Explain e-Bay to me, cos I don't get it

remove pants. wave dick.

How do you get anyone to look at anything on the web? either someone searches for what you're selling or you go out and advertise to people you think might want to buy it.

- How do you know people are going to send the items you want and not run off with your money? Yes I know there's ratings but still, what if they've only been rated by one or two people?

you don't know.

- What the fuck is "Buy It Now" and all that shit?

buy it now circumvents the auction and lets you buy straight out at a set price before any bids are made.

- Why are there so many duplicate items up there?

people have many of the same things to sell?

- Why don't the businesses just sell stuff through their own sites instead of e-Bay? Why is some stuff so cheap?

A - ebay already has a huge audience so is therefore easier and cheaper for some merchants to use. B. dunno.

- I look for some nice clothes and all I get are 6-packs of boxer shorts.

boxers aren't nice?

- Why is everyone finding this so bloody simple except for me?

are you OLD?! ;) j/k

konal, yeh that bit is hard too. Also, reading the fucking descriptions is hard work. What if you want to browse through hundreds of similar items but looking for a particular thing?

And no, it's not that easy - how do you know if you've won at e-Bay? I mean, won the thing you want to buy?

Also, say I wanted to sell a whole load of CDs would I have to start a seperate auction for each one?

Also, considering that 99.9% of people I know are lazy, ill-educated fuckers who couldn't write a shopping list, its amazing that they actually can write a decent bit of gloss for their piece-of-shit wooden spoon or whatever it is they're selling.

How do I buy cigs online? I need!

you make sure you're able to view the item page as close to auction deadline as possible if it's proving a popular item. if you do win you are notified by e-mail.

Also, say I wanted to sell a whole load of CDs would I have to start a seperate auction for each one?

i've sold a load in 'job lot' batch style before for peanuts. it depends if you think you can get a lot for them individually or not.

Because: Those that can, do. Those that can't, dont.

Other than brief-pants that is.

Personally I need a six pack of boxers more than any other wardrobe item, but YMMV.

Okay, I'm thinking of buying something which is a Miyakazi DVD of Porco Rosso. It's through a company though. I'd rather bid for something but it seems no one in England is selling secondhand Miyakazi DVDs.

I thought e-Bay was supposed to have loads of stuff on?

Amazon seem to want 86p for each item sold, plus 17.5%, which I'm assuming is VAT, on top... so if you're selling a CD single for their recommended price of 99p, you're losing 5p. Has anyone sold CD singles on Amazon? Am I missing something vital??

(i've got some hong kong miyazaki dvds i want to sell. email below works!)

Now, I could sell those same items and make a big profit.

Not as much as if I'd bought shares back then, but there you go.

But it didn't ask me for pay details. what happens if i win?!! do i get it for free?

xpost - thanks zappi. i only have english region player though :-(

Each item has the payment terms listed for it. Go back to the trainers page and have a look. Most sellers accept PayPal (you don't need an account, you can just pay via your normal credit/debit card) but some will only take cheques (and thus wait till your cheque has arrived and cleared before sending out the goods).

(ebay.co.uk rather than ebay.com, yes?)

(btw, i saw it listed on sky movies sometime this week so...)

peep show series 3 dvds could be bootlegs taped off the tv.

ebay has improved a lot since i began using it in 1997. has it really been around since 1995?

Now see this is the root of your original question. It isn't that you don't know how to use it but rather with your extensive knowledge of the technology you want to know how such a poor site has become so successful.

95 also sounds odd to me as I remember interwebbing via Mosiac back then and doubt eBay could have existed.

"This item is in the public domain and therefore perfectly acceptable to offer on ebay."

um, 'public domain', um. shown on tv != public domain.

how do i search for decent-looking clothes without getting a bunch of shitty faded Ralph Loren things that look like they came off the set of Blossom?

look at the brain on alba! ;)

http://cgi.ebay.com/Massive-Lot-Vintage-Childrens-Records-45s-1950s_W0QQitemZ150004965157QQihZ005QQcategoryZ306QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Most of the prices I paid for rare cds on amazon around 1997 and 1998 would be unthinkable now.

I find the UK postal system much more of a problem than the e-Bay site itself.

