eBay.co.uk For Dummies

By Marsha Collier, Jane Hoskyn and Steve Hill

Go from eBay beginner to eBay pro in no time!

Whether you aim to browse, buy, sell, or open up your own eBay shop, this third edition of Britain's bestselling guide to eBay gets you up and running with everything you need to know. Fully updated and packed with new information on eBay apps, creating and running an eBay business, becoming a PowerSeller and much more, it covers every aspect of eBay.co.uk, from security issues and avoiding scams to making serious cash in your spare time or as a full-time eBay merchant.

• Get acquainted from registering and setting up a homepage to organising eBay sales and communicating using the 'My eBay' page, you'll quickly feel right at home on eBay
• Bid and buy with confidence discover how to search for and evaluate items, make bids and win auctions, or use the 'Buy It Now' option
• Sell like a pro get the lowdown on how to choose and post items for sale, set prices and conduct auctions for maximum profits, as well as how to ship stuff and collect payments
• Keep the taxman happy how to keep track of your earnings and comply with all the relevant tax rules and regulations, including the VAT
• Give your auctions pizzazz get expert tips on how to spice up your auctions with pictures and graphics as well as links to other websites
• Stay safe and secure learn everything you need to know about avoiding fraudsters, scammers and hackers and safeguarding your privacy and your identity

Open the book and find:

• How to register and buy and sell on eBay
• Advice on bidding and winning eBay auctions
• Expert tips on choosing items to sell and picking the ideal auction time
• How to set up sale listings and monitor your transactions
• Tips for marketing your stuff on eBay
• The lowdown on avoiding cons and protecting your privacy
• Guidance on setting up an eBay business account
• How to open your own eBay shop

Learn to:

• Make serious money selling your wares
• Bid, win and buy the easy way
• Build and expand your eBay business
• Stay safe on eBay.co.uk

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Aug 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781119943914

Marsha Collier

With over a million copies of her books in print, Marsha Collier is the top-selling eBay author. She also teaches at eBay University events and is an eBay PowerSeller.

Book preview

Part I

Forget the Shops: Getting a Feel for eBay

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In this part . . .

New technology can be intimidating for anyone. You want to have a look at eBay, maybe buy something, but eBay feels huge and overwhelming and you’re not sure where to start. What you want is someone to point out the most useful tools you need to get around, help you find out how eBay works and start showing you how to do your own buying and selling. That’s what we do in Part I.

In this part, we give you the information you want to know about how eBay works and what it offers its members. Find out how to become a registered user, explore the eBay home page, and customise your very own private My eBay page. You can also find out about the all-important feedback profile that follows every eBay user around like a shadow.

Chapter 1

Why eBay Is a Great Place to Buy and Sell

In This Chapter

arrow Finding out about eBay

arrow Getting the lowdown on types of auctions and buying formats

arrow Using features and fun stuff

arrow Getting the inside track on digital cameras and scanners

eBay has emerged as the marketplace for the twenty-first century. The founders had a very clever idea back in 1995 (read about some eBay history in the ‘eBay’s humble beginnings’ sidebar, later in this chapter), and over a decade later the world is obsessed with shopping and selling online. eBay is a safe and fun place to shop for everything from collectables to clothing, all from the comfort of your home.

eBay is now also a marketplace for new merchandise. It’s no longer just the destination for obscure collectables and old china patterns. These days you can buy new and useful items, such as alarm systems, fancy electric toothbrushes, designer clothing, cars, homes, villas in Portugal – more or less anything you can think of.

Have a look around your house. Nice toaster. Unusual clock. Natty microwave. Not to mention all the other fab stuff you own. All these household appliances and collectables are lovely to own, but when was the last time your toaster turned a profit? When you connect to eBay, your PC or Mac magically turns into a money machine. Just visit eBay and marvel at all the items that are only a few mouse clicks away from being bought and sold.

In this chapter, we tell you what eBay is and how it works. eBay is the perfect alternative to spending hours wandering through antique shops or car boot sales looking for the perfect thingamyjig. It can also be your personal shopper for presents and day-to-day items. Not only can you buy and sell stuff in the privacy of your home, but you can also meet people who share your interests. The people who use the eBay site are a friendly crowd, and you can very quickly be buying, selling, swapping stories and trading advice with the best of them.

