Santa Shops on eBay: How to find deals, get organized, and give yourself the gift of time

Product Description

"Marsha Collier knows eBay like no one else. With her tips and insight, anyone can enjoy the ease and convenience of shopping online any time of year."
--Clarissa Parashar, eBay PowerSeller and owner of the eBay store Perpetual Vogue

The kids' concert is tonight, your brother's coming Saturday, and when are you going to shop?

Who has time for fun at the holidays? You will, when you learn these techniques and tactics for successful online shopping from Marsha Collier, the undisputed empress of eBay. Even if your previous forays online have produced only frustration--or if you've never tried at all--this step-by-step guide will make you a pro.

Here's how to shop safely, target your searches, make a list and check it twice, and even handle customer service problems. Discover the best sites to shop for teenagers, your boss, or hard-to-please Aunt Agatha, find out where to purchase perfect last-minute gifts and get them in time, and even pick up post-holiday bargains without ever hitting the mall. Your gift? Time!
Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #930048 in Books
* Published on: 2006-07-31
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Paperback
* 245 pages

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover
"Marsha Collier knows eBay like no one else. With her tips and insight, anyone can enjoy the ease and convenience of shopping online any time of year."
—Clarissa Parashar, eBay PowerSeller and owner of the eBay store Perpetual Vogue

The kids' concert is tonight, your brother's coming Saturday, and when are you going to shop?

Who has time for fun at the holidays? You will, when you learn these techniques and tactics for successful online shopping from Marsha Collier, the undisputed empress of eBay. Even if your previous forays online have produced only frustration—or if you've never tried at all—this step-by-step guide will make you a pro.

Here's how to shop safely, target your searches, make a list and check it twice, and even handle customer service problems. Discover the best sites to shop for teenagers, your boss, or hard-to-please Aunt Agatha, find out where to purchase perfect last-minute gifts and get them in time, and even pick up post-holiday bargains without ever hitting the mall. Your gift? Time!

About the Author
Marsha Collier is widely acknowledged as the world's foremost eBay expert. She launched her first eBay business in the site's infancy and put her daughter through college on the profits. Marsha teaches eBay University courses, gives seminars, has appeared on NBC's Today Show and ABC's The View, and is the author or coauthor of more than a dozen books, including eBay For Dummies and Starting an eBay Business For Dummies (Wiley).
Customer Reviews

Santa Shops on eBay is A++++++++5
Marsha Collier is a trusted author and eBay expert who has written a great book about buying for the holidays. The bonuses in the book are numerous--if you're a buyer or seller on eBay you will find tips and stores to visit and ways to streamline your daily activities. She is smart and has written a book that is very helpful for navigating eBay, especially for Christmas shopping. This book is from 2006 but is still not totally outdated as many books about eBay and the internet are after this amount of time. Great read, and obviously the price is right too. Highly recommended book and author!

New to ebay3
This is a great book if you want to find ebay stores in a hurry! However I did find that some of these stores no longer exist. It will give the novice ebay shopper great insight on how to shop and buy.

Santa on e-Bay5
Well organized book with lots of gift and time-saving ideas. I found it very easy to read and really enjoyed it.

eBay Listings That Sell For Dummies

Product Description

No matter what you want to sell on eBay—auto parts or designer apparel…weird, unique wares or pricey antiques—the principles and basic rules for successful listings are the same. eBay Listings That Sell For Dummies follows the advice it gives you for your ads—it tells you what you need to know without bogging you down with lots of fluff and peripheral stuff. From the mechanics to descriptive ad copy to photography to getting it on eBay, this guide covers:

