The following article was written for GoTo Auctions (formerly known as AuctionRover). The rights have reverted to the author.
Consumer-to-consumer auction sites (like eBay, Amazon.com, and Yahoo) are enormous self-regulating communities. You could sell thousands of items at eBay and regularly visit there for years without ever communicating with a single eBay employee. All your attention and communication is focused on the other buyers and sellers. What matters is their opinion of you. If they think highly of you, they are likely to want to do business with you again and again. They may even search especially for your auctions. They will also probably (especially if prompted) provide positive feedback on you.
eBay does this particularly well. The feedback system has grown to be a major competitive advantage for them. Everyone who has built a feedback-based reputation there has a stake in eBay's success. Their feedback points/reputation mean that they can get more bids and more money at eBay for their goods than they probably could anywhere else.
At eBay, nominally you can provide positive, negative or neutral feedback. In practice, anything but positive feedback is extremely rare. This is true in part because of fear of retaliation (the person you give negative feedback to could do it right back to you; and then you'd end up in an online shouting war, which wouldn't help either of you). But it is also true because most people go way out of their way to please everyone they deal with, to avoid any negative feedback which would look all the more awful because it is so rare. The mere possibility of negative feedback is an incentive for buyers and sellers to resolve their differences privately, through email, rather than taking their complaints to management -- which must be an enormous benefit to eBay.
Keep in mind that this is a quantity-based feedback system, that you can get feedback for both selling and buying, and that no distinction is made between selling and buying. Compare this approach to Amazon.com, where everybody rates you on a scale of five and the ratings received are averaged -- subjective ratings that sometimes seem arbitrary.
So the system is really a measure of the buyer's/seller's experience at eBay, plus his/her online social skills -- friendly people probably accumulate points faster than those that are just in a hurry to get the transaction over with.
Descriptions: Describe any and all defects in great detail and with great accuracy -- especially if they are not visible in photos. Don't raise expectations any higher than reality. Err on the side of conservative estimates when describing the condition of any collectible. Let the buyer be delighted that the goods are better than he/she would have thought. Over time this will bring you more bids and higher bids than if you resort to hype.
Communications: Check your "My eBay" page every day to see how your auctions are going. Whenever you can, email the winners of your auctions on the day that the auctions end (preferably before you receive the automatic message from eBay saying that the auction has closed). Provide payment information (shipping cost, your address, etc.) Offer to ship immediately if they'll just provide their street address. And add some personal friendly note -- perhaps something about the item or class of items which you didn't mention in the description; how you got it, why you saved it, or what other such items you have.
Delivery: For low-cost merchandise (under $50), try to ship the merchandise as soon as you get their street address. Don't wait for payment. The risk is small, and the benefit in terms of feedback and return customers could be great. The customer will be delighted. If because of price, you feel you have to have the money in your hands first, still ship at the earliest moment that you feel comfortable. Do not delay.
If you are relatively new to eBay, I suggest that you buy before you sell and that each time you immediately give the seller positive feedback and prompt him/her to reciprocate. Those buyer feedback points count for just as much as seller ones. (eBay makes no distinction.)
Then start selling things that are not rare, that you would not mind giving up for the starting bid. Whenever you sell, give the buyers positive feedback, send them email telling them you are doing that, and prompt them to give you feedback as well. Don't sell your gems until your feedback reaches 20 or, better still, 100.
Other auction articles by Richard Seltzer
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