What Is eBay and How Does It Work?

The Internet is spawning all kinds of new businesses (known as e-commerce to City types), and eBay is one of its few superstars. The reason is simple: it’s the place where buyers and sellers can meet, do business, share stories and tips, and have a laugh.

eBay doesn’t sell a thing. Instead, the site does what all good hosts do: it creates a comfy environment that brings people with common interests together. You can think of eBay as you think of the person who set you up on your last blind date – except the results are often a lot better. Your matchmaking friend doesn’t perform a marriage ceremony but does get you in the same room with your potential soul-mate. eBay puts buyers and sellers in a virtual shop and lets them conduct their business safely within the rules that it has established.

All you need to do to join eBay is fill in a few online forms and click. Congratulations – you’re a member, with no big fees or secret handshakes. After you register, you can buy and sell anything that falls within the eBay rules and regulations. (Chapter 2 eases you through the registration process.)

The eBay home page, shown in Figure 1-1, is your first step to finding all the smart things you can see and do at eBay. You can conduct searches, find out what’s happening and get an instant link to the My eBay page, which helps you keep track of every auction item you have up for sale or are bidding on. You can read more about the eBay home page in Chapter 3 and find out more about My eBay in Chapter 4.

eBay’s humble beginnings

The long-standing urban myth says that eBay all started with a Pez dispenser. But as romantic as the story is (of the young man who designed the site for his fiancée to trade Pez dispensers), it sadly was public relations spin. The founder, Pierre Omidyar, had the right vision at the right time, and the first item he sold on the site was a broken laser pointer. As the days went by, new people were drawn to the site from Internet chatter. The site eventually grew to the point where it began to strain Pierre’s Internet Service Provider (ISP). The ISP charged him more, so he started charging a small listing fee for sellers, just to break even. Legend has it that the day Pierre clocked up $10,000 in fees he gave up his day job. (We hope that’s not apocryphal too!)

eBay was born in September 1995. The name eBay is taken from California’s Echo Bay, the name Pierre originally wanted for his company. But another company had taken that name, so he shortened the name to eBay – and the rest, as they say, is history.

Figure 1-1: The eBay home page, your starting point for bargains and for making some serious cash.

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All about Auctions

How much someone is willing to spend to buy an item determines its value. That’s what makes auctions exciting. eBay offers several kinds of auctions, but for the most part, they all work the same way. An auction is a unique sales event where you don’t know the exact value of the item for sale. As a result, an element of surprise is involved – not only for the bidder (who may end up with a tasty bargain) but also for the seller (who may end up making a killing). Here’s how an auction works from the perspective of a seller and a bidder:

check.png Seller: A seller pays a fee, fills in an online form, and sets up the auction, listing the minimum bid he’s willing to accept for the item. Think of an auctioneer at Sotheby’s saying, ‘The bidding for this diamond necklace starts at £5,000.’ You may want to bid £4,000, but the auctioneer won’t accept that bid. Sellers can also set a reserve price, sort of a financial safety net that protects them from losing money on the deal. We explain how these things work later in this section.

check.png Bidder: Bidders in auctions battle it out over a period of time (the minimum is a day, but most eBay auctions last a week or 10 days) until one comes out victorious. Usually, the highest bidder wins. The tricky thing about taking part in an auction (and the most exciting part) is that no one knows the final price an item goes for until the last second of the auction.