* eBay options that can boost the appeal of your listings, including Buy It Now (BIN), Subtitle, Bold Title, Highlight, Box border, Home Page Featured, Featured Plus!, and Gallery Picture (a must)
* Constructing catchy listings with a title that sells and keywords that pay off
* eBay Acronyms you’ll need to know
* Tackling and completing eBay’s Sell Your Item form
* HTML formatting basics plus some free JavaScript scripts you can use to dress up your listing
* Embedding images, creating thumbnails, and adding bells and whistles (or not)
* Buying a digital camera for taking eBay photos and equipping your “studio”
* Lighting correctly, and using the Cloud Dome, light cubes, panels, and umbrellas
* Retrieving your images and uploading them to a server (your free ISP space, AOL, eBay, eBay’s Picture Manager, or others)
* Editing your photos, including cropping, enhancing, resizing, sharpening, and more
* A checklist of techniques for preparing elegant, fast-loading images for your ads
* Sprucing up your eBay store
* Posting your listing to other sites such as half.com, amazon.com, and overstock.com
* Automating with HTML Generators, including eBay’s Turbo Lister, or Third-Party HTML generators such as Mpire.com Launcher or the authors’ free tool from www.coolebaytools.com

Written by eBay pros Marsha Collier, a successful PowerSeller, and Patti Louise Ruby, a trainer at eBay University events and eBay Live, eBay Listings That Sell For Dummies is loaded with tricks of the trade. It’s complete with step-by-step instructions for many tasks, tables and checklists, lots of screen shots, and examples of good and bad ads. With this friendly guide, your merchandise will quickly be going…going…gone on eBay.
Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #69425 in Books
* Published on: 2006-05-01
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Paperback
* 336 pages

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover
Discover the tricks top sellers use to grab attention

Create your own unique eBay selling pages with time-tested techniques

So you know your way around eBay, but you're not getting the highest bids for your items? Maybe your listings need a makeover! Here are all the techie secrets for taking better merchandise photos, writing hot copy and formatting it in HTML, "branding" your eBay store, making your listings look great on anybody's browser, and a whole lot more.

Discover how to

* Get all you can out of eBay's tools
* Tweak HTML for eye-popping results
* Equip your own eBay photo studio
* Shoot product photos designed to impress
* Avoid rookie selling mistakes

About the Author
Marsha Collier spends most of her time on things related to eBay. She’s a charter member eBay PowerSeller, as well as one of the original instructors for eBay University. As a columnist, an author of four best-selling books on eBay, a television and radio expert, and a lecturer, she shares her knowledge of eBay with millions of online shoppers. Thousands of eBay fans also visit her Web site, www.coolebaytools.com, to get Marsha’s latest insights on e-commerce.
Out of college, Marsha worked in fashion advertising for the Miami Herald and then as special-projects manager for the Los Angeles Daily News. She also founded a home-based advertising and marketing business. Her successful business, the Collier Company, Inc., was featured by Entrepreneur magazine in 1986, and in 1990, Marsha’s company received the Small Business of the Year award from her California State Assemblyman and the Northridge Chamber of Commerce.
Bargains drew Marsha to eBay in 1996, but profitable sales keep her busy on the site now. Marsha applies her business acumen and photography skills to her eBay business — and in this book, she shares her knowledge about what makes good, profit-promoting listings on eBay.

Patti “Louise” Ruby, an Indianapolis native, was born to work on a computer. In junior high, she took a class in the programming language Fortran. She excelled and enjoyed the class: The die was cast. Patti went through several jobs as a programmer and then became a consultant. In the late ’90s, Patti was part-owner of an antique mall, and coincidentally found a Web site called AuctionWeb (the original eBay). She was fascinated by the concept, and began selling on the site. She also became an integral part of the chat rooms, which initially served as loose customer support where users helped other users. Patti’s ease with computers helped many a new user feel comfortable on the boards — and with using the AuctionWeb system.
In February 1997, Patti was hired as AuctionWeb’s second Customer Support Representative. In this position, she became the main interface between the engineering staff and the user community, where she communicated members’ “bug” reports and suggestions for site enhancements. When AuctionWeb became the new eBay site in the fall of 1997, she headed up a “live” question-and-answer board that was set up to help members make the transition between platforms.
Customer Reviews

Very Helpful5
This was a very helpful book, and made me think about the details when creating my listing and taking my pictures. It explains how to take clearer pictures and the important information to put in your listing. Most importantly, it tells you what things you should not do.

not worth the money1
My wife has an ebay business and bought this for insights. This is cmoon sense, and there are enough free guides available that provide the same information.