Seriously, act like it's a Google search instead of a personal shopping assistant and you'll do fine. Search for specific terms, sizes, name brands, and so on. Just realize that there are tons of things offered but they're not all going to be on ebay at the same time, so keep checking back.

Kids grow, clothes still OK, see what happens.

(These be coats, overclothes, obv)

I keep getting beat out w/10s to go, so I hate it.

There are truly fewer 'unique' items than there used to be because of the huge size of the market that e-Bay has created.

(I'm still really sore that:

as a buyer, I overpaid excessively on a regular basis in the late 90s,

as a seller, I'm not going to fund my early retirement with that unopened deleted 11 cd box set of Grateful Dead at the Filmore West 1969 that I've been hanging onto)

WHAT ABOUT CUNTS WHO CHARGE INSANE SHIPPING

For most reputable e-Bay sellers, postage margins have been cut back really tight.

1. How do you know what should be charged for shipping without stealing some scales from the post office?

2. I hate packing things, yes.

3. Why was the above not a question?

4. Why is it that the guy I bid some secondhand men's size 9.5 trainers (yes, 9.5, weird innit?) also got 35 other pairs of shoes in all different sizes? is he a peado or something?

5. I'm not as thick as I pretend to be, but as someone mentioned upthread, I'm just more furious at the fact it's so darn rubbish looking and complicated (yes, MySpace is very similar in clunkiness).

6. And this frustration makes me wonder why I'm finding it so hard and off-putting when total technophobes seem to be able to sell buckets of water for £100 on this thing with the blink of an eye?

6. I was under the impression e-bay was a site for selling your junk when you didn't want it but it's not really is it? not quite.

7. Why did the thing I tried to sell a few months ago get no bidders whatsoever? Yet my friend sold his thing for £300?

8. Why, when I requested for my password be sent to me (having forgot it) did it not get sent even though e-Bay send me spam to that email address all the time?

10. Why were there two 6's?

11. And what happened to 9?

12. Is there no way to browse items? I mean, I don't always know exactly what I'm going to buy if I'm out shopping, so why would this be different? I don't fancy trawling through thousands of pages of crap just to find something I like and I don't really know what I want until I come across it. Okay, it's not a style guru I realise but I'd just like to be able to browse a bit easier without having to peer at ten miniscule thumbnails at a time??

a lot of people have ebay business where they go around and buy crap at garage sales, closeout sales etc just to turn around and sell it on ebay. hence the dozens of childrens shoes.

search by brand, wash, size, etc. i'm not sure that ebay's the best site for that type of thing though.

> 1.

guess. base your guess on the weight. alternatively, package up what you are selling and take it to the post office and get them to weigh it. buying stamps at this point may save you time.

> 6 (the second 6)

yes, so was i, collectibles and stuff. but see the comment someone said above about it being an easy electronic storefront to the world.

> 7. Why did the thing I tried to sell a few months ago get no bidders whatsoever? Yet my friend sold his thing for £300?

badly described? your feedback was non-existant? it was rubbish? who knows. i think ebay mathematics is a law unto itself.

> 8 ebay spam

i don't get any except the things i've asked for (search results). there'll be an option to opt out. also, use adblock to get rid of all the flashing ads it displays onscreen (i even adblock the ebay logo).

> 12

with 'customise display' link you can set that to 50 or so.

i don't seem to have any of your problems and the only thing i can think of is that i'm always after specific stuff rather than 'shoes'.

WTF? As if it's all blinking obvious!

If they don't tell you what you need to know about fit or design than that's poor description on the buyer's part. You can email them questions but if they didn't do a good job in the first place I wouldn't bother.

4. I'm assuming you mean that some guy was selling a bunch of shoes in the same size, not purchasing them. Who knows? Some people sell large quantities of the same thing that they got in some sort of closeout sale or distribution deal. Others bid on a bunch of the same thing in the hope that they'll win only one of the auctions and get a good price.

6. It's a site for selling junk. Whether it's your personal junk, or you own a store and you're trying to move junk that won't sell in your retail outlet, or if you're trying to run your own business, it doesn't matter. It's all junk for sale.

7. Find similar auctions and use the same keywords in the item name and cram in as many of them as possible. Make sure your shipping terms, payment terms, and description are concise and make sense. If you don't have much feedback people might think it's a scam, so make sure you've bought a few things via that account.