Charity auctions: All for a good cause

An eBay for Charity auction is a fundraising auction where the proceeds go to a selected charity. Most people don’t wake up in the morning wanting to own a seven-foot quilt signed by Terry Wogan, but one-of-a-kind items like that are often auctioned off in charity auctions. (In fact, someone did want that quilt badly enough to buy it for a lot of money on eBay.) Charity auctions are run like most other eBay auctions, but because they’re immensely popular, bidding can be fierce, and the prices can go sky-high. Many celebrities use eBay to help out their favourite charities, and sometimes you can get your hands on unique memorabilia as well as helping a good cause – it’s a win-win situation for everyone. If you fancy doing your bit to help and gain some instant karma while you’re at it, why not donate some or all your profits from your auction sales to charity? You can read more about charity in Chapter 19.

eBay auctions

Unlike ‘traditional’ live auctions that end with the familiar phrase ‘Going, going, gone!’ the clock controls eBay auctions. The seller pays a fee and lists the item on the site for a pre-determined length of time; the highest bidder when the clock runs out takes home the prize.

Private (shhh-it’s-a-secret) auctions

Some sellers choose to hold private auctions because they know that some bidders may be embarrassed to be seen bidding on a pair of kinky boots in front of the rest of the eBay community. Others may go the private route because they’re selling very valuable items and don’t want to disclose their bidder’s financial status.

Private auctions are run like the typical timed auctions except that each bidder’s identity is kept secret. At the end of the auction, eBay provides contact info to the seller and to the high bidder, and that’s it.

You can send email questions to the seller in a private auction, although you can’t check out your competition because the auction item page shows the current bid price but not the high bidder’s User ID.

Multiple Item (Dutch) auctions

Multiple Item or Dutch auctions have nothing to do with clogs, Edam cheese, or halving the bill on a date. A Multiple Item auction allows a seller to put multiple, identical items up for sale. Instead of holding 100 separate auctions for 100 pairs of clogs, for example, a seller can sell them all in one listing. As a buyer, you can elect to bid for 1, 3 or all 100 pairs. But unless you’re running an alternative Euro-boutique (or know a giant centipede who needs all those clogs), you probably want to bid on just one pair. For more on Multiple Item auctions, see Chapter 7.

A seller can’t conduct a Multiple Item auction as a private auction.

Buying It Now at eBay

You don’t have to bid in an auction on eBay to buy something. If you’ve found something you want to buy – something you must have and you don’t want to wait for an auction to end – you’ve a good chance of finding one on eBay to buy immediately. Of course, using Buy It Now (BIN in eBay speak) doesn’t have the thrill of an auction, but buying an item for a fraction of the retail price without leaving your chair or waiting for an auction to end has its own warm and fuzzy kind of excitement. If you seek this kind of instant gratification on eBay, look for the Buy It Now icon in the lists of items for sale. You can also visit the eBay shops, where you find loads of Buy It Now items lined up for the taking. For more on how Buy It Now sales work, check out Chapter 6.

Visiting eBay Shops is as easy as clicking the eBay Shops link from the home page. Thousands of eBay sellers have set up shops, with much of the merchandise available to Buy It Now. Here you can buy anything from socks to jewellery to sports memorabilia – or even a kitchen sink!

Sellers who open an eBay shop have to meet a certain level of experience on eBay, and when you buy from eBay Shops, you’re protected by the same fraud protection policy that covers you in eBay auctions. Figure 1-2 shows the eBay Shops home page.

Figure 1-2: From the eBay Shops home page, you can find almost anything.

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So You Want to Sell Stuff

If you’re a seller, creating a listing page at eBay is as simple as filling in an online form. You type in the name of your item and a short description, add a crisp digital picture, set your price and voilà – your auction begins. (Okay, things are a tad more involved than that, but not much.) eBay charges a small fee (depending on the start price and the category) for the privilege of listing your item. When you list your item, millions of people (eBay has more than 250 million registered users) from all over the world can have a gander at it and place bids. With a bit of luck, a bidding war may break out and drive the bids up high enough for you to turn a nice profit. After the sale, you deal directly with the buyer, who sends you the payment through a payment service such as PayPal or through the post. Then you send the buyer the item. Abracadabra – you just turned your item (unwanted clutter, perhaps) into cash.

To get info on deciding what to sell, leaf through Chapter 9; to find out how to set up an auction, jump to Chapter 10; and to get the inside word on advanced selling, visit Chapter 14. When you want to get really serious about your selling, see Chapter 15.