We returned the book promptly.

This is the book eBay sellers asked for!5
I'm the editor who worked with Patti & Marsha on this book. When we attended the eBay Live convention in 2005, we had the chance to ask a lot of eBay sellers what kind of information they needed that they couldn't find. We got the same replies over and over:

* They wanted info on how to take better photos for their sales, especially how to take photos of smaller items like jewelry and coins.
* They wanted to know how to dress up their sales with HTML tweaks.
* They wanted to know how to write better listing copy.

We answered all those questions in this book plus a lot of others. This is the book you need if you want to get a leg up on other sellers and post the best looking listing with the best photos. It's a proven fact that the better your listing and photos looks, the higher your bids will be!

Absolute Beginner's Guide to eBay, 4th Edition

Product Description

eBay, the world's largest online trading community, has over 125 million registered users. According to the New York Times, more than 500,000 people make a full- or part-time living on eBay. On any given day there are close to 4 million items listed for auction on the eBay site. Want to make your mark on the eBay world?



Absolute Beginner's Guide to eBay, 4th Edition, is the perfect guide to help you conquer your first auction. The first three editions of this book were huge sellers, so it's only natural we would update this great book to reflect eBay's most recent upgrades and enhancements. This new edition is completely revamped to cover the way eBay is used today. It's more than just online auctions--users also buy and sell via fixed-price listings, Buy It Now, eBay Stores, Half.com, Trading Assistants, and more. You will find everything they need to know to get started in this book!

Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #613974 in Books
* Published on: 2006-05-25
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Paperback
* 384 pages

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

On any given day there are more than 7 million items listed for auction at ebay (ebay), the world's largest online trading community. At the end of its last fiscal quarter, ebay had 49.7 million registered users, more than double the number of users just two years previous. It is estimated that $9.3 billion worth of merchandise, in more than 423 million individual auctions, was traded over eBay during the year 2002. To an absolute beginner, using eBay can be an intimidating experience. What do you need to do to participate? How do you place a bid? What do you do when the auction is over? Can you really trust the auction seller? Potential buyers and sellers need a book that takes them step-by-step through the eBay auction process and helps them become more successful over time. That book is this book: Absolute Beginner's Guide to ebay. Also included is information of value to ebay users wanting to make the jump to power-seller status.

About the Author
Michael Miller is a successful and prolific writer, with more than 75 non-fiction books published since 1989. His most popular books include Que's Tricks of the eBay Masters, Easy eBay, Making a Living from Your eBay Business, Absolute Beginner's Guide to Computer Basics, and Easy Computer Basics. His 1999 book Complete Idiot's Guide to Online Auctions was one of the first books published on the eBay phenomenon, and was named Best Online Auction Book of the Year by BookBytes. He resides in Indianapolis, IN.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction

eBay is a true phenomenon.

In 2004, eBay transactions defined a new economy worth more than $34 billion. Read that number again; it's not a misprint. Thirty-four billion dollars. That's $34 billion in sales that didn't exist before eBay. Thirty-four billion dollars of transactions that appeared seemingly out of thin air. Thirty-four billion dollars in merchandise that wouldn't have been sold otherwise.

Where did that $34 billion come from? It came from you and from me and from 135 million other people around the world who log on to the eBay site to buy and to sell all manner of merchandise. Before eBay, there was no global marketplace for the 135 million of us; there was no way to buy and to sell that $34 billion of merchandise, except for small local garage sales and flea markets.

eBay made that $34 billion happen. eBay brought 135 million of us together.

In doing so, eBay became one of the first—and maybe the only—of the online businesses to make a profit from day one of its existence. eBay kept its costs low by not actually handling any of the merchandise traded on its site, and generated revenue by charging listing fees and sales commissions on every transaction.

Smart people, with a smart concept.

And here's somebody else who's smart about eBay:

You.