12. I mean, I don't always know exactly what I'm going to buy if I'm out shopping, so why would this be different?
ebay isn't a shopping site, it's an auction site. They're not trying to cater to a certain style, or even to help you expand your tastes. Traditional clothing stores (or any sort of store) will do that by having a selection of similar yet varied items to choose from. Ebay is more like an estate auction or a flea market. You might find random crap you want to buy, but most people are just looking for deals on items they already know they want.
i can go to shops and see jeans i like but i wouldn't know what make or fit or design they are.
Well, there you go! Go to a real shop, write down the make, fit, and design, then go plug that info into ebay.

but i'm not very happy about the sounds of the declaration paypal make you sign.

There's a "calculate shipping charges" link on the Finalize & Send Invoice page.

6. And this frustration makes me wonder why I'm finding it so hard and off-putting when total technophobes seem to be able to sell buckets of water for £100 on this thing with the blink of an eye?

Can't help you there.

7. Why did the thing I tried to sell a few months ago get no bidders whatsoever? Yet my friend sold his thing for £300?

Get better things to sell.

Although I think that people buying/sellling clothes on eBay are nuts.

there doesn't seem to be much of a market for used CD singles, online OR offline. they're basically candy bars.

I spent ages setting up a PayPal account (still needs to be verified which seems like a right carry on). And then I set up a seller's account on eBay and it asks me for my card details!? I thought you had to pay through PayPal or by cheque?? Also, how does PayPal synchronise with eBay?

What I'm asking is - if I buy something, how do I pay for it?
If I'm selling something, how do I receive payment?
Was signing up to PayPal necessary or a waste of time?
If not, then why did eBay ask me for my card details when I set up a seller's account?

If you could go to a bank or cashpoint and draw or pay in to it directly, you wouldn't need a card against it.

Imagine paypal as yr bar tab, and the card is the 'card behind the bar' that pays for it at the end of the evening.

i never do. i only ever bid on things that nobody else has bid on yet and then enter a sensible price and if it goes for more than i'm willing to pay then it went for more than i was willing to pay, no biggie, move onto the next one. because there's always a next one.

postage charges are killing me though 8)

paypal has other uses too, lots of online (non-ebay) stores take it. very useful if ordering from overseas (holland and mexico in last 3 months for instance). and tissp's ep!

If you pay by PayPal & don't receive the items PayPal will refund the money & go after the seller.

Ebay is pretty efficient & straightforward, in my experience, hence its success. It looks simple, so people think it is easy to corrupt (eg by bidding on their own items, or getting friends/partners to bid) but it doesn't work: the ebay man finds you out.

They really need a training course for this kind of thing!

The other thing is being by your telephone so to be in when e-bay sends you an automatic phone call.

Yeah, all this is a hassle, but once it's done, you are awayyyy....

What fresh hell is this mr grout? When are they gonna phone me?

Also, how do eBay know if you've sent a cheque through the post?

You can tell e-bay that you have paid via a cheque.

You can tell Paypal you've moved and lost yr previous email account (it happens all the time)

That's a joke. Don't.

B-b-b-but why would I want them to phone me?

How does bidding work?eBay automatically bids on your behalf up to your maximum bid. If the item ends for less than your maximum, that's all you'll have to pay. See example.

this is the ambiguous language i was talking about earlier. plus they should have put this writing underneath the "Enter Higher Maximum Bid" button.

and then the auction finishes at £22.

okay, just to see what happens, i bid on a nirvana cd that was just closing. then it took me to paypal and asks me for card details (I've already given PayPal my card details wtf?!) then it tells me it can't verify them cos my address is wrong so I type in an old address. Then it send me straight to something about Paypal Enrol, which I don't want so I press "Cancel" and then it asks me for more card details again! What the plot!?

Now it's asking me to add a funding source and when I type in my details it says "This credit card is already registered in your PayPal account" and won't let me progress any further.

Hiow is this supposed to be obvious!?!!

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WHAT THE CUNTING BUGGERY FLIPFLOPS IS THIS?!!! I JUST WANT TO PAY FOR MY FUCKIGN ITEMS IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK!!?!?!?!?!?

> How does bidding work?eBay automatically bids on your behalf up to your maximum bid. If the item ends for less than your maximum, that's all you'll have to pay. See example.

is the last two words.

they phone you to make sure the number you gave them is correct. they also put money in your bank account (only a few pence) and get you to tell them how much it was, again to verify your bank account details were correct.

