Using the available ebay apps for your smartphones are very important in terms of being able to answer customer’s questions in a timely manner. Answering customer questions is an extremely important element in keeping the sales process as smooth as possible. What is great is that the ebay is now available for multiple platforms, so regardless of what phone you use, an ebay app is available.

I personally use my Android phone and using the ebay app I can re-list items, revise auction info if needed at a moment’s notice.

As part of being an ebay seller, you are asked many times by people who want to sell on ebay but do not have the technical expertise to do so. If this is the case many times they will ask about specific items they want to sell and if you have your smartphone with you, it is easy to look up what those items are selling for and sold for (using completed auction).  This is your opportunity to sell these items for them and in these cases have your set percentage (usually 30-40%) of the final sale price. Research sales trends and completed listings for similar items to set a competitive price for the item they are looking for you to sell.

If deciding to sell for someone, please refer to the (EBAY TRADING ASSISTANT) article below for other guidelines to follow. You can find links below for all the smartphone / tablet apps available.

You can buy items on eBay straight from your mobile device simply by downloading one of our mobile apps. They’re free and available for:

• iPhone and iPod Touch (Apple iOS)
• iPad (Apple iOS)
• Android
• Windows Phone 7
• BlackBerry

If you have a different device, you can still access eBay from a mobile phone with a web browser. Just enter eBay.com in the browser’s web address field and you’ll see the mobile version of our website, tailored to fit your phone’s screen.

On an iPhone or Android device, you can use the barcode scanner to compare in-store versus eBay prices for items that are in our catalog. Pay for items quickly and securely using PayPal. On our iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone apps, you can also pay using eBay Bucks, gift cards, gift certificates, and coupons. If the seller doesn’t accept PayPal, you’ll need to complete the purchase on eBay.com using a computer.

Searching for items on eBay works just like it does on a computer—enter the name or keywords of the item you’re looking for and you’ll get a list of items that match. The eBay app for Android also comes with voice-enabled search: Tap the microphone button on your Android phone, say what you’re looking for, and the app will search for that item.

Selling items on eBay from your mobile device

The eBay apps for iPhone/iPod Touch, iPad, Android, and BlackBerry let you create a listing with a simple form. This feature is currently unavailable for Windows Phones, though we’re working on adding it in the future.

Our Android, iPhone/iPod Touch, iPad, and BlackBerry apps also let you:

• Research sales trends and completed listings for similar items to set a competitive price for your item.
• Take pictures with your camera-equipped device and add them to your listing.
• Scan your item’s barcode to automatically add product details that are in our catalog. (Requires a camera-equipped device, and for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, you need to have Apple’s iOS 4 or newer installed. This feature isn’t available yet on our BlackBerry app.)
• Predefine and save your listing preferences like handling time and return policy.
• Use the Sell one like this feature to auto-fill some of your item details. (This feature isn’t available yet on our BlackBerry app.)
• Accept PayPal as a payment method.
• For Motors listings, list items in the Parts & Accessories category. (Currently vehicles can’t be listed using the mobile apps.)
• Keep track of your active listings.
• Relist items.
• Provide tracking information to buyers (not yet available on our BlackBerry app) and respond to questions right away.

One of the main items I speak to new sellers about is how to properly grade items they sell. Unless the item is brand new, it is best to be conservative on how you grade items, because your idea of excellent condition may not be the same as a buyers. So it is best to err on the side of caution.

Full disclosure of any flaws – dings – dents – scratches – holes are 100% necessary when selling so the buyer knows that an item you are selling has some issues. These flaws should be noted in the auction text and even photographed and shown to the buyer so they are 100% aware of what they are buying. 

If you are selling from the home, full disclosure to a pet / smoke free environment can be important to some buyers. This is a huge issue with clothing, especially if you are a smoker. The smoke seems to permeate the fabric and there are times I have bought items from smokers where I wish I had known this fact beforehand.  People who have allergies related to pets will make a big issue of this if it is not disclosed.

NWT = New w/tags

NWOT = New w/o tags

MINT = Worn but well tended.  Maybe only worn once, close to new as possible

EXC = Excellent = Worn but well cared for, maybe shows only minor wear.

VG = Very good = Worn w/some signs of wear.

GD = Good / Fair = Worn but not worn out. Some fading and signs of wear.