You're smart because you bought this book to help you learn how to buy and sell merchandise on the eBay site. You know that you need to learn how eBay works before you can start buying and selling, and you also know that a little extra knowledge can give you the edge you need to be a real auction winner.

Absolute Beginner's Guide to eBay, 3rd Edition, will help you get started with eBay auctions—even if you've never bought anything online in your life. Read this book and you'll learn how to bid and how to sell, and what to do when the auction ends.

More important, you'll learn how to maximize your chances of winning important eBay auctions—without paying through the nose. And if you're a seller, you'll learn how to stand out from the crowd and generate more bids—and higher selling prices.

You'll also learn that buying and selling on eBay isn't that hard, and that it can be a lot of fun. You'll even discover that you can actually make a living from your eBay activities, if you don't mind a little hard work.

Really!
How This Book Is Organized

This book is organized into five main parts:

*

Part I, "Essential eBay," shows you how online auctions work, as well as how to sign up for eBay membership and find your way around the eBay site.
*

Part II, "eBay for Bidders," tells you everything you need to know about bidding for items in eBay auctions. You'll take the Bidding 101 tutorial, learn how to search for specific types of items, discover the best ways to pay for those auctions you win, and find out how to avoid getting ripped off by unscrupulous sellers.
*

Part III, "eBay for Sellers," is the flip side of the coin. This section tells you everything you need to know about selling on eBay; you'll take the Selling 101 tutorial, figure out what to sell and for how much, determine what payment methods to accept, learn how to create more effective item listings, find out how to pack and ship your merchandise, and discover how to best manage your current auctions.
*

Part IV, "Using eBay's Advanced Features," is all about the little extras you can find on the eBay site. You'll discover how to track your auctions in My eBay, learn how to create a personal About Me page, and find out how to use post-auction feedback.
*

Part V, "Becoming a Power Seller," is for the really ambitious eBay user. You'll learn how to manage your auctions with third-party software and services, how to sell and ship internationally, and how to turn your hobby into a full-time profession—and make a real living from your eBay auctions.

Taken together, the 30 chapters in this book will help you get the most from your eBay experience. By the time you get to the end of the final chapter, you'll be buying and selling online just like a pro!
Conventions Used in This Book

I hope that this book is easy enough to figure out on its own, without requiring its own instruction manual. As you read through the pages, however, it helps to know precisely how I've presented specific types of information.
Web Page Addresses

There are a lot of Web page addresses in this book—including addresses for specific pages on the eBay site. They're noted as such:

www.molehillgroup.com

Technically, a Web page address is supposed to start with http:// (as in http://www.molehillgroup.com). Because Internet Explorer and other Web browsers automatically insert this piece of the address, however, you don't have to type it—and I haven't included it in any of the addresses in this book.
Special Elements

This book also includes a few special elements that provide additional information not included in the basic text. These elements are designed to supplement the text to make your learning faster, easier, and more efficient.

Note - A note is designed to provide information that is generally useful but not specifically necessary for what you're doing at the moment. Some notes are like extended tips—interesting, but not essential.

Caution - A caution will tell you to beware of a potentially dangerous act or situation. In some cases, ignoring a caution could cause you significant problems—so pay attention to them!

Mike Sez - This element is my personal opinion or recommendation regarding the topic at hand. Remember—I might not always be right, but I'll always have an opinion!

Tip - A tip is a piece of advice—a little trick, actually—that helps you use your computer more effectively or maneuver around problems or limitations.

Finally, in various parts of this book you'll find big checklists. Use these checklists to prepare for the upcoming task—just check off the items on the list, and you'll be ready to go.
Further Reading

I'd be somewhat remiss if I didn't point you to further reading on the subject of eBay—in particular, books you can read after this one to help you be even more successful with your eBay auctions. To this end, I draw your attention to two other books I've written that you might find useful:

*

Tricks of the eBay Masters (Que, 2004), which assembles 600 tricks and tips from almost 200 successful eBay buyers and sellers—great advice that any eBayer can use.
*

Making a Living from Your eBay Business (Que, 2005), which shows you how to turn your eBay hobby into a profitable business. (This one's more of a business book than an eBay book—just what you need to turn pro!)