IT'S SO FUCKING SHIT!!!!!!

what number i gave them?

so i have to wait till my statement comes through now? i don't even know when that is! plus they go to my dad's house so it'll be weeks before i can pay the poor sod. this is great. fucking great.

or what?

Didn't realise you generally aren't meant to bid for things till the last minute.

see, this is where it falls down completely. last thing i bought off eBay was a copy of a certain ratio's MCR on vinyl, a few years back. i put in a maximum bid of 20 quid and for three days nobody else bid against me at all. then, right at the very end, some other mysterious bidder appeared and forced the price right up. how very convenient. so i'm really meant to believe that this bidder - who appeared from nowhere to bid on something quite obscure in which nobody else had shown any interest - wasn't, umm, the seller in disguise, or the seller's mate?

personally, DL, i think the reason so many people seem to find it so "easy" is because they haven't really thought it through :)

http://www.auctionsniper.com

I'd explain it, but I'd probably lose the will to oh god....

Paypal is in the same boat, it functions as a de facto bank, so why are you having issues with it?? You're behaving like a spoiled child who can't have what he wants NOW so everything is everyone else's fault wah wah wah.

Take a break from eBay, and when you go back, be calm and reasoned and patient (yes, it is a clunky and occasionally infuriating process but it is also VERY SIMPLE once everything's set up) and you'll be fine. Send the seller of your CD a message saying "my paypal account is being verified, apologies for the dealy and I'll have the payment to you when it's all gone through". And for god's sake stop saying crap like "this site is a fucking con" - millions of people who HAVE made the effort to learn how to use it are just fine with it.

xxpost

Can I not just send

I have come *this* close to losing it at this site and if I didn't know better I'd have given up on this half way through and then the guy wouldn't receive his payment. They should've said before I even started bidding that I'd need to verify my PayPal account or else I can't bid.

Stop thinking of it and paypal as a clunky site. And paypal can be completely seperate from ebay, I used it to pay for a purchase in an online shop the other week. Would you rather there weren't all these security checks?! You should be pleased that paypal are taking all these efforts to make sure you are who you say you are. And if you were selling you'd be glad too.

I love ebay and my dad's addicted to it. I'd coveted my parents 70s coffee pot for as long as I can remember, and they managed to find and buy on ebay matching plates, bowls, milk jug, cups, saucers and sugar bowl, bits at a time! we also managed to sell our broken rowing machine, which I would have taken to the tip except it didn't fit in my car, for £63!!!!

Whatever you do, make sure you don't piss off the person you've just bought your first item from. Keep them informed and sort out your payment thing (are they in the UK - will they accept a cheque instead?) or you'll get a negative rating and people will think twice before dealing with you again.

well alba that's what i thought but Paypal won't let me pay using my card. It tells me I need to enrol into extra features.

"What do you mean, what are the fourth, sixth and second letters of my mother's maiden name,? You C*NTZZZZZZ!"

yup, maybe so. and when i asked a friend about this and said: "surely this is against the spirit of the whole thing?" he replied: "everybody else does it, so you don't really have any choice."

brilliant. no thanks.

i dunno. it's like a particularly vicious and impersonal car-boot sale, only it takes ages to get your stuff/cash. like i say: if there's something you can find there that you can't get anywhere else, rockin'. but getting "addicted" to it is just plain weird (no offence to your dad, vicky). it's just a shitty version of capitalism lite, really, innit? go to your local flea market instead; you'll have a lot more fun!

I doubt it was. That's called shill bidding and it's one of the things they are most harsh on. I think it's actually against the law as well as eBay rules. Only an idiot would risk it for the sake of bumping up the price on an ACR record.

I usually bid in the last few seconds but I don't use any "sniper programme". It just makes sense. I doubt it it was their mate putting in a pretend

It's not shitty and it's not lite! I guess I like it for driving down prices, taking some commerce out of the hands of THE MAN (eBay and PayPal's cut excepted) and for providing opportunities for cutting down on waste by increasing the size of the second-hand market relative to new production.

Why is ebay any more 'capitalism lite' than a flea market or car boot sale?

