I have been selling on eBay for quite some time now.  I have two accounts personally and know countless others who also either make a living selling on eBay or spend a lot of time on the web site in general.  I just have some hints, tricks, and advice for potential buyers that really helps throughout the transaction.  These are all my thoughts gathered from personal experience, comments from my customers, and conversations with fellow ebayers.  Many of the following ideas will really seem so basic that they shouldn't even be mentioned, but its amazing how relevant they are to all sellers and how many buyers either overlook or are not aware of them.  Here we go!

1.  Please, please, please read the entire listing before you buy the item.  Do not just read the title, it is very important to understand the seller's policies before purchasing.  Also, so many of your questions can be answered right in the listing.  Most Power Sellers will either have a FAQ section or answers to commonly asked questions right in the listings.  We do this to minimize the number of questions that customers have and also to make it easier on the buyer to have as much information right up front.

2.  Realize that eBay emails have a high frequency rate of ending up in spam or trash folders.  This is because of the huge amount of fake and scam eBay emails that we all receive.  Our email filters aren't always the best at sorting out what is real and what is fake.  I personally have so many customers that complain that we don't respond to their emails.  I answer hundreds of emails a day personally and know exactly why they aren't getting them.  One way around this, which I have started using, is for the seller to include direct contact information such as customer service email addresses, AIM ID's, phone numbers, among other things.  This is a much better way to contact us sellers and make sure you receive your response in a timely matter.

3.  As far as shipping items go, sellers print labels and put them on the package.  We either have them picked up by a carrier or drop them off to a carrier such as UPS, USPS, Fed Ex, DHL, or others.  After that, we almost always have absolutely no control over what happens to the package.  We are eBay companies, we are not shipping companies.  I can't tell you how many times I have been blamed for making a package arrive late even though I ship it on time.  I have recieved, and so have countless other sellers, negative feedbacks for things that we have no control over.  Packages that arrive late upset us as well.  We work very hard on our businesses and strive to meet and exceed the customers expectations.  By leaving us negative feedback over something that we cannot control does not reflect accurately upon our service.  eBay feedback should reflect upon what the seller has control.

4.  Do not blame sellers for products that have defects unless it is a blatantly obvious defect.  Again, we are eBay companies, we are not Motorola, we are not Samsung, or any other company.  We do not build the items that we sell.  If the item has a defect it is not only inconvenient for you, but for us as well.  We almost always will accept a return for the defective item and you should review the seller's return policy before purchasing to see the terms of this.  Again, feedback should not reflect on something that the seller could not control.  In a case such as this, it should be based on how the seller handles the situation and cooperates with you during the process.

5.  Something that makes me, along with others dread answering emails is how so many customers treat us.  Unfortunately, many emails that we receive are just flat out rude.  We try to be a professional company in every way and do not deserve to be treated badly by our customers, those who have issues and those who don't have issues.  It is amazing to go through a day's worth of emails and see how many rude customers there are and even more amazing to see how few customers actually say please and thank you.  Thats all it takes to make our day of answering emails a little more pleasant.  So next time you ask a question, please just throw in those few words and it'll make life much easier haha.

6.  Leave positive feedback unless you truely, truely feel a negative is necessary.  Do everything you can to avoid leaving a negative feedback.  These hurt sellers' reputations more than you will ever know.  We work very hard to maintain high feedback ratings and many buyers could care less about that.  Most rarely use ebay and don't understand the importance.  Please remember to leave positive feedback as over 50% of buyers never leave feedback for their purchases.  Most sellers have automated programs to leave feedback for buyers.

Well, hopefully these few tips help you out with your next purchase.  If you think of something that I should include or see something that I need to revise, please feel free to let me know.