EBay for Dummies (11 page)

Using the Resolution Center

If you sell an item and the buyer backs out (a rare but disheartening situation), you can at least get a refund on some of the fees that eBay charges you as a seller. These are the final value fees
,
and they’re based on the selling price of the item. In the Resolution Center you can keep track of the disputes in progress and send or receive messages from the other party regarding payment.

Before you can collect a final value fee refund, the following conditions must apply:

After your listing is over, you have to allow buyers at least three business days to respond to you. If they don’t respond, you can send them an e-mail politely reminding them of their commitment to buy.

If at least seven days have elapsed since the end of the transaction and you have the feeling that you’re not going to see your money, you
must
open an Unpaid Item Alert. After you file this notice, eBay sends you a copy and the bidder gets an ominous e-mail with a reminder to complete the transaction or to respond with a reason.

You have up to 45 days from the end of the auction to file an Unpaid Item Alert — and you can’t get a final value fee credit without filing this alert.

The next ten days after you file the Unpaid Item Alert are your “work out” days — the period where you and the bidder hopefully complete your transaction. You may try to give the bidder a call or send an e-mail through the Dispute Console to resolve the situation during this time.

After the ten days have passed but no more than 60 days have elapsed since the end of the auction, you may file for a final value fee credit.

If you have begin the process and file for a final value fee credit but then manage to work things out with the buyer, eBay removes the complaint from the buyer’s account after the buyer pays through PayPal. Buyers with too many of these warnings can be suspended from using the eBay site. You can automatically file to have this alert removed through the Dispute Console.

Organizing in the Organize Area

Part of the fun of eBay is searching for stuff that you’d never in a million years think of looking for. Wacky stuff aside, most eBay users spend their time hunting for specific items — say, Barbie dolls, designer dresses, plumbing supplies, or U.S. stamps. That’s why eBay came up with the Organize area of your My eBay page. Whenever you view your My eBay Organize links, you see a list of your favorite searches and sellers. But because eBay isn’t psychic, you have to tell it what you want listed.

If you shop eBay at all like I do, you’ll be looking for similar things and sellers over and over. The My eBay Organize area allows you to make note of your favorite searches and sellers. You can perform these searches and visit these stores with a click of your mouse.

Saved searches

You have the opportunity to list a maximum of 100 searches here. When you want to repeat one of these searches, just click the Search name to search for the item. eBay will even e-mail you up to 20 of your searches when new items are listed. (For more on that advanced function, check out Chapter 18.)

To add a search to your favorites, first perform the search. (For details on how to perform a search, see Chapter 5.) When the search appears on your screen, click the Save This Search link, shown at the top of the search results in Figure 4-6.

The search is now transported to your My eBay Favorite Searches area for that particular search, as shown in Figure 4-7. If you want to be notified by e-mail when new items are listed, select the check box and the time frame in the drop-down menu.

Saved sellers

When you find a seller whose merchandise and prices are right up your alley and you’d like to occasionally check out the seller’s auctions, you can list the seller in the Favorite Sellers area:

1. When you’ve shopped eBay and found a seller that you’re happy with, click the link on the listing page to view the seller’s other items.

You see a search page listing all the items for sale by that seller.

2. Scroll down the page, and on the left side, click the Add to saved sellers link.

The seller is saved to your Saved sellers (favorites) page.

If you find seller that you’d like to make favorites while you’re browsing or buying in their eBay stores, click the Add to Saved Sellers link at the top of the store’s home page.

Got the time? eBay does. Click the eBay Official Time link, which is at the bottom of virtually every eBay page. The eBay clock is so accurate that you can set your watch by it. And you may want to, especially if you want to place a last-second bid before an auction closes. After all, eBay’s official time is, um,
official.

Following the Action on Your Buying and Watching Pages

I have the most fun on eBay when I’m shopping. Shopping on eBay is exciting, and I can find a zillion great bargains. Fortunately, eBay gives us a place to keep all our shopping information together: the Buying area.

Seeing the Items I’m Buying

When you bid on an item, eBay automatically lists the item in the Buying area of your My eBay Page. If you’re winning an auction, the price appears in green; if you’re losing, it appears in red. After the auction’s over, the listing moves to Won (yea!) or Didn’t Win (boo!). You can watch the progress of the auction from here and see the number of bids on the item, the high bid, and how much time is left until the end of the auction. All this information can help you decide whether you want to jump back in and make a bid.

eBay also keeps a total of all your active bids and buys to the left your data in the Totals: Buying Total box — which I hope helps you stay within your spending limits.

Keeping track of Items I’ve Won

When you’ve won an auction or purchased an item in a store, it appears in the Won area. From this area, you can visit the auction to print the auction page or double-check it. From the links in the Action column, you can also pay for your item through PayPal; if you’ve already paid, you can view the PayPal payment details. You can also click a Leave Feedback link here from the drop-down menu — after you’ve received the item and are satisfied with your purchase — to leave feedback.

Sleuthing with Items I’m Watching

Items I’m Watching is the most active area of my My eBay page (see Figure 4-8). This is the place for you to work on your strategy for getting bargains without showing your hand by bidding. In this area, you can watch the auction evolve and decide if you want to bid on it. You can list several auctions for the same item and watch them develop and then bid on the one that can give you the best deal. You can track the progress of up to 100 auctions in your Items I’m Watching area.

Moving auctions into the Item’s I’m Watching area is easy. When you’ve found an item that you want to keep track of, look for the Watch This Item (Track It in My eBay) link, which is located just below the price on the listing page. Just click this link to transport the item to your Items I’m Watching area.