Dad's got addicted to buying old hi-fi stuff, he's got an amazing pair of 60s speakers that he's refurbed a bit. If you've got disposable income, and find something you want, why not? I'd never have got the complete coffee set from going to car boot sales, not if I'd gone every weekend for the rest of my life.

On the one hand you've got people who've got things they want to get rid of, on the other there's someone looking for something in particuar. Yes there are people on their trying to make a quick buck at the expense of someone else, but if you're sensible then you won't get shafted.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I'm trying to do that now - I will be back, witbh more crotchetiness!

My boss reckons she didn't have to do all this rigmarole with enrolment, she just paid it.

okay, i've signed up for online banking. paypal have not left me a number.

i just feel incredibly thick at the fact i've spent the last two days simply trying to understand and bid for something on e-bay and yet everyone's finding it so easy. i'm angry with the site but i'm more angry with myself for not being able to get my head around something my boss and my girlfriend's parents are able to use really easily. i just don't know what i'm missing here...

e-bay is wonderful for smallish value items, but be very, very careful about buying more expensive stuff like guitars. There are many dodgy operators in these areas.

Most people just win an item on eBay then say "no I don't already have a PayPal account" and then just pay by just entering their normal bank card details. It goes through PayPal in a way, but not in the fully-fledged way of you having a verified PayPal account of your own. Something like that anyway - I may have got the details a bit wrong.

it's not giving me the option to say i haven't got a paypal account, alba.

how have i managed to mess this up so badly?

Fuck ALL!!
Fuck ALL!!
Fuck ALL!!
Fuck ALL!!
Muppet Babies, they'll make your dreams come truuuuuuueeee
-- dog latin (doglati...) (webmail), September 6th, 2005 11:37 AM. (dog latin)

Yes, but for me, if I would be prepared to pay, say £20, I'd be really pissed-off to lose by 50p or so. If it's hovering at £20 with 5 minutes to go, then I can decide how important that £20 limit really is. If I can stand to go higher I would then bid, say £23, as late as possible. You need to be disciplined to avoid going too far over, but I reckon the bid-early approach leads to losing more often than not.

So I did.

And guess what?

It worked!!!!!!!!!!

Hooray!!!!!!!

Hip-hip!!

selling ting will be another story!

My bf paid the down payment on our house with his paypal account. He used to sell a lot of stuff online (not with eBay) and had a visa-like card that went directly to his paypal.

Well anyway, good for you DL and welcome to 20th century e-business.

hey, i bid for another thing and won. this time it did ask me if i wanted to pay by card, then it took me to a page that said i must contact the seller about paying by card. then i tried to pay by paypal but it wasn't having it. then it told me i'd already paid - BY PAYPAL! One minute it's not doing anything at all, next it's doing it without me asking.

How can I check I've definitely paid for this?

I guess we've made 250-300 transactions, buying and selling, since 1999 - no bad experiences. Scariest thing we've done is bid on a Mutsy baby buggy (that can take a duo seat - in prep for sprog #2) in Germany, using Babelfish to translate the back and forth communications. It arrived intact - the guy only charged us something like 30 euro for shipping, which must've left him out of pocket. You've got to love the Germans.

(xpost - Briers and Kendal can play us)

ep two: vicky's dad pops round to visit, disguised as a vicar (played by derek nimmo). dog latin ends up hiding in a wardrobe wearing a pair of red and white spotted boxer shorts. etc.

I can just imagine - "FUCKING 'ORRIBLE CATS - NO RESERVE"

Incidentally, I think you should PAINT that one above the door to make it look PSYCHEDELIC. You have probably thought of this already. In fact, I'm probably the 36th person to suggest it.

Um Mandee do you know wether that was legit? There was a password scam going round some time back that'd say "eBay has suspended your account pls verify your details" and you'd be fooled and reply with your SSN, mums maiden name, DOB, some password etc etc then some scammer makes off with all your money.

I hope you didnt tell them anything important! :|

nice black shirt

Oh god, yeah, this one.

It's nice to know you're both having fun.

Dog LatinMatt DC, at times like these remember the quiet reassuring words of Eleanor Roosevelt:
"This too, shall pass"

-- Wrinklecause for Applause! (Wrinklepaws), Tuesday, 30 January 2007 16:03 (5 months ago) Bookmark Link

"One day, it will please us to remember even this"