So You Want to Buy Stuff

If you’re a collector or you just like to shop for bargains, you can browse 24 hours a day through the items up for grabs in eBay’s thousands of categories, which range from Antiques to Wholesale lots. Find the item you want, do some research on what you’re buying and who’s selling it, place your bid or click Buy It Now, and keep an eye on it until the listing closes.

Have a look at Chapter 5 for info on searching for items to bid on. When you see an item you like, you can set up a bidding strategy and let the games begin. Chapter 7 gives you bidding strategies that can make you the winner. When you do win the auction, you can get expert advice about completing the transaction from Chapter 8.

eBay limits your activity as a buyer to start with, but when eBay gets to know you, you can bid as many times as you want on an item, and you can buy as much as you like. Just keep in mind that each bid and purchase is a binding contract, and you have to pay if your bids are successful.

Research for Fun and Profit

eBay’s powerful search engine allows you to browse through countless categories of items up for sale. As a buyer, you can do lots of comparison shopping for that special something you just can’t live without, or simply browse around until something catches your eye. If you’re a seller, the search engine allows you to keep your eye on the competition and get an idea of how popular your item is. That way, you can set a competitive price. To find out more about using search options and categories, see Chapters 3 and 5.

The search engine also lets you find out what other people are bidding on. From there, you can read up on buyers’ and sellers’ feedback ratings (eBay’s ingenious reputation system, which we discuss in Chapter 4) to get a sense of what other customers thought of their service – before you deal with them.

eBay’s Role in the Action

Throughout the process, eBay’s computers keep tabs on what’s going on. When the auction or sale is over or you Buy It Now, eBay takes a small percentage of the final selling price (they call it a Final Value Fee or FVF) and sends an email to the seller and buyer. At this point, eBay’s job is more or less over, and it steps aside.

Most of the time, everything works fine, everybody’s happy and eBay never has to step back in. But if you happen to run into a spot of bother, eBay can help you settle the problem, whether you’re the buyer or the seller.

eBay regulates members with a detailed system of checks and balances known as feedback, which we describe in Chapter 4. The idea is that the eBay community polices itself. eBay is more than happy to jump in when dodgy dealings come to light, but the people who do most to keep eBay safe are the buyers and sellers themselves, those who have a common stake in doing business fairly and squarely. Every time you sell something or win an auction, eBay members have a chance to leave a comment about you. You should do the same for them. If they’re happy, the feedback is positive; otherwise, the feedback is negative. Either way, your feedback sticks to you like glue.

Building a great reputation with positive feedback ensures a long and profitable eBay career. Negative feedback, like multiple convictions, is a real turnoff for most people and can make it hard for you to do future business on eBay. For buyers and sellers, poor feedback (or bor DSRs) rings alarm bells at eBay HQ. If your rating starts looking a bit shabby, eBay limits your trading and may even suspend your account all together.

Features and Fun Stuff

So eBay is all about making money? Not exactly. The people at eBay aren’t joking when they call it a community – a place where people with similar interests can compare notes, argue, buy and sell, and meet each other. Yes, people have got married after meeting on eBay. (Wonder whether they set up a wedding list on eBay?)

Getting into the community spirit

eBay has dozens of specific discussion boards and groups whose topics range from advertising to wildlife (no, you can’t sell wildlife on eBay, but you can talk about it until your typing fingers hurt). So if you have no idea what that old Esso petrol station sign you found in your granddad’s garden shed is worth, just post a message on the New to Selling board. Somewhere out there is an expert with an answer for you. Your biggest problem is deciding whether to keep the sign or put it up for grabs. Those are good problems to have!

One of the most useful places to hang around when you first start trading on eBay is the New to Buying help board. The people on this board don’t slam you for asking basic questions, and they’re always happy to help or at least lend an ear. For more about posting messages and joining eBay groups, visit Chapter 18.

eBay’s Safety Centre

The Safety Centre is eBay’s one-stop resource for information and services about keeping eBay safe – and for advice on what to do if things go wrong. Sometimes, despite your best efforts to be a good eBay user, buyers or sellers don’t keep their word. In a small proportion of cases, unscrupulous chancers sometimes do invade the site and try to scam people. You may buy an item that isn’t as it was described, or the winner of your auction doesn’t send the payment. Sometimes even honest members get into disputes. The Safety Centre is an excellent resource for when you require questions answered or you need a professional to come in and settle an out-of-hand situation. Chapter 17 tells you all about the Safety Centre.

