The New ebay The Official Guide to Buying, Selling, Running a Profitable Business

Written by an eBay insider with more than ten years of experience with the company, The New eBay guides you through the very basics to the more complicated—from a brief history of eBay itself to simple site navigation to every complexity of buying and selling. Whether you just want to earn a few dollars on the side or turn your hobby into a full-time business, this book explains it all.

Written in clear, user-friendly language backed by simple step-by-step instructions and helpful screen grabs from the site, the book covers everything first-timers need to know and all the secrets experienced sellers wish they knew.

• The first complete official guide for eBay Australia written by a company insider
• Covers such topics as finding items and bidding on them, pricing and listing items for sale, accepting payments, tracking sales, logistics, customer service, and more

Perfect for every eBay user, from part-timers to serious sellers who want to build a profitable business, The New eBay is the ideal guide for anyone who wants to get the most out of the world's most popular shopping and selling site.

About the author vii

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction xi

Part I : Getting started 1

1 eBay basics 3

Part II : Finding and buying products 19

2 Searching for products 21

3 The search results page 31

4 Browsing for products 37

5 The View item page 41

6 Bidding on and buying products 51

7 Paying for an item 59

8 Keeping track of purchases in My eBay 69

9 Troubleshooting purchases 75

Buying TOP 10 79

Part III : Selling a product (Basic selling) 81

10 An introduction to selling 83

11 Registering as an eBay seller 85

12 Listing an item for sale 87

13 Keeping track of listings using My eBay 111

14 Accepting payments 119

15 Postage and handling tips 123

16 Customer service 127

17 eBay’s selling fees 129

18 Troubleshooting for eBay sellers 131

Basic selling TOP 10 134

Part IV : Planning your pro table eBay business (Advanced selling part I) 135

19 The foundations of a profi table business 139

20 Researching products, competitors and customers 143

21 Sourcing products to sell 147

22 Budgeting for profi t 153

23 Setting up your business operations 157

24 Your eBay brand 163

25 Listing your products and managing inventory 167

26 Best match — visibility in eBay search 191

27 Opening a store and marketing options 197

28 eBay and PayPal fees 209

Planning a business TOP 10 216

Part V : Running a successful eBay business (Advanced selling part II) 219

29 Managing sales and customers 221

30 Accepting and tracking payments 237

31 Shipping and packaging 243

32 Reporting 253

33 Troubleshooting for eBay businesses 257

Running a business TOP 10 261

Conclusion 263

Appendix: Creating a complete business plan 265

Index 273

Todd Alexander has been working for eBay for over 10 years and is currently the Director of Onsite Search. Through his workshops and his best-selling pocket guides, he has trained tens of thousands of people throughout the Asia–Pacific region to get the most out of eBay.