Let Me Know What You Think

I always love to hear from readers. If you want to contact me, feel free to email me at abg-ebay@molehillgroup.com. I can't promise that I'll answer every message, but I will promise that I'll read each one!

If you want to learn more about me and any new books I have cooking, check out my Molehill Group website at http://www.molehillgroup.com. Who knows—you might find some other books there that you'd like to read.

© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Very good for starting to buy or sell on Ebay4
This is a very good book to get yourself started with either buying or selling on Ebay. The chapters are organized in a logical order and explain details of Ebay using common language.

Absolute Beginner's Guide To Ebay 5
Whether you are new to eBay or just looking to sharpen up your skills, Absolute Beginner's Guide to eBay is a pretty good bet. This book includes full instructions on how to set up an eBay account and getting started buying or selling merchandise. It also explains special features such as product reviews, eBay stores, [...], and eBay Express.

The Unofficial Guide to Making Money on eBay

Product Description

The inside scoop...for when you want more than the official line!

More than 430,000 people run full- or part-time businesses on eBay. Whether you want to become a PowerSeller yourself, supplement an established bricks-and-mortar business, or just make some extra money by cleaning out your garage and attic, this guide will help you get your merchandise going?going?gone! It tells you how to do everything from opening your seller's account and listing your items to collecting the payments. Chockfull of tips, techniques, and expert advice from "The Queen of Auctions," Lynn Dralle, it includes:

Vital Information for maximizing your sales, including the top ten eBay categories

Insider Secrets on acquiring merchandise, creating effective listings, earning positive feedback, and more

Money-Saving Techniques, including the best ways to ship various types of merchandise

Money-Making Techniques, such as selling collectibles individually rather than as a set

Time-Saving Tips, such as setting up efficient areas for staging, storage, and shipping

The Scoop on the latest trends, including Buy It Now sales and eBay drop-off stores
Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #76196 in Books
* Published on: 2006-01-31
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Paperback
* 370 pages Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover
The inside scoop...for when you want more than the official line!

More than 430,000 people run full- or part-time businesses on eBay. Whether you want to become a PowerSeller yourself, supplement an established bricks-and-mortar business, or just make some extra money by cleaning out your garage and attic, this guide will help you get your merchandise going?going?gone! It tells you how to do everything from opening your seller's account and listing your items to collecting the payments. Chockfull of tips, techniques, and expert advice from "The Queen of Auctions," Lynn Dralle, it includes:

Vital Information for maximizing your sales, including the top ten eBay categories

Insider Secrets on acquiring merchandise, creating effective listings, earning positive feedback, and more

Money-Saving Techniques, including the best ways to ship various types of merchandise

Money-Making Techniques, such as selling collectibles individually rather than as a set

Time-Saving Tips, such as setting up efficient areas for staging, storage, and shipping

The Scoop on the latest trends, including Buy It Now sales and eBay drop-off stores

About the Author
LYNN DRALLE is an antique dealer and an eBay PowerSeller who has earned up to $20,000 a month through online auctions. An award-winning author and popular lecturer on buying and selling on eBay, she has written The 100 Best Things I've Sold on eBay and co-authored How to Sell Antiques and Collectibles on eBay...and Make a Fortune, and has appeared on national television.
Customer Reviews

If you believe the best way to make money is to exploit people buy her books1
In the books of this author, she makes a point that for items under 100 dollars she will bargain the original seller at garage sales down to nothing. Then she turns around and sells them for 10 times as much. She claims that is the only way to make money. Well, you can make money with Ebay and not exploit people like this. There are different ways to do this, but you do not have to exploit people to do this, even with the new Ebay rules, which seem to be somewhat randomly enforced.

She says any item over 100 dollars should be sold for 100 dollars more. Do the math!! What is the profit of 100 dollars on a sale of 100 dollars compared to 100 dollars on a sale of 900 dollars. It is not equivalent.

