SolveYourProblem
Article Series:
Small Business Guide To Buying Items:
eBay Auctions
Introduction
to Bidding and Buying on eBay
by Jeff Cohen
Have you noticed that whenever you open a
newspaper, watch the TV or have a conversation, people seem
to be talking about eBay? If you’ve never used it and you’ve
no idea what it’s all about, then the chances are that you’re
starting to feel a little left out. But don’t worry! This email
contains everything you need to know about the basics of bidding
and buying on eBay.
So What is eBay?
eBay is an online auction website – and not just any auction
site, but the biggest one in the world. If you know how an
auction works, then you already know how roughly eBay works.
Someone adds something they want to sell to the site, and then
buyers come along and place bids on it. The highest bid wins
the item! It’s that simple.
eBay being an online auction makes a big difference, though.
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, however, 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 $100
for something and only have to pay $50, if that was the highest
maximum bid anyone else placed.
It’s not as complicated as it sounds – 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 website designed for your country. If
you don’t know the address for it, just go to www.ebay.com
and it will tell you there. Now, on the front page you should
see a big 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.
# # # # # SolveYourProblem.com : 2007
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