Have you ever bought or sold something on EBay? Can you give some helpful hints to others here who are looking to do one or the other?

What kinds of things do you really appreciate someone doing? What will get that person a good rating from you? Did they send an address label with their money order that allowed you to just stick it on the item and return it easily? Did they do something unique that made the process easier?

What about some things that you'd like to say "Don't EVER do this when you buy something on EBay! Sellers HATE this from the buyers!" to?

Have you bought something on EBay that you're particularly proud of? Did you get it at an incredible bargain?

Do you like using the process? Does it work well for you?

Give us some feedback!

Here's some tips: Be nice and send an email once you win an item. And make SURE to leave feedback - that's the most important! If you don't leave feedback, the other person's rating won't go up so then they maybe won't leave you feedback.

I have several hints from my experience with EBay.

Here's one for the sellers. If you know you are having problems with your email, make sure to convey that to whoever wins the bid on your item. I won an item one time (the only time I've won), and the person had made sure to put a notice on the page that they'd been having problems with people trying to contact them. So, they gave an alternate method of contacting them. Turns out, I was able to get through. But, it was very helpful to know that they had tried to do everything possible to make sure I'd be able to if the email didn't work.

Also, I have to say that I had a wonderful seller. I had purchased some pictures. The seller and I corresponded several times before the transaction was totally complete. In her emails, she gave me a lot of background on the pictures. They were from a tv show reunion that she'd been to. This person told me stories of the people - where they were now, what they were really like in person, etc. It was nice to get to know my seller a bit more personally. If the opportunity arises, try to be as friendly as possible. Really helps your rating if the buyer feels like they've got a trustworthy friend in you.

And, I'm going to reiterate Katie's advice that you MUST leave feedback. It's important that you give feedback - whether you are the buyer or the seller. That information is very helpful and is necessary to get a person's rating established. The only thing that I felt a bit frustrated with in my experience was having to beg my seller to do feedback on me. I had to send several emails before they would. And, that wasn't fair.

[ 11-27-2001: Message edited by: Linda1 ]

I agree with Katie and Linda.... Feedback is a MUST! I should have about a 20 rating, but I'm only aorund 12 because some people didn't leave feedback. This is especially frustrating when some sellers won't accept you if your feedback rating isn't above 10, but no one's been leaving feedback for you!

Hello Lady MacBeth,

Thanks for the E-bay info! I have been selling on E-bay for almost 2 years. My word of advice to the seller: (this was brought to my attention by some wise person) If a problem arises on the buyers end and he is not happy with the item the seller has sent, ALWAYS refund the money back. I have a 600 rating with 2 negatives. When I changed my ideas about the refunding, I have now gone with over 450 positives and no negatives.

Thanks
Lance (cherry hill graduate) null[/EMAIL][EMAIL]zubrin@salsgiver.com

Linda gave alot of very good hints. I been selling on Ebay for a very long time too and know how Ebay has alot of ups and downs. You have to make sure to always give accurate descriptions on the items especially when you sell glass and antiques like me! The customers might misunderstand what your trying to say. It is also best to be nice to the customer at all times no matter how bad the situation is. One thing I hate though is when newbies leave you negative feedback because they don't know what their talking about when you been selling glass for many years!! They should write you to tell you what the problem is first so you can see if you can fix it, not just leve neg. feedback as soon as they receive the item. What happened is the customer sent neg. feedback saying that the 4 depression Hazel Atlas cups were all broken on the same part of the bottom when the cups are actually made like that. She saw her mistake later but it was too late. I always try to satisfy the customers the best I can and do give a refund back in some situations. Our aim is customer satisfaction. Another good idea is to also tell the customer to put their info about what item they bought like the item number when they send the payment because when you sell like 100 items at once on Ebay, it gets confusing! Ebay is a great place to sell your items. There is way more good things about Ebay then bad.