Extra Gadgets You May Want

tip.eps As you get into the swing of buying and selling on eBay, you grow more comfortable with all the technical hoops you have to jump through to make the eBay magic happen. When you’re at that point, you may be ready to invest in a few extra gizmos, such as digital cameras and scanners that can make all the difference to your listings – and your profit margins. We offer all the details on using digital technology in your auctions in Chapter 14.

And these days, you don’t have to be at your computer to use eBay. You can bid, buy and sell on the move, wherever you’re using your smartphone like an iPhone or an HTC Android, by downloading one of the eBay Apps that are freely available from eBay itself. You can find out all about eBay Apps that are available in Chapter 19.

Chapter 2

Getting on the Gravy Train: Joining eBay

In This Chapter

arrow Using eBay’s easy forms (the shape of things to come)

arrow Getting up close and personal about privacy

arrow Identifying with User IDs and passwords

arrow Discovering the ropes (eBay rules and regs)

Compared to finding a parking spot near the shops on a Saturday afternoon, signing up at eBay is simplicity itself. Tricky hassles such as signatures and dotted lines went out with vinyl records (which people are now selling on eBay). This is an electronic age, and the hardest thing you have to do on eBay is type in your email address correctly.

In this chapter, you find out everything you need to know about registering at eBay. You get tips on what information you have to disclose – and what you should keep to yourself.

Registering at eBay

You don’t have to wear one of those tacky ‘Hello, my name is . . .’ stickers after you sign in, but eBay needs to know some things about you before it grants you membership. You and several million other people are roaming around eBay’s online treasure trove; eBay needs to know who’s who.

remember.eps Registering at eBay isn’t rocket science. In fact, it’s not even the multi-choice bit of a Science GCSE. The only hard-and-fast rule at eBay is that you have to be 18 years of age or older. Don’t worry, the Age Police don’t come to your house demanding to see your ID; they have more discreet ways to ensure that you’re old enough to register. (Hint: Credit cards do more than help you buy a new pair of trainers before payday.)

eBay goes global

eBay has websites in the US, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Korea, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, Poland, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Taiwan as well as in the UK. As you’re using eBay.co.uk, the vast majority of users you trade with are on home turf, but the opportunities to buy from and sell to overseas eBayers are huge – and growing fast. About 10 per cent of sales on eBay.co.uk are to buyers from abroad.

Registering Is Quick, Free and Easy

Before you can sign up at eBay, you have to be connected to the Web. This is the time to fire up your computer and connect to the Internet. After you open your Internet browser, you’re ready to sign up.

Just type www.ebay.co.uk in the address box of your browser and press Enter. This takes you to eBay UK’s home page, where you spot the Register text link next to the eBay logo shown in Figure 2-1. Click the link and let the sign-up process begin.

If you can’t see a Register text link on the home page, that’s okay, your eyesight is fine (probably). If you share a computer with someone who already has an eBay account, the home page may not display the link. You can still reach the registration form by clicking the plain-text sign-out link that appears next to the eBay logo and then clicking the register link, which should now be visible.

remember.eps eBay’s home page changes regularly. One day you may visit to find the home page pictured in Figure 1-1 (in Chapter 1), and the next morning it may be the one in Figure 2-1. Half an hour later it can look different again. Don’t think that you’re going mad. eBay continually re-arranges its front window to draw your attention to different hot categories and site features.

Figure 2-1: Click the link next to the eBay logo to register and soon you’re trading online like a pro.

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In addition, eBay’s home page changes depending on what you do. It shows items you’ve recently viewed or bid on, and when you become a seller eBay also targets you with messages suitable for sellers.

When you’re at the registration form, you go through a three-step process.

Here’s an overview:

1. Enter the basic required info.

2. Read and accept the user agreement.

3. Check your Inbox and confirm your email address.

The following sections fill you in on all the details.

