Purpose of this guide: 

This guide will, I hope, help new buyers understand how EBAY works, why certain things happen, and how to avoid some of the pitfalls.

If you are new to EBAY your first step, after logging in, will be to perform a search. You will probably type in something like shoes and hit the search button. When you see twelve million hits and 200 pages of listings, you will suddenly begin to realize the scope of this site. You try your search again, but this time you specify blue shoes. Ah! Now it's down to only a million. Maybe you like a particular manufacturer, so your next search specifies blue shoes Halston. Down to 256 entries. Add size 6. Now you're down to 172 entries. As you can see, the description you provide is important, especially when you are looking for something in particular. You also have the option of limiting your search to a category, but I find that this sometimes eliminates items that have been listed improperly. Besides, you can always narrow your search down to a category later, or expand it up from one. So choose the search that works best for you. Now, looking at the 172 entries that your search has provided, you will notice something amazing. The prices, on what appears to be 172 identical items, varies from five cents to two hundred dollars and the shipping costs vary just as much, assuming they are even listed. Some of the items will have no minimuim bid, some will have fixed prices and others will have reserves.  Why all the differences and what does it all mean?

Let's start with some basic terms.

Listing: A listing is basically the ad for the item you are looking at and should includes the items description, payment, and shipping info.

Bid : A bid is a commitment to pay for an item up for auction. It is considered a legally binding offer.

No Minimum Auction: Literally no beginning price, or a beginning price of one cent.

Minimum Price Auction: The item has a minimum starting bid specified by the seller. Bidding begins at this price.

Buy it now: If  you pay the suggested price, the auction ends and you have won the item.

Live Auction: An auction in which bids are accepted in person and via real-time, on line bidding.

Store Inventory: Items are available for immediate purchase as if they were on the shelf in a store.

Reserve: Some listings have a minimum amount they will accept. You will be able to bid, but if the reserve amount is not met, or exceeded, then no one will will win.

Best Offer: Some listings will accept best offers. It doesn't mean they have to accept them.

So, by now you're asking yourself, what has a barking duck got to do with EBAY? Let's say that you bid on a listing and won. A few days later a box arrives. You eagerly open it, expecting to see a pair of blue Halston shoes, only to find instead, a pair of ruby red slippers, which you later find out were taken off the feet of a dead witch. IE..you were sent, what the ad claimed, was a duck and for some reason, your duck is barking. Doesn't sound like you got what you ordered. So what do you do now, or more importantly, how do you prevent it from happening?

The Bidding Process or Duck Soup

Like Duck Soup, for which there are a number of recipes, listings will vary greatly. Some will down load in seconds and have only one line that says...Shoes for sale. Buy them now. Other ads will be so verbose that you'll have time for a snack before it's done downloading and you may need another before you're done reading the hype and wading through the various pictures, ads and promotions that have nothing to do with the item you're bidding on. Either way, be cautious.

When a seller lists an item for auction, they must select an auction type and duration. Many choose the seven day auction. The date and time that the auction ends is clearly stated at the top of the listing. Before bidding on any item, examine the listing carefully. A good listing will answer all of your questions and will leave you with no doubts as to what you are bidding on, what payment forms are accepted, what type of shipping is available and what the sellers return policy is. Ads that are clipped, or overly short, may be misleading you with a lack of information. Similarly, ads that are expansive may be attempting to overload you with information in hopes that you will skim, or skip through it, missing the key word in the process. The key word usually being something like, copy, reproduction, damaged, knockoff, etc... If the listing is expansive, and you don't want to read it all, then my advice would be not to bid on the item.

The bidding process is when you should take the time to verify that the item is what you think it is. IE..is it a pair of Halston shoes, or just a cheap copy? The word copy may be inserted somewhere in the rhetoric in small print. When in doubt, click on the contact the seller link. This will enable you to e-mail the seller and ask questions about the items. Be cautious of any seller who does not respond, or reponds with the statment-- any question you might have is answered by the ad.-- If they don't want to talk to you, don't buy from them. Also avoid people who answer your questions in a vague manner when the answer should be a clear yes or no. For example, you might ask if the shoes are genuine Halston's. The response might be something like, it is a Halston design. This is a clever way of avoiding  your question. The only two correct answers would have been, yes they are genuine Halstons or, no they are not. Excessively short ads give you little or no information. Again, usually a ploy. If you buy the item and find out that it isn't what you wanted, the seller will most likely claim that you should have asked more questions. While true, this let's you know what type of person the seller is. They knew exactly what they were selling and chose to deliberately mislead you with minimal information. Even if that wasn't their intention, they obviously weren't concerned about accuracy, or the possibility that their ad might be misundertood. My advice, don't do business with people like this. It also helps if you've done some research on the item that you're thinking of bidding on. If the shoes are worth one hundred, why would you bid on any listing that offers them for two hundred? Similarly, if the item is going for two dollars, you have to ask yourself, then the seller, why? A 98 per cent discount would be nice, but would also be unusual. You all know the old adage, if it's too good to be true, it probably is.