One of the more difficult transitions will be at making your ebay business from a part time affair to ½ or full time business. Sometimes this will require a small office space or a separate area in your home that is dedicated to just your ebay business.  I have a small warehouse space to store many of the items I sell that is also used in part for an antiques business that I also have. If you plan on venturing into the Trading Assistant territory, there are many out there vying for the same business. But if you have done a good job at keeping your feedback score high and pride yourself on being a good ebay citizen you should do great.

One of the tougher challenges in being a trading assistant is setting guidelines for yourself and for the people you are selling for. It takes just as much time to list a 10.00 item as a 500.00 item in many cases so use your time wisely because you are making a commission on the sale. Most ebayers I know that work as trading assistants have a set minimum value price, usually 100.00 and you can set your commission up as a flat percentage anywhere from 25-40% of the final bid price. You need to know that approx 15% is going to ebay in listing, final value and shipping fees and paypal gets a small cut too.

The toughest part of being a trading assistant in many cases is being able to say NO. The best tact is to say that the item you want me to sell is outside of my level of expertise.

When the trading assistant program started, we joined up and the phone in our office started to ring and we had some amazing business relationships with people selling many different items from vintage antiques – high end apparel – purses and Roseville pottery.  If you decide to take on a task, many times you will need to set some time aside to ascertain the correct value of an item by seeing what they have sold for in the past.

This is another area that requires tact, because many TA customers come with a certain dollar figure in there head of what something is worth and you look it up on your smartphone or computer and it is far off what they believe is the correct value, it can lead to some disappointment on there end.

You have to educate the customer many times that what someone is listing something for is not an accurate depiction of the true value of the item. Many times unique items will have sellers list items way over value and your new client sees that price and locks in that his item is worth that much too..

You need to tell them that the true indicator is an item that has actually been bid on and sold as opposed to a crazy listing price from one seller.  Many times this is where you can lose a customer, and you just have to let them go.

You want to try to keep your relationship as professional as possible and show that you are a good person to deal with in regards to ebay or just selling something online. You want the process to be as smooth as possible.

One of the wonderful people I met during my trading assistant days had me selling her Roseville Pottery collection. This required me to learn something about what I was selling and if a question came in that I could not answer, that I could pick up a phone or email her the question and that she was able to give me the answer to the question at hand. You will learn over time that answering questions in a timely manner will do nothing but help your overall sales. Many times customers on ebay send out innocent questions just to see if they get a response. As a powerseller with a lot of feedback they are amazed that they get answers quickly from a real person. Some long time sellers do not answer any email but if you make it a practice to answer even the most innocent question in a timely manner you will see you sales increase.

The sluggish economy over the last few years has devalued many collectibles and has especially hit ebay very hard. The unique one of a kind items do not seem to be affected by this as much as some other items on ebay. You can see what items have sold for over the last 30 days and this will give you a true benchmark as to the true value of an item. This is where you need to tread cautiously, a customer may have bought an antique or collectible at the peak of the market and is now trying to recoup there investment. It may be that they spend 300.00 for an item that is now only worth 150.00. It is your job as a TA to be truthful in the 2012 value and not what they paid 5 years ago. Like I said above, the toughest thing to say to a customer will be NO.

Make your Customers understand how important feedback and DSR’s scores are for you as a seller. Ebay not only grades you on feedback but DSR’s are more important for you to continue selling on ebay and being able to get continued discount’s on your fees each month.

Ebay makes this declaration that it is our jobs as sellers to educate customers to the importance of DSR’s. While this is true, if you put something in your auction info regarding DSR’s many times, your auction will be pulled by ebay. I suggest that with your follow up email after purchase that you include a note, we have an example listed on our site, regarding the importance of feedback and DSR’s system. As sellers we are judged on ebay more on our DSR scores than on feedback. You can have your selling priviledges revokes or suspended if your DSR levels fall below 4.4. The biggest problem is that buyers do not understand DSR’s and how they can affect a seller.

They look at 5 stars as an A and 1 star as an F, so that means 4 stars is B (above average) 3 stars is C (average), 2 stars as D (below average) and 1 star as F (we all know what that means)

The problem is that 5 stars is great and 4 stars is below average and the 3 or below is complete failure. This system is hard for many to comprehend and ebay has done a pretty poor job of educating buyers.

If you get below 4.4 you can get with restrictions while a 4.4 on a percentage basis is an A- when does A- mean D or F in any other world than ebay.

In addition to the follow up email after payment or shipment, make sure that your letter or communication included in your package is easy to find and re-iterates the importance of good feedback and DSR’s are for you as a seller. Make communication with you as easy as possible, if there is an issue with an item you have sent. Make sure at a minimum they have your shipping info and email address and preferably a phone number to call you if an issue arises. Having these backstops in place will make it so a customer cannot use the excuse, “I did not know how to reach you regarding the item I bought”?

