Search
Related Links
eBay Auctions and the fear of the unknown
One of the things that keep people from performing is fear of the unknown. Hosea 4:6 says, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." The good news is that the unknown can be conquered with good knowledge. And when the veil and the mystic of the unknown vanish, fear dissipates and we are brought out of the darkness of ignorance into the marvelous of light of knowledge. And good knowledge mixed with desire and effort is unstopable. This true with any human endeavor as it is true with eBay auctions.
Now the other issue is where do you find good knowledge. One would think that with the advent of the internet and the sophistication of online searches, finding good information would be a snap. Well, while this is true to a great extent, there is a difference between information and distilled knowledge. It is as established truism that having too much information can be as bad as not having any information. This is because there is the tendency to feel overwhelmed and crippled by this over preponderance of undistilled information. What you have here is some distilled and razor-sharp information about eBay auctions, beginning from the birth of eBay auction to what is possible on eBay in term of income, to the ebay auction types and sign up process.
Breaking the barrier with knowledge.
Who is eBay?
eBay was created in September 1995, by a man called Pierre Omidyar. The name 'eBay' comes from the domain Omidyar used for his site. His company's name was Echo Bay, and the 'eBay AuctionWeb' was originally just one part of Echo Bay's website at ebay.com. The first thing ever sold on the site was Omidyar's broken laser pointer, which he got $14 for.
In 1997, Omidyar changed AuctionWeb's - and his company's - name to 'eBay', which is what people had been calling the site for a long time.
1999 saw eBay go worldwide, launching sites in the UK, Australia and Germany. eBay bought half.com, an Amazon-like online retailer, in the year 2000 - the same year it introduced Buy it Now - and bought PayPal, an online payment service, in 2002.
What are your possibilities as an eBay auctioneer?
It is not unusual for people to make thousands of dollars per month on eBay.
On your next visit to eBay, take a look at how many PowerSellers there are. You will see that there are quite a few. Now think about this: every single one of these PowerSellers must be making at least $1,000 per month, as that's eBay's requirement for becoming a PowerSeller. Silver PowerSellers make at least $3,000 each month, while Gold PowerSellers make more than $10,000, and the Platinum level is $25,000. The top ranking is Titanium PowerSeller, and to qualify you must make at least $150,000 in sales every month!
These people are a testimony to the income possibilities on eBay auction. The weired thing is that most of them never set out to even set up a business on eBay - they simply started selling a few things, and then kept going. There are plenty of people whose full-time job is selling things on eBay, and some of them have been doing it for years.
You too can do the same. What's more, is that eBay does not care who you are, where you live, or what you look like. PowerSellers come in various shades. Some are very old, or very young. Some live out in the middle of nowhere where selling on eBay is one of the few alternatives to farming or being very poor. eBay tears down the barriers to earning that the real world constantly puts up. There's no job interview and no commuting involved - if you can post things, you can do eBay auctions.
What are the different eBay auction types?
In order to accomodate the different shades of buyers and sellers on its auctions, eBay has over the years introduced all sorts of different auction types.
For every seller who doesn't like the idea that their item might sell for a far lower price than they intend, there's another who wants to shift hundreds of the same item quickly. eBay tries to cater to all tastes. .
Normal Auctions.
These are the bread-and-butter of eBay, the auctions everyone knows: buyers bid, others outbid them, they bid again, and the winner gets the item. Simple.
Reserve Auctions
Reserve auctions are for sellers who don't want their items to sell for less than a certain price - a concept you'll know about if you're familiar with real auctions. They work just like normal auctions on eBay, except that the buyer will be told if their bid does not meet the reserve price you set, and they'll need to bid again if they want the item. If no-one is willing to meet your price, then the auction is cancelled, and you keep the item.
Fixed Price ('Buy it Now') Auctions
Buy it Now auctions can work in one of two ways. You can add a Buy it Now button to a normal auction, meaning that buyers can choose either to bid normally or to simply pay the asking price and avoid the whole bidding process. Some sellers, though, now cut out the auction process altogether and simply list all their items at fixed price. This lets you avoid all the complications of the auction format and simply list your items for how much you want them to sell for.
Recently, eBay added a twist to fixed price auctions: the 'best offer'. This means that buyers can contact you to negotiate a price, which could be a good way to get sell some extra stock at a small discount. The only downside to reserve and fixed price auctions is that you pay a small extra fee to use these formats. In general, it is more worth using reserve auctions for higher-priced items and fixed price auctions for lower-priced ones - but remember that you can combine the two formats.
Multiple Item ('Dutch') Auctions
These are auctions where you can sell more than one of a certain item. Dutch auctions can be done by bidding. Buyers bid a price and say how many items they want, and then everyone pays the lowest price that was bid by one of the winning bidders. If you have trouble getting your head around that, then don't worry - everyone else does too! These auctions are very rare.
What is more common is when a seller has a lot of one item, and lists it using a combination of two auction types: a multiple-item fixed price auction. This just means that you can just say how many of the item you they have, and offer them at a fixed price per unit. Buyers can enter how many they want and then just click Buy it Now to get them.
Getting started on eBay
You must register to get started on eBay. To register, logon to www.ebay.com and follow the registration process.
It is simple. First click on the "Sell" tab. Next fill in your personal information. Choose your username and password, confirm email address and you are on your way to becoming an ebay seller. Who knows you might well be on your way to becoming one of the elite PowerSellers.
There is a lot more to eBay auction than this short article can contain. For more information, use the resource box provided.
About the Author
Austin Akalanze is a freelance writer and webmaster at Bidwell Auctions and All Voip Center