auctions, but again this is at extra cost.
“After including details of the payment methods I accept and which countries I would be prepared to send my items, I was ready to submit my auction. This all took about 10 minutes for my first listing, but only took less than 5 minutes for my second listing as I was used to the format by then.
“I could review the layout and details of my auction and change details where necessary before my auction went ‘live’.
“Even though eBay doesn’t charge bidders to buy items on their site, sellers have to pay fees to sell items. For items where the starting price is less than £5 this is only 15p per item. Additional highlighting or photos is extra. If an item is sold, then there is also a Final Value Fee, which is 5.25% of the final selling price (excluding P&P costs that may be added by the seller).
“Sellers however do not pay these fees as they are charged. The fees for each auction are recorded by eBay and are billed to the seller once a month. The seller can then pay these fees in one go either by sending a cheque to eBay, by credit or debit card, or they can set up a Direct Debit where fees will automatically be taken from a banking account on the billing date.
“Once my items were successfully listed, I could then go to My Selling page in My Ebay and view my auctions. The list of items will include the date and time the auction starts and ends, the current price and the number of bids that have been made. It is useful that when no bid has been made the listing is highlighted in red and when it has been bid upon it is highlighted in green.
“I noted that this form of selling could be open to abuse. Winning bidders may not pay for an item or if they did, a seller may not send them the item they have paid for? This was a concern to me, but eBay does have very good policies and facilities in place to prevent these things happening, or from happening too often.
“Firstly, the Feedback facility, where others on the site leave feedback on their transactions with others, is a good indication of the trustworthiness of other users of the site. Secondly, eBay has a team of staff who check that illegal or illicit items are not sold, or that fraud is limited.
“For bidders who don’t pay or sellers who don’t send items, users are encouraged to report these people and a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ policy is adopted. For sellers who don’t receive payment, eBay will refund the Final Valuation Fee, and when an item isn’t sold the first time, sellers can re-sell and if it is sold a second time they will receive the second listing fee back (this applies to items which don’t sell or to items that don’t sell because a bidder doesn’t pay).
“It is however, still a slight risk that is taken when using this form of selling portal. And the responsibility lies with the bidders or seller in the minority cases where transactions are not completed satisfactorily.
“I have, in my short time in using the site befriended a mortal called happybunny75 who has been both selling and buying on the site for over two months and has given me a list of advice on using eBay:”
As when making any purchase, research what you are buying by comparing prices with other sites or high street stores.
If you are bidding on an item, look at whom you are buying from and read their feedback. A new member without any feedback should not put you off, but anyone with a large proportion of negative feedback would be best to stay away from.
Read and re-read the description that the seller has written. What haven’t they said? Remember that descriptions are written by sellers who want to sell their items for the maximum amount possible.
If you have any doubts about an item, send the seller a question to clarify details they have written. When you receive a reply, keep it safe - just in case!
Look for hidden costs. Most sellers will quote in the item description how much they will charge for P&P. If they haven’t it may not mean anything sinister (they may not have had chance to weigh the item before starting the auction), but send a message through eBay to find out. N.B there are authorised shops on eBay who may not include VAT or administration charges for larger items, in the bidding price.
Do not send items to winning bidders until funds have cleared i.e. until a cheque has been paid into your bank account and has cleared (normally 3-4 working days).
When selling items try to include as much information as possible about the item. If it is rare, say so. Try to always include how much you will be charging for P&P.
When selling, choose the right category for the item. You could search to see if the items you are selling, or similar items are already being sold. This is also a good way to decide how much your starting price should be.
Keep a track of what you sell, by creating a spreadsheet on Excel – include eBay charges and P&P costs. It’s interesting to see how much profit you’ve made.
What a wonderful experience I have had. This is so much better than my meeting with the Galaxion in the Hormonic bath spa last year.
Playstation 2 with 50 games £120 (15 hours until end) The Beatles ‘Abbey Road’ CD album £4.99 (5 hrs 18 mins) Phillips 32” Widescreen TV £260 (4hrs 15 mins) ‘A Child in Time’ by Ian McEwan £1.99 (2 hrs) Swinging Sixties CD Album 55p (51 mins)
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
My hats off to you... comprehensive and very informative.
Cowboy22 23.04.2002 22:47
A great op with loads of details. I have bid for many things on ebay, or should I say got my wife to bid for me.
free4susan 23.04.2002 17:55
Super op, I found this very interesting, thanks for putting so much work into it!!! I have looked at this site briefly a few times but never dipped my toe in the waters....gonna head back there now and look again! Susan.
Apr 23rd, 2002
very helpful by (100%):