The registration pages on eBay are protected by a secure SSL connection. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) means that your connection is encrypted – devised by a crack team of techies to be read by your eyes only. A couple of signs tell you that a Web page is SSL-protected: the normal http: at the beginning of the Web address (also called the URL or Uniform Resource Locator) is now https://, and a small yellow closed-lock symbol is in the bottom corner of your screen. We can tell you how SSL works, but we don’t want to send you to sleep, so here’s the bottom line: it does work, so trust us and use it. The more precautions eBay (and you) takes, the harder it is for some smarty-pants teenager to get into your files.

Filling in the required information

After you click the Register button links, you go to the heart of the eBay registration pages. To get started follow these steps:

1. At the top of the first registration page, eBay shows the steps of the registration process and asks you to fill in some required information (see Figure 2-2).

Here’s what eBay wants to know about you. If you leave any of these fields blank, you’re prompted to fill them in before you can proceed:

• Your full name, address and main telephone number. eBay keeps this information on file in case the company, or a member who’s a transaction partner, needs to contact you.

• You can also include a secondary phone number if you want.

• Your email address.

Figure 2-2: Some of the required information for your eBay registration.

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If you register with an anonymous email service such as Yahoo! Mail or Hotmail, eBay asks you for additional information as authentication. You must provide valid credit card information for identification purposes. Your information is protected by eBay’s privacy policy, and your credit card isn’t charged.

After you enter your personal information, you’re ready to create your eBay persona.

2. Scroll down the page to select your eBay User ID.

See ‘A Not-So-Quick Word about Choosing a User ID’, later in this chapter, for some tips on selecting your User ID.

3. Choose a permanent password, enter it in the Create Password box and then type it a second time in the Re-enter Password box to confirm it.

For more information on choosing a password, see ‘A Quick Word about Passwords’, later in this chapter.

4. Create your unique secret question and input the answer.

eBay uses the secret question you select here to identify you if you ever have problems signing in.

5. Type in your date of birth.

6. Make sure that all the info you entered is correct.

Remember that primary school teacher who kept telling you to check your work? Well, she had the right idea. Review your answers.

If eBay finds a glitch in your registration, such as an incorrect area or postcode, you see a warning message. This is part of eBay’s security system to ward off fraudulent registrations – and ensures that your registration progresses smoothly. If you put in a wrong email address, for example, eBay has no way of contacting you. Use the Back button to correct any slip-ups.

7. Enter the security number.

Just to make sure that you’re not an evil computer trying to open an eBay account, the registration form also has a field that only a human can answer. Enter the security number that eBay shows you into the box below it.

8. Agree to eBay’s Terms, Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Tick the box to show that you agree to eBay’s rules. We talk more about the rules in the next section, ‘Do you solemnly swear to . . . ?’.

9. Click the Continue button to move on to the next screen.

If you’ve made a mistake, eBay lets you correct the information by using the Edit Information button.

If you registered with an anonymous email service, such as Yahoo! Mail or Hotmail, you must enter your credit card information, as we mention earlier, before you see the licence agreement, which we cover in the next section. If, when you look at this agreement, your eyes start glazing over at all the legal jargon, the next section can help you make sense of it.

Do you solemnly swear to . . . ?

Before you click Continue, you must agree to the eBay User Agreement and Privacy Policy. This is where you promise to play by the rules and not indulge in dodgy dealing. Never forget that eBay takes this stuff very seriously. Break the rules and you can be kicked off eBay or worse. (Did someone say ‘caught by the fuzz’?)

Make sure that you read the User Agreement thoroughly when you register. So that you don’t have to put down this riveting book to read the jargon right now, we’ve got the nuts and bolts here:

check.png You understand that every transaction is a legally binding contract. (Click the User Agreement link at the bottom of any eBay page for the current eBay Rules and Regulations.)

check.png You agree that you can pay for the items you buy and the eBay fees that you incur. (Chapter 9 fills you in on how eBay takes its cut of the auction action.)

check.png You understand that you’re responsible for paying any taxes.

check.png You’re aware that if you sell prohibited items, eBay can forward your personal information to the police for further investigation. (Chapter 10 explains what you can and can’t sell at eBay – and what eBay does to sellers of prohibited items.)

check.png eBay makes clear that the site is just a venue, which means it’s a place where people with similar interests can meet, greet and do business.

