Is a busy bee - Thanks for r/r/comments...gizz a shout if I miss anything...Manda :o)
Is a busy bee - Thanks for r/r/comments...gizz a shout if I miss anything...Manda :o)
Member since:13.12.2003
Reviews:71
Members who trust:27
I was told about Ebay by many people lots of times ....and eventually got curious enough to go take a peek, and have never looked back ! Its a great site for selling off your old junk and buying someone elses !! lol. Like a massive on-line car-boot sale. Only problem is it seems to take up much of my time lately, but on the up-side it's making us a bit of extra cash. Beware once you start its hard to stop!
Imagine all those hard to find things you've ever wanted and you may well find them on Ebay , its home to every kind of collectable junk you could wish for !! ( as well as useful stuff of course. )
Lets Begin... Its Quick easy and painless to register on Ebay, pretty much like any other standard site you fill in your details in the boxes provided - name, address, phone number , E-mail address -agree to the Ebay terms an conditions, and of course- Pick your user-name-
BUY STUFF !!
Once you validate your E-mail addy Away you go ! you can now browse the seemingly never-ending pages of E-bay and buy stuff to your little hearts content. Theres LOADS of things on there everything you can think of and probably some stuff you can't but I'll cover that later...
To SELL STUFF...
you will need a 'sellers account' to do this all you need to do is provide them with a credit / debit card number. I am ALWAYS very wary about giving such details on any site however I have not had any problems with Ebay or Paypal when it comes to charging my credit card. Now the thing that confused me when I first started to play around on Ebay was ' THE FEES ' But it's not so complicated once you get your head around it. ( then again it may just be me...its not hard to confuse me
these days ! )
There are basically 3 kinds of fees you are charged when selling items on E-bay
Listing fee - Charge for listing your item for sale -non refunable- This is based on the 'starting price' you put on your auction. - so the lower your starting price the lower the insertation fee will be - Though in my experience this fee never amounts to much ( under a quid 20/35p usually) -UNLESS- you are putting larger items up for auction such as bikes or cars, then the listing fee is considerably higher, more around the £10 mark.
-Additional Option Fee- This is only charged if you use the optional seller features like: Buy It Now, Gallery, Featured Item, and so on. These are additional features you can add to your auctions to get more attention/ be a little more eye-catching . The best example is pictures - The first picture you add to your auction/listing is free, and each additional picture costs 12p to add.
-Final Value Fee - This fee is taken from the final sale price of your item and is only charged if your item sells sucessfully - you have a winning bidder - It is a small percentage of the final value of your item So the higher your item sells for, then the bigger the cut for Ebay. This is the part of the 'fees' that confused me when I first began trying to sell their 'fanal value fee table' leaves much to be desired !!
So to put it simply..Ebay charges a small insertion fee ( non-refundable whether your item sells or not ), and they still take a percentage of over 5% of the final sale price. Thats just plain greedy.
But rest assured that Ebay will not completely rob you of your profits it's still worthwhile!
All the fees etc are explained fully when you register as a seller.
( - The Basics Of Paypal -Just a quick explaination of paypal - I use a paypal account as it makes things easier , allows people to pay for things 'on-line' and sends the money to your paypal account where you can the transfer it to your bank account. Again I'm always wary of providing bank/ credit card details to any site but www.Paypal.com is easy to register with and I have had no worries or problems.
YOU DO have to watch out for their fees as well, like Ebay they like to take a cut of your profits - they charge a certain percent for you ' recieving' money however its free for you to send money/ pay people for items using your paypal account. You will probably notice as you look at the postage and packing costs on items that sellers more often that not add an extra charge for paying by paypal to cover their fees. BUT the advantage is that it is much faster than waiting for checks to clear ! I wou;d recommend having a paypal account as even when you are only mainly buying things, it makes payment much faster and speeds up delivery of your items. )
BUYING STUFF.....
Easy peasy. Like a searchengine.. type in your object of desire and search the depths of Ebay for it...Or if you don't know what your looking for then you can spend eternity browsing though the various categories on offer.
( Hmmm.. Suddenly reminded of when we first got a computer at home and connected to internet..my dad -bless him- sits looking at computer and asks "whats on this internet then? " lol )
Theres everything in there and more besides ! I'm not going to even try and list the wonderous things on offer !
Once you find what your after you then must decide what your willing to pay for it and make a bid..the bidding system on Ebay is *easy* to get the hang of for example...you see an item you want for say £5 ...you place a maximum bid of £10....if nobody else bids on the item then you win it for £5 ...if somebody else bids then £10 is the highest your bid will go...and of course the highest bidder at the close of auction wins the item.
You can also watch items on your 'Bidding/ Watching' page which is a good feature, means you can wait untill last dayor so before making your mind up if you want something, or which item you will get cheapest !
-DO REMEMBER - to always check the postage and packing cost on an item BEFORE you bid, there are more than a few people trying to make extra cash out of the P&P charges ! Another reason to check is not everyone accepts all payments - for example some sellers don't accept paypal - others do but charge- some only take cheques...etc.
-SELLING STUFF- Again it's nice and easy and explains itself as you go along
When you finally decide you want to sell something, just click on the button at the top of the page that says SELL. You then choose which category you want to list your item in - you just select it from the list provided... it really is all very simple and explains what to do as your doing it. You enter a title for your item, then write a breif description , and you get to add a picture, any more after the first one will cost you 12p ( It tells you all this as your doing it ! ) Then you decide on your opening bid price and set your postage costs ...and where your willing to post your item to - just UK / or world-wide ( if your braver than me ! ) You can also add a 'buy-it-now' option which allows people to purchase your item straight away at your set 'buy-it now-price' ( example your opening bid price could be £1 but your 'buy-it-now' price could be set at £10 .. this would allow a buyer to purchase your item without having to bid and wait for the auction to end)
Before you put your item up for sale you will be shown a preview of what your listing will look like to buyers, and be able to make any changes if you wish. One thing has to be said for Ebay there are no 'hidden' fees, everything is CLEARLY shown and explained as you go along.
There are various types of people as there are items to be found at Ebay there are many small busineses and stores operating through Ebay ( such as bike breakers..which annoys my bloke when they try to offer to buy outside of auction )
Ebay will and does warn against selling your items outside of their 'safety net which is very sound advice when you consider you have NO SAFE GUARDS when buying outside of Ebay the 'seller' could quite easily take your cash and never send goods. There are also a few other thing to be aware of, such as there are dodgy people out there just as there are everywhere else.
It is wise to check feedback before buying. It is also advisable to keep a close eye on things, for example the same person may have more than one account/ user-name on Ebay which would allow them to bid on their own items to 'push up' the price.
There are many strange and shady goings on but don't let this put you off...so long as you keep your wits and common sense about you you should have no problems, after all there are many reputable sellers and people just like yourself just out to make a few quid on stuff they don't want anymore.
So whatever it is your after there are ome bargins to be found out there in Ebay land !
( plus you get to see more of your poor ole post-person as your parcels start arriving ...lol )
Thanks for reading. :o)
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Advantages: Great range of items to buy, easy to use, can sell stuff which you no longer want/need Disadvantages: Dodgy ebayers exist, becoming harher to get bargains as more people join
MrTink12 29.09.2005 (29.09.2005)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of ebay.co.uk
Apr 14th, 2004
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