The other thing you can do to protect yourself is to look at the sellers feedback rating. Next to the sellers name is a number followed by a variety of symbols. The number is the number of transactions that this person has processed as both a seller and a buyer. There will also be a ranking that will indicate what percentage of those transactions were positive, ie...trouble free. The best rating would be 100 % positive with at least 50 or more transactions. If you see less than ten transactions, be cautious. New users are coming on all the time, some of them are the less reputable ones who will scam you, then create a new account to scam someone else. Even if someone has sold 10,000 items and has a 98.9 rating, it doesn't mean that they are honest or trustworthy. There are a number of ways to falsely raise ones ratings. If the feedback is anything less than 100 %, look at the feed back by clicking on the transaction number. This will bring up a screen that will allow you to scroll through the feedback.

Common bidding practices vary. Some buyers bid early to test the waters. Others wait until the last second, often referred to as sniping, and hope to win the bid by lulling other bidders into a false sense of security. There is no right or wrong way. The problem with sniping is that there is usually more than one sniper. When the auction is about to end, these snipers bid. This is where things get weird. The auction ends and let us say that one sniper wins it with a bid of 25.00. You are confused as your maximum was set at 30.00. So, why didn't you win? This is because the computer increments the bids by a certain amount and then compares the bid to that of other bidders. It continues to do this until the auction times out. Depending on the number of bidders and the amount of time left, the computer may not have time to increment through all the bids to get to your maximum bid. So, the person whose bid is currently the highest in increments, when time runs out, wins. This may seem unfair, but that's the way it is. There is also a chance that something may happen, which will prevent you from bidding. I was waiting for an auction to end and was going to bid during the last thirty seconds of the auction. However, when I placed my bid, the system gave me an error. For some reason it wouldn't accept my bid. I had to jump out of the listing and re-enter the listing to bid again. By then, it was too late. If you can't be on line for the auctions end, then bid your maximum amount and hope for the best. If no one outbids you, you win. If  you were outbid, then it went over your maximum, so you would have lost anyway. Some think that bidding at the last second keeps the price lower. This is only true if no one else bids on the item.

I've won...now what?

What happens when you win an auction varies as well. Big surprise, huh? One constant is that you must pay. If you've won an auction, you will receive an e-mail from eBAY stating that you have won and providing a link that will step you through the payment process. Personally, I don't use these links as there have been scammers who have duplicated these links. Instead, I log in to my account and make my payments from within eBAY. How you do it is up to you. Hopefully you will have read the seller's listing carefully and know which payment options the seller will accept. It's frustrating when you win, only to find that the seller won't accept your method of payment. I'd recommend making payments via PayPal. You do not have to have an account to do this and PayPal will accept checks and credit cards. PayPal won't pay the seller until the funds have been verified. This may mean up to a five day delay when paying by check. The good news is that when you make a payment through PayPal, you have a paper trail and can prove that payment was made. This can be a lifesaver if something goes wrong with the transaction