When everything goes well, the eBay website is like a sophisticated car boot sale. Fail to behave at the boot sale and you may be chucked out of the car park by a group of angry finger-wavers. But if you don’t play by the rules at eBay, the venue gets very serious very quickly. eBay has the right to get the police to track you down and prosecute you. But fair’s fair: eBay doesn’t want to catch you out by inventing any surprise new rules. Check the appropriate box on the User Agreement page and eBay keeps you posted by email of any updates to the User Agreement.

If you’re a stickler for fine print, head to these Internet addresses for all the ps and qs of the latest policies:

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/community/png-user.html

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/community/png-priv.html

Before you can go any further, you must click the tick box shown in Figure 2-3. This indicates that you really, really understand what it means to be an eBay user. Obviously you, as a law-abiding eBay member, have no problem following the rules, so go ahead and tick the box and click Submit. This takes you to a screen stating that eBay is sending you an email. You’re almost done.

The next step is confirming your email address, which we cover in the next section.

Figure 2-3: Read over these points carefully. They contain the essence of what you should know about eBay.

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It must be true if you have it in writing

After you accept the User Agreement, it takes eBay less than a minute to email you a confirmation notice, as shown in Figure 2-4. Just click on the button in the email to confirm your email address and your registration is complete.

Figure 2-4: The registration confirmation email from eBay.

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If your email doesn’t support links, go to this address: http://cgi4.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?RegisterConfirmCode.

After you reconnect with eBay and it knows your email address is active, you’re heartily welcomed, as shown in Figure 2-5.

Figure 2-5: Time to start shopping!

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If you accidentally type in the wrong email address, you have to start the registration process all over again with a different User ID (eBay holds the previous ID for 30 days).

If you don’t receive your eBay registration confirmation email within 24 hours, you probably entered your email address incorrectly. Your first stop should be eBay’s Help section, where the good people in customer support can help you complete your registration. Figure 2-6 shows the form we completed to tell eBay about our registration problem; they emailed back within an hour, though it can take up to 24 hours. Find them at the following address: http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/contact_us/_base/ index.html.

Don’t panic if you are asked to log in. Just scroll down the signing in page and you’ll see the option to contact customer support as a guest by pressing the grey ‘I’m a guest’ button.

tip.eps You can also turn to other eBay members for help. The Answer Centre in eBay’s Community section is your forum for asking questions and getting (or giving) answers about eBay. See Chapter 18 for more details about getting support from the eBay community.

Figure 2-6: Get in touch with eBay.

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A Quick Word about Passwords

Picking a good password isn’t as easy as it seems, but it’s twice as important! Whoever has your password can, in effect, ‘be you’ at eBay – running auctions, bidding on auctions and leaving potentially defamatory feedback for others. Basically, such an impostor can ruin your eBay career, and can cause you serious financial grief.

Don’t tell anyone, but your info is safe at eBay

eBay keeps most personal information secret. The basics (your name, phone number and geographical location) go

Reviews for eBay.co.uk For Dummies

[endersreads · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I would not want to be Marsha Collier or her editor. I don't know how many revised editions are out there, but they will continue. Change is perpetual. That being said, this book is what got me started on ebay. It's incredibly easy to understand (henceforth "For Dummies"). Even the most technically handicapped person should get along fine. My only gripe is that Collier is sometimes a bit repetitive, but dummies need repetition... Anyone who is the least bit interested in eBay--be it in buying or selling--should start here. Don't just hop on eBay and start clicking. There are a few fundamental wisdoms to be learned first, like how not to get negative feedback. Ms. Collier thinks of everything here! She even gives you ideas on where to get merchandise! I want you to realize that ANYONE can be an eBayer, regardless of your computer knowledge! Let Marsha show you how and soon you may wish to open your own eBay store or selling site! You won't be sorry!