Capitalism does NOT have to mean exploitation of the weakest--it can also mean fair trade. There are much better books by Marsha Collier, Skip McGrath, and many others. Avoid this book if you like to treat people fairly.

I am excited to get started!4
This book is very well set-up and easy to follow. She seems to cover every aspect of ebay...and went over things that I would never have thought of. It would take a long time to learn all of this on your own.

This Book Has Me Motivated !5
I have read several books about Ebay & enjoyed them all. When I started Lynn Dralle's "Unofficial Guide" I could not put that book down! I started pulling out those little sticky marker flags and plastered up my book for my future reference. The book is well written & is very motivating. It has me ready to begin a new career of selling on Ebay. The book is GREAT! Thank you.
J. Hinds Oklahoma City, OK

Secrets of the eBay Millionaires

Product Description

Secrets to high-volume, high-profit sales from the most successful sellers on eBay

Secrets of the eBay Millionaires reveals the inside stories behind eBay’s most successful sellers—including those in the Professional eBay Seller’s Association, who together make more than $1 billion annually on eBay. For the first time in one volume, aspiring PowerSellers will get hundreds of undocumented tips and tricks on building a strong eBay business and maximizing sales and profits. Readers will learn to develop a business plan, identify market need, promote their products, build a solid reputation, and more. The sellers profiled represent the major eBay categories, including computers and software, consumer electronics, books, movies, music, collectibles, jewelry, and B-to-B merchandise. Various business models are examined, such as hobbyist-turned- entrepreneur and brick-and-mortar businesses brought online. Readers are sure to find sellers with whom they can identify.

Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #147821 in Books
* Published on: 2005-11-21
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Paperback
* 258 pages

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

How eBay’s top sellers made their millions--and you can too!

Find out how Phil went from penniless to PowerSeller, how Drew sells custom pens for $7,000 each, how Lisa uses her professional acting skills to woo customers, and how you too can make big money on the world’s greatest online marketplace. For the first time in one volume, you’ll get inside tips and learn from the inspiring success stories of dozens of eBay millionaires--including the members of the Professional eBay Seller’s Alliance (PeSA) who together make more than $1 billion annually.

Covering business models from lone entrepreneurs to warehouse distributors to drop-off stores and featuring for a wide range of categories--including computers, electronics, books/movies/music, collectibles, and more--Secrets of the eBay Millionaires is a goldmine of information for aspiring entrepreneurs. Whether you are just starting out or already an established seller, you’ll discover that eBay is a place where anyone can change their life and make a fortune--one sale at a time.

* Develop a mission statement for your business
* Reach a worldwide audience for merchandise that would ordinarily only be available locally
* Consider joining a franchise to offset startup costs and help with branding
* Encourage repeat purchases from customers by keeping in touch
* Build and maintain a good feedback rating and provide instant customer service
* Keep abreast of new sources for merchandise by attending trade shows
* Use outside suppliers for hard-to-find items

Greg Holden is the author of 16 books, including the bestselling How to Do Everything with Your eBay Business. He has written extensively about eBay, online auctions, and e-commerce.

About the Author

Greg Holden is the author of 16 books, including the best-selling How to Do Everything with Your eBay Business, which has sold more than 35,000 copies.

Customer Reviews

Stories about the Big Guys on eBay5
This book is really a series of success stories as told by members of the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance who are the big sellers on eBay. Each of these sellers started rather small, and has grown their business to rather large size.

Most of these sellers have eBay stores. They use the auctions, of course, but they seem to concentrate on their stores where they can sell many of the same items. For instance if you had one widget to sell, you're use the auction. But if you had been lucky enough to buy a couple of hundred of them at a really great price you wouldn't want to sell them one auction per week.

After saying that, much of the book then talks about the mechanics of running a businees. After all, this is a business you're in. It's a mail order business, and this means a few unique

differences from a store front. For instance, you'll pay a lot of attention to shipping and receiving goods. Make friends with the shipping people, they can help you. For instance, shipping companies have rules about how fast a package must be delivered or they get returned. I was on vacation for a month. My delivery guy signed for packages I got and kept them in his truck until I returned rather than have them sent back.