The Internet Merchants Association has a nice chart you can refer customers to in your follow up email regarding the importance of DSR’s and feedback system on ebay.

http://leavingfeedback.com/page2.html

I would like to thank all of you for the kind words over the last week. We have been putting up a handful podcasts and sure enough our Itunes rankings have been moving us up the list. We have over 400+ new subscribers and 20,000+ rss feeds in just 1 month.

Itunes Podcast can be found here.

I am going to be posting some new podcasts and articles this weekend.

In addition to the podcast, we will  be having a call in show the first of the year on the Talkshoe website.  This allows anyone to call in or ask questions via the chat function on the website. I will start off having 30 minute shows and if the demand or need for answers is there will increase to a 1 hour show. The shows are recorded and we can offer as a podcast usually 1 day after the show airs live

TALKSHOE Website

Many Thanks.. Erik – the Ebay Grouch

One of the main themes I have found over these past 13 years of selling on ebay is that 99.9% of the buyers you will encounter are easy sales. If you advertise a product, ship it quickly and product is received with a reasonable amount of time, that customer will leave you positive feedback and all is great in ebay land.

It is that .1 % that seem to cause all the turmoil with sellers. It has gotten to be more pervasive since the feedback has been more oriented towards the buyers. Buyers are the only ones that can leave neutral or negative feedbacks. I still do not understand why sellers withhold feedback to buyers well after payment has been received. I could understand why they did this just a few years back when feedback on both side could be positive – neutral or negative.  Buyers, especially the .1 % are just looking for a reason to flame sellers with a neutral or negative, don’t give them a reason.

These .1% many times are buyers that under any circumstance other than you getting in your car and driving the product to there house and handing it to them in person will never be happy. Or many times these are the opportunists on ebay, who see the buyer oriented measures such a negative feedback and buyer protection as a way to get the merchandise at a bigger discount. They will come up with some problem or flaw, this fortunately has only happened to me a few times, but to many people I have trained to sell on ebay it is a much bigger problem.

I personally handle these situations with, if you are so dissatisfied with what I sold you, please send it back for a full refund. All but one time, these customers kept the item with no other fanfare or issues resulting from there initial complaint. Many sellers in fear of low DSR’s or negative feedback will just start discounting the merchandise they sold, so that said buyer is happy. Most times this works, but sometimes you give the buyer an extra 20% off and he flames you with a negative anyway.

This is the dark side of selling on ebay, dealing with the .1% can be challenging and it many cases if I feel that tempers are escalating, I will get a buyers phone number. This can be done through the EBAY SITE MAP, on the right hand column look for FIND CONTACT INFORMATION. You will need the buyers ebay ID and auction #. Once you fill this info out the buyers name and phone number are sent to you and your info is sent to the buyer. Many times issues can be easier resolved via the phone (yes old school) rather than a litany of emails that just re-hash many of the same issues.

Sometimes when the buyer sees you have there phone number, you will get an email stating that there is no problem and all is fine. For some reason getting a phone call in this day and age seems to freak some people out. Dealing with the .1% can be a challenge at times, try to not get emotional over problems they state, especially when you know the reality of the situation. Unfortunately there are many online buyers that are afraid to buy things online but guess what they chose you to buy from and you now have to pay the price for a buyer being suspicious of everyone online selling merchandise.  All they hear about and read is scammers are online and to be aware, unfortunately for you the sellers, the newbie on ebay wields as much power as the long time buyer of 10+ years in the fact that they can flame you with a negative and give you all 1′s for DSR’s. Tread lightly with the newbies and then there are those times you just have to take the hit.

I have seen sellers I have been buying from for years getting hit with multiple neutrals and negatives and the fact is I know how the operate since I buy from them on a regular basis. I know there reputation is impeccable and they are getting dinged in this BUYER skewed environment we call Ebay. Just try and keep your feedback above 98% and all is well, now I think people realize that there are tough to please buyers out there and negatives are just part of the landscape of doing business on ebay. My feedback rating fluctuates from 99.9 to 100%. When it gets to 100%, I know I will get a negative to knock me back within a month, just happened so I know there is some truth to this. I think some buyers rejoice is knocking a hard working – good seller down off the 100% pedestal, just my opinion, but I see it to often.

