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So What is eBay?
eBay
is an online auction site – and not just any
auction website, but the biggest one on the
planet.
If you know how an auction works, then you already
know how eBay works. Someone adds something
they want to sell, and then buyers place bids on
it. The highest bidder wins the item! It's that
simple.
eBay
being an online auction makes a big difference.
Buying and selling are not reserved for any
elite.
eBay accept almost any item, no matter how small,
and will then advertise it on their sites all over
the world. It's a powerful combination of an
auction and a slightly chaotic marketplace.
What
is Bidding?
Bidding
is when you say how much you will pay for an item
in an auction. Bidding on eBay doesn't work in
exactly the same way as a normal auction, at least
in theory. On eBay, you tell the site what the
maximum you are willing to pay for each item is,
and then eBay places the bids on your behalf. That
means you could say you were willing to pay up to
$50 for something and only have to pay $25, if
that was the highest maximum bid anyone else
placed.
It's
complicated – the best way to get used to
it is to give it a try. First, the best thing to
do is to go to the eBay site designed for your
country. If you don't know the address for it,
just go to ebay.com and it will tell you there.
Now, on the frontpage you should see a box marked
‘search': just type in anything that you'd like
to buy there.
Wasn't
that easy? Now you should have a list of items for
sale in front of you, along with how much people
are currently bidding for them and the time when
bidding ends for each item. If you click one of
these, you can read the description, and then –
if you're happy with the item and happy to pay
more than the current highest bidder is – you
can bid!
How
Do I Bid?
Go
ahead and scroll down to the bottom of an item's
description page, and type the maximum you are
willing to pay (your maximum bid) into the box.
Then simply press the ‘place bid' button – you
will need to sign in once you press the button, or
go through a quick registration process if you
don't have an eBay username).
If
someone else's maximum bid on that item is higher
than yours, then eBay will tell you and give you
the opportunity to bid again. Otherwise, you're
now the new highest bidder! All you need to do now
is wait until the end of the auction – if
someone else outbids you, then eBay will email you
and you can bid again.
All
sounds great, doesn't it? But by now you might be
wondering whether a site as chaotic as eBay can
really be all that safe to buy from. That's why
the next email in this series will be about your
rights when you buy from eBay.
Bidsecrets
DID YOU KNOW?
"More than 720,000* people report that eBay is their primary or secondary source of income
and another 1.4 million say eBay is a supplemental source of income.
(*An increase of 69% since the last study done in 2003.)"
AND
"With over 1/3 of online users visiting eBay,
that leaves growth open to the remaining 2/3.
And with more and more people coming online,
eBay sales & the number of successful eBay sellers, will only continue to grow."
What does this mean for you?
If you aren't selling (your own goods or wholesale items) on eBay,
you are really missing the boat!
If done right, selling goods on eBay really is a simple and easy
way to make money on eBay & put cash in your pocket in as little as 3 days!
SOURCE: 2005, eBay™ Inc.
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