Quick summary, this is what the big guys are doing. You can learn things from them, but above all else, get started.

I've got to quit writing now, Lisa, my UPS delivery person just drove up.

See below to see a better book and save you time and money....2
How to Start and Run an eBay Consignment Business
by Skip McGrath

Don't Get Burned on EBay: How to Avoid Scams and Escape Bad Deals by Shauna Wright

Product Description

Lots of books tell you how to buy and sell on eBay. But what if something goes horribly awry? Do you have to chalk it up to a "lesson learned," lick your wounds and move on? Not a chance. Don't Get Burned on eBay offers relevant lessons based on real-life stories posted on eBay's Answer Center. With sharp, witty rhetoric, veteran eBay user Shauna Wright (co-founder of the popular web site WhoWouldBuyThat.com), shows eBay veterans and newcomers alike how to avoid those nasty scenarios, and how to pull themselves out of the muck if they've already fallen in.

Six entertaining (and hair-raising) chapters cover real problems that people have encountered with bidding, payment, shipping, packaging, dealing with other eBayers, and coping with the eBay system. This book is for anyone who's ever used eBay, because even veteran buyers and sellers often don't know the intricacies of eBay's and PayPal's rules. Don't Get Burned on eBay will leave you well-informed and better protected from potential pitfalls. The book's extensive glossary and numerous in-depth sidebars also make the book useful to people who haven't yet taken the plunge into eBay.
Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #275644 in Books
Published on: 2006-03-10
Format: Illustrated
Number of items: 1
Binding: Paperback
174 pages
Editorial Reviews

About the Author
Shauna Wright has been an avid eBay buyer and seller since 1997. She's a regular on eBay's Answer Center and co-founder of the award-winning site WhoWouldBuyThat.com. Before becoming a writer, she was a private investigator, a poker dealer, and a fragrance model (don't ask).
Customer Reviews

Stay away from this book!! Its a waste of paper...
This book is not for beginners, and contrary to the reputation of O'Reilly press, this is not for experts.

The book uses a simple way to discribe many cases of things going bad. But it stays on the superficial layer of the problems.

The paradigm it uses is describe the problem, ways to prevent it, and how to get off the hook. This may seem very tempting to read because of the easy way to analyse the content of the cases. I like the 3 step aproach, but I didn't see and substance of the way she explained and the conjectures of details each process entails.

The book in general is a simpleton... and its boring.


Doing eBay Right
I was unable to find something I really needed from my usual sources, and turned to eBay for help. Sure enough, there it was! I was an eBay virgin, unsure and feeling very vulnerable. Should I try it?
This is exactly the point where "Don't Get Burned on eBay" comes in handy. Reading this book was like finding a good friend and a compass while wandering lost in the wilderness. I started out marking the impor-
tant points I came across but soon gave that up since there wasn't a lot that I didn't feel like underlining. It's crammed full of useful information.
One aspect that doesn't get enough play for the prospective reader in
my opinion is that the book not only tells you how to avoid the scams
and frauds, it also tells a newcomer how to buy and sell with the legiti-
mate people and do it right the first time. To me as a newbie, that was
just as important. And even if you read this and never do an eBay trans-
action, you will have likely learned something about mail-ordering from
anyone. This is a good reference that I will keep in my library.

Takes the fear out of eBay
Whether you've been using eBay for years or have been afraid to try it, lest you be ripped off, this book is an invaluable tool. Unlike other books that deal with online subjects, it's actually fun to read. The wit makes these tips and tales very easy to absorb and remember while bolstering your eBay confidence and savvy.

I've been using eBay since 1998 and I still picked up dozens of new things and now understand some of the more esoteric features of the site. When I lent the book to my mom, who has shyed from the site because she felt it was too risky, she proudly made two purchases using only the book as a guide. I wish all DIY and instruction style books were this much fun to read, I'd know how to do a lot more things if they were.