As many may have heard and now read is the us postal service is going to make some drastic cuts to there service. Many ebayers utilize the first class mail as there main source of delivery to our customers. These cuts will specifically impact many of us since we not only are dependent on positive feedback but the other DSR’s that ebay monitors to keep only the good sellers.

In the article linked below, they state that most first class mail is delivered in 1-2 days. This is just untrue unless I am mailing something local to my location. I find that anything sent is very dependent on the distance it travels. west coast to east coast is 3-5 business days as a norm. With the cuts we can add 1-2 days to this estimate.

These cuts will increase the delivery times of 1st class mail, I normally see delivery times of 2-5 days on 1st class, so we now need to make out customers aware if they choose this option of the extra delivery times associated with first class mail. If a customer needs it quick make sure to include a priority mail option and emphasize that if they need it is a 2-3 day timeframe that this is what should be used.  Read the Article about all the cuts HERE.

Another item that is mentioned is that they not only will be closing post offices but sorting centers. This directly impacts all of us, since the consolidation of sorting centers adds 1-2 days for delivery on most items sent. One of our main sorting centers here in So Cal is going to be closed and the mail I send is going to be processed 50 miles away in the coming future. If things get very slow, most likely I will incorporate UPS Ground options for a  little more money, but leave the final choice up to the buyers. All we can do is give them options and if they have the prices and choices, they are free to choose how fast they want an item to arrive.

One thing that you will find over time is the strange behavior of buyers that purchase your smaller items. I have found that customers who purchase your cheapest items will be your most demanding customers.  I call this the inverse proportion law as related to ebay. You will sell an item for $1200.00, the buyer will email you – make payment and for some reason will never hear from them again. The same day you have a customer purchase something for 9.99 and they will immediately be demanding a tracking number and make multiple inquiries as to when you are going to ship the item. They pay for 1st class mail which normally takes 3-5 business days and after 2 days they keep sending multiple emails as to when there item is going to arrive. This keeps up until the item arrives but it may get worse.

You are now in the midst of the 99.9% rule. We will go into more detail about this rule in the next few days.

I prefer using a Thank You letter with each of my buyers. The letter conveys the importance of feedback but is also a backstop if there is a problem with the order. One of the things I include with the letter is my return to address (usually a PO Box / UPS Store Address works too). My email address that will match my paypal payment address, I find most people if there is an issue with email you. Personally I feel this is the most important inclusion, A PHONE NUMBER. Yes you read correctly, please include a phone number with your purchase, many ebayers for some reason feel more comfortable being able to pick up a phone and calling you if there is a problem.

I personally use GOOGLE VOICE, this gives me a unique phone number that I can freely give all my customers and I can customize it to ring the numbers of my choosing, whether that is home – cell or office.  It basically does a re-direct to the phones you setup. It also when going to voice mail with transcribe your voice mails and send it to your gmail email address. If you do not have a google / gmail address, you need to get one. Google has a plethora of  free services available that can help your business in this hectic online selling environment. It was also just announced today that google will be implementing on online store front, whether this will more like an Amazon type store or something else it would be nice to keep informed.

I have other sellers I have trained why this is so important, because of the new ebay policies related to  negative / neutral feedback, you want to give them options. If you provide a phone number, it is the easiest way to keep from getting that Negative feedback, since buyers are the only ones that can do so on ebay.

Over the 13 years we have been doing this, the phone rings on average, one or two times a month and we normally sell between 400-600 items a month. Many times the phone rings with the customer just thanking us for being so quick and professional, usually this is half of all phone calls. I think people just want to put a voice with the seller on ebay. Those people after chatting a few minutes are always back as return customers.

Below  I have a copy of what I send out, it is 1/2 page size, easy to find in any parcel and gives them a nice thank you and in case you need it, here is all my info so you can contact me. FEEL FREE TO COPY .

One of the most beneficial things to maximize your profit is to choose a great closing time. Depending on the product you are selling, whether a commodity item or a niche product, trial and error must be done to determine the best times. I really like to close auctions in the early evening so as best to have east and west coast buyers. Which day works best for your item is also trial and error but I like using Sunday thru Thursday evenings. For some reason over the years Friday and Saturday evenings seem to get fewer last minute bidders.

There is an option when listing items that I encourage you to use and it allows you to choose a starting time, it is an option that costs just .10 cents and is well worth the cost.  Having your end time setup at the right hours to encourage last minute bidding can be essential to getting top dollar for your items. You will find this option on the 1st page of the selling page and just under where you set your pricing – you can set both day and time that your item will close. This starting time option allows you to choose a time and day up to 3 weeks in the future.