Cool eBay Tools™ July 2004 Newsletter

Remember that since February, eBay also offers a free re-list insertion fee credit if the seller re-lists an unpaid item and it successfully sells the second time.

Looking for merchandise in all the wrong places?

If you're trying to get some legitimate wholesale merchandise to sell on eBay for the Christmas season (and you already have your resale number) and haven't filled your quota, how about trying this. To ferret out the wholesale websites, go over to your favorite search engine (www.google.com or www.yahoo.com). Perform a search for retailer login and then wholesaler login. You'll find a host (OK, maybe millions) of companies who have logins for this type of business.

If your results are a bit overwhelming, type in the type of merchandise you're looking for as well. Such as: retailer login lingerie.

Finding the deals through misspellings?

As you know, I'm a huge proponent of searching for deals on eBay by misspelling search terms. If you don't remember this tip from my book, try it again. There is a website that has a tool that allows you to type in the word of your choice, and it will present you with many common misspellings - all ripe for searching on eBay. A search to find misspelling for disney comes up with disney, disneie, dysneie, dysney, d1sney, dismey, disnye, diseny, dinsey, dsiney, idsney, disne, disny, disey, diney, dsney, isney". You can also click on each work for the results and run a google search to see how popular each typo is.

New Spam Scams

We're all familiar with the standard "phishing" email scam (the one that tries to get all your personal information). To avoid falling victim to this, close the email. Go directly to the eBay (or PayPal) site in a new browser window. Log onto your account. Believe me, if there's a problem, you'll soon find out! Also keep in mind that eBay and PayPal always address you by your registered name (scammers usually address email to "Dear Valued Member"). If for some reason, you become locked out of your eBay account and your password won't work (and you suspect someone is using your account) follow the procedure outlined here to get a new password and straighten out the mess.

There's another scam that's becoming increasingly popular; when a scammer contacts your bidders and tries to misdirect payment to another email address. Even worse, they ask you to wire money to an account out of the country. Always stay on the safe side and be sure the email is coming from the seller. Never send money to an email address other than the one your seller has registered on eBay.

Always confirm this type of request with your seller via telephone. (You can get your seller's phone number in the Contact Info area here). Sending your hard earned money to Uzbekistan - when your seller is in North Carolina - is not a smart idea.

eBay Home Page Promotion calendar

New users traditionally arrive at eBay via the home page. As you know, the home page presents some interesting promotions that draw in new buyers. Below is a chart of the upcoming promotions. See if you can't list something in these categories so as to benefit from this free boost.

July	Week 1, 2, & 3	Summer Dollar Days	Beauty, Books, CDs, Clothing, Shoes & Acc., Computers & Networking, Consumer Electronics, Digital Cameras, DVDs, Home & Garden, Jewelry & Watches, