eBay is great but addictive

I first came across eBay as a fluke. I was searching for something on Google and would often see eBay adverts everywhere and often on Ciao as well but never actually bothered to look at it. Then one day I thought why not have a look and that was a really silly thing to do because now I am both addicted to it and my pocket is also feeling a lot lighter, although the postman’s bag isn’t!!!

Basically the idea behind eBay is they provide the website with all the advertising so people visit it, then other people sell there unwanted goods on there. It is just like a really good quality boot sale for which you search specifically and then read and find out about it without leaving the house. The main potential problem is how is the person going to get the goods to you. Well all they have to do it pop down to their local Post Office branch and buy the correct stamps to get the item to you. Most sellers choose to charge the buyer for the postage but most of the time, the items you get on there are so cheap the postage only adds another £1 which still makes it great value. Most listing (a listing is an item which someone has put on the website with a description and price etc) last for 7 days although as a seller you can choose to have a 3 day or a 10 day listing. When I come to buying and bidding there is to ways. Most listings are just an auction where people put in a bid at the highest bidder wins, but there are also Reserve Price auctions, which means if no one bids up as much as the reserve price, the item doesn’t sell. There is also buy it now which allows the seller to put a price at which they will close the auction for and the person will automatically get it for that price. Only a few auctions have this.

When you sign up to eBay you are given a username and password. These are the details you need to use to sign in. You only needs to sign in once everytime you visit the site but to access some areas from example your account you may need to re-enter you password. To sign up to eBay is quite simple. You need to provide them with a name, address, email address, as well as username and password. To sign up for a sellers account you need to put a credit or debit card on file which is where they will take the charges from.

At the top of every eBay page there is a navigating toolbar. It is exactly the same on every page. The first button is Browse were you can browse by selecting a category or subcategory. The second button is Search, which takes you to the advanced Search page where you either do a simple search or specify many choices to cut down the range of results. Eg Under £20, accept PayPal etc. The third button is Sell which takes you directly to the page where you can sign in as a seller and go through the listing process to add an item to the eBay website. The fourth button is My eBay where once you have signed in, all your biddings, selling’s, settings, etc are recorded. You have access to all these individual pages from the main My eBay page. The fifth button is Community, which is a bit like the Ciao Community where you have a forum and members can discuss things etc.

It doesn’t cost anything to be a member of eBay and it also doesn’t cost you anything to be a buyer other than the money you pay the sellers for the goods and postal charges. To sell on eBay, you are charged a fee depending on the starting bid which is only usually about 20p for starting bids up to about £5, and then when the auction finishes they charge a percentage of the final amount which isn’t very much.

Different seller choose different methods of payment. The most commonly accepted payment is PayPal which is almost a middle man. One person signs up and puts there credit card on file, Paypal take the money from the credit card and then send the seller the money also taking out a fee on the way, this is why some eBayer sellers pass on a charge to there buyers. Other Payment methods include Personal Cheque which is really not so good because you have to post the cheque to the seller 1-2 days, then they have to wait for the cheque to clear before they forward the goods, 4-5 days, and then they send out the goods for which parcels sometimes take longer and large parcels take another 4-5 days so using PayPal which is an instant payment is the most quickest and efficient way even if the Seller passes on a charge as to send a cheque you would have to buy a stamp to send the cheque therefore incurring another fee. There is also other online companies like PayPal such as NoChex and Natwest Fastpay but PayPal is the most popular on eBay because it is an eBay company and so eBay promote it.

Whenever you purchase something on eBay you have to leave feedback on the seller the same as the seller has to leave feedback for you. This shows the reliability of a seller. When you leave people feedback, you have the choice of either leaving positive, neutral or negative. The number of positive feedbacks is the number after you eBay username on the website, this also determines the colour of the star you get.