Some listings/auctions may state that you will need to contact the seller before making payment. There are a number of legitimate reasons why a seller may request this, but when I see such a statement, I become very cautious. In most cases there is simply no reason why all the costs shouldn't have been clearly stated in the listing. As a rule, sellers shouldn't be charging extra if the charge wasn't mentioned in the listing. Insurance and shipping costs can usually be automatically calculated by the eBAY listing. Either way,  do some research and make sure you're not being charged for 5,000 dollars worth of insurance, when you only need seventy-five cents worth of coverage.  Also, check your mail label when the item arrives. Insured packages usually state that they are insured. Some sellers will charge you for the insurance, then won't buy it and will pocket the change.  Other sellers may try and guilt you into paying more for an item stating that they made a mistake of some type. Don't do it. Whatever the winning bid was, is what you owe, plus shipping and insurance, nothing more. Always contact eBAY if you feel that any seller is charging you fees that they shouldn't, or if they charged you for services they did not provide. Another type of scam occurs when no one wins an auction, usually because the reserve was not met. In this scam, the supposed seller contacts the user either on or off eBAY, and then offers to sell them the item personally in an off eBAY transaction. This is dangerous for several reasons. One, it is against eBAY policy for any seller to do this. Two, it circumvents any security that you might have had through eBAY and PayPal. If you get ripped off, eBAY will tell you tough luck.  And don't forget, if you settle outside of eBAY, eBAY doesn't get paid. This tends to bug them, since they went to all of the trouble of allowing you to use their system to find the item.

Once you've successfully paid for an item, the next step is shipping. Most sellers will ship within 1-2 business days of payment confirmation, IE...the minute they find out that your money is good. Others will ship as their listing indicated. Some sellers aren't close to the post office and may only ship once a week. If that is the case, the listing should state this clearly. In a perfect world, the seller would notify you, preferably on the same day, when your item has shipped.  Some eBAYers use an automated system, which is nice. You are notified the minute the item enters the system and are not left to wonder if the item has even shipped. You'd be surprised at the number of people who won't even send you a courtesy e-mail indicating when the item will ship, much less if it has. When in doubt, go back to your listing, double check it to make sure you aren't missing something. If you still have questions, click on the contact the seller link and ask them. Most of the time they will get back to you, even if to say nothing more than the item shipped on the day they received your payment. Not very informative, but you'll get a chance to rate them later, so don't sweat it. Your seller should be able to give you an ETA date, based on the shipping method you chose. Since the seller is the only who knows when the shipment actually went out, their ETA is the best. If a tracking number was provided, you can go to the internet and watch your items progress as it travels from place to place in route to you. As a rule, Media Mail takes 2-9 days, 1st Class 2-5, Priority Mail 2-3, Parcel 2-9. I think you can figure overnight out for yourself. After an item has shipped, please be patient. If a seller's listing says it takes them a week to ship, don't contact them two days later and ask if the item has shipped. Similarly, if they told you it shipped on Monday, via Media Mail as you requested, don't contact them three days later and ask about the shipment when Media Mail can take up to 9 business days to arrive. Before contacting a seller about an expected shipment, be sure to factor in the the shipping time, excluding weekends and holidays. Now, if the seller's listing gave you no information in this respect, and they also failed to notify you of the items shipment, feel free to contact them. It's really their own fault. If they don't want e-mails from customers asking about shipments, then they should do something to head them off.

It's here...now what do I do?

That should be obvious. Open it! However, first check out the package and make sure it is not damaged. If it is, take a picture of it with your cell phone or camera. Get a witness, or ask the carrier to document the damage. Then open the box. If the item is damaged, what happens next is determined by what the listing stated. If the seller accepts no liability for lost or damaged items, then hopefully you insured the item. PayPal also offers insurance under certain conditions and can provide you more information on that process. I have never had to use it, so I have no specifics. One scam I have heard of is as follows. Seller sends you an item he knows is damaged. Upon receipt of the item, you contact the seller who apologizes profusely and offers to refund your money, or exchange the product, but first you must return the damaged product to him. Seems reasonable until you realize that the seller isn't going to refund your money or exchange the item. Further more, the seller will take the item you sent back and pull the same stunt on another unsuspecting buyer. If you receive a damaged item, document it, take pictures and get witnesses. You will need that info when you attempt to process any claim. Make sure that all of  your communications are performed through eBAY. Those conversations may help to validate your claim. Some will open up a claim through eBAY or PayPal, before they ship the item back, in hopes of insuring the buyers honesty. Despite all of this, you could still get screwed. The only good news is, given eBAY's current rating system, you will be able to rate this seller without fear of retaliation.

Okay, so what if the item isn't damaged, but still isn't what you thought you ordered. Go back to the listing. Check it carefully. You may find that you over looked a single word.  If it's your fault, hopefully it's lesson learned. However, if after carefully checking the listing several times, you still feel that the item in your hands is not what you ordered, contact the seller, through eBAY, and politely explain your concern. Reputable sellers will do their best to accomadate you in some way if your claim is feasible. (Don't expect a seller to eat any/all of the costs if the mistake was yours) If the seller is rude, obnoxious, uncommunicative, unhelpful, etc... feel free to open up an eBAY claim and report the item as Not As Described. eBAY will open a dialogue with the seller and yourself to see if the problem can be resolved amicably. At this point, even disreputable sellers will usually work with you in hopes of avoiding negative feedback. If eBAY determines that the seller misrepresented the item, there is a good chance that they will refund your money. Even if eBAy refunds your money, the seller may attempt to get their item back and may suggest that you pay the shipping in advance, stating that they will reimburse you once the item has been received. Don't fall for it. If they truly want the item back, they can send you a pre-paid shipping label to put on the box. However, if the fault was yours, and the seller is working with you, be prepared to return the item at your cost. The seller already lost money shipping the item to you, the least you can do is pay for the item's return.

The final step in the buying process is providing feedback. Remember how you checked the sellers feedback by clicking on their feedback number? Well, with each item you purchase, you are allowed to provide one feedback on how that purchase went. If it went well, choose Positive Feedback and state the good things about the seller that you experienced. Such as, "Good communicatons, fast shipping, item as expected AAAA+++." If the item wasn't what you were expecting...IE...a little more worn than advertised, then you might wish to leave neutral feedback with a suitable comment. Neutral feedback means you were not necessarily unhappy, but that you weren't entirely happy either. Your comments should be neutral as well. Example..."Item wasn't what I expected," or, "Item was poorly packaged." If you feel the that the whole transaction was poorly handled, the ad deliberately misleading, and the seller said tough turkey and isn't answering your e-mails despite the fact that his listing says they take refunds, then you can choose to leave negative feedback. Negative feedback serves two purposes, it lets you vent, which is probably not an intended benefit, and it lets you rate the seller for the community to see. The Feedback you leave is there for the entire eBAY community to see and is a badge of honor, or dishonor, depending on the seller. Many sellers take their feedback number very seriously. Any seller that is upsetting a lot of people will, most likely, rack up a large number of negative and or neutral feedbacks. Depending on the number of total transactions that the seller has, this could cause his rating to plummet. Anyone with any significant amount of negative feedbacks will, most likely, find that their customer base is drying up.

Before leaving neutral or negative feedback, make sure you have exhausted all possibly avenues. Make sure you are calm when you enter your comments and make sure to choose words that explain the issue. Leave out anger, spite and hate. If the seller replies with some irrational comment, you will come off as being intelligent and thoughtful and they will look petty. Besides, you can report such comments to eBAY and eBAY will, most likely, remove them. A simple statement of, "The ad was deliberately misleading", will look good next to a seller's reply of, "Buyer doesn't now how to read." You stated a fact, the seller stated an opinion. Unless, of course, you truly didn't read the ad. Please keep in mind that you are rating the seller. Do not mark the seller down for Postal delays. That is beyond their control. If the Postal service loses your package do not blame the seller, nor should you expect the seller to eat the costs. You bought the item, it was yours from that point, you should have insured it. You have to be reasonable.

Another feature of feedback is a separate rating system that asks you to rate the seller based on four categories, using the five star process. One star is horrible and five stars is stupendous. The questions involve accuracy in describing the item, communications, reasonable cost of shipping, and reasonable speed of shipping. The seller does not see your individual input on these questions, because your response are melded into an over all star rating which appears in the sellers listings. Please keep in mind that eBAY considers anything below 4.5 failing in the five star system. Also, any score below 4.8 hurts a stores visibility during an eBAY search. Because of this, I would recommend that no score should be below 4.8. I would also recommend a rating of 5, in all categories, unless something went noticably wrong. Please see examples below.

Item as described: Be honest. If you misread the listing, or misunderstood it, that is not necessarily the sellers fault, unless they are the type to put up a deliberately misleading ad. Don't rate them poorly if it was your mistake.

Communications. Did the seller acknowledge your purchase and payment? Did they notify you when the item would ship and when it shipped? Did they respond to your e-mails in a polite and professional manner? If so, I would recommend rating them at least 5.0. Please keep in mind that it can take 1 or more e-mails to accomplish the above. IE...one e-mail could acknowledge your purchase, payment, and provide shipping information.

The next category is reasonable cost of shipping. Many sellers abuse this category and charge excessive shipping in order to make additional profit. This is against eBAY policy and you can report these sellers by clicking on the report this listing link in their listings. However, you must do some research of your own in order to know what is excessive and what isn't. Keep in mind that there are two major factors that affect shipping costs. These factors are weight and package dimensions. Generally shipping costs should be clearly stated and should not really vary all that much. IE..the cost to ship a one pound package is generally the same, regardless of how it was packaged, if the same service is used. For instance, Media Mail is charged by the pound. Regardless of how the box is packaged the price is 2.23 a pound. Some sellers up this price to some other amount. They then claim that this is to cover their materials/handling costs. This is wrong. Shipping is supposed to be the cost of shipping. Any other costs, such as materials and handling, should be reported by the seller as a handling fee and there is a place in the eBAY listings to do this. Many sellers hides their handling fees in the shipping amount. Go ahead and do a search on an item and compare the various shipping fees. Be sure to compare Media Mail to Media Mail. You'll be amazed at the price differences.

Handling fees vary for good reason. Some people get their shipping materials for free, others have to pay for them. Some sellers ship glass ornaments in an envelope while others use incredible amounts of bubble wrap and peanuts to protect your investment. It can be difficult to tell what is excessive and what isn't, simply by looking. Some listings will advertise combined shipping. Be sure, to make sure, that you understand what this means. Usually, the point of combined shipping is to save money. Less reputable sellers will offer combined shipping, but provide no discount. They will send your items to you in a single box and call that combined shipping. They will then charge you full price, as if each item was shipped separately, and then pocket the money. Others will offer discounts, but to your surprise, after receiving a very large bill, the seller will point out that the discount only applies after one purchases a minimum number of items or a minimum dollar amount. Some sellers will list a handling fee, not where eBAY has a spot for it, but hidden in the listing. This fee might be anything from ten cents to one hundred dollars. Since it is hidden in the listing, it does not show up in eBAY's estimated costs. READ THE LISTINGS CAREFULLY!

Speed of shipping: This is a misunderstood category. This category is designed to rate how quickly the seller shipped the item as opposed to what is stated in the seller's listing. If the listing says the item will ship same day, next day, or even next week, as long as the item is shipped within the listings advertised time frame, the seller should get a 5. If the listing doesn't state how quickly the item will ship, you should have asked. You should not be using this category to rate how quickly the Post Office delivered your item. You are rating the seller, not the Post Office. If the seller shipped your item within the advertised time period, they did their job. Some sellers fail to ship on time. I had one seller make up a bunch of excuses that, in the end, were all lies. The mailing label on your package will tell you when your package was shipped. You can enter the tracking number, if there is one, and see when the label was printed and when the package was received by the local postal facility. This person told me they had shipped my item on the 16th and that the delays must be due to postal issues. This was odd since they didn't even print the shipping label until the 22nd, shortly after my inquiry.

MISC...

A note regarding shipping costs. As both a buyer and a seller, I have seen a number of complaints that sellers are making a killing on shipping. The claim states that seller's are charging excessive amounts on shipping. What is tragically funny about this, is that the person complaining has usually just won a fourteen dollar item for one cent. It doesn't take a math genius to figure out that the seller isn't making a profit on that sale from the winning bid. Obviously the seller must make a profit in order to stay in business. I concur that it shouldn't be done through shipping costs and, in fact, it is against eBAY policy to do so. Winning an item, at a ridiculously low price, should be your cue to check shipping and handling costs.

EBAY is enormous and there are plenty of places to go for advice. EBAY offers live advice, chat rooms, blogs, and faq's. There is so much info out there that it is daunting. Guides, such as this one, number in the thousands. Luckily for you, you read mine first. Safe shopping is simple and I will now simplify everything to several simple concepts.

1) When searching for an item, be specific and use advance search to narrow the results

2) Be informed about any item you are thinking of bidding on. Know what the item costs and what it looks like.

3) Ask questions when in doubt. Be polite at all times. If you don't like the answers, don't bid.

4) Make sure you understand all aspects of the listing including payment, shipping and return policies.

5) Always provide feedback. It helps others to identify exceptional or heinous sellers.

Final Note

If you are still reading this, I must conclude that you have insomnia. I can only suggest that  you watch something suitably boring, such as Napoleon Dynamite which, despite my kids assurances that it's a funny movie, put me fast asleep. I hope that this guide was helpful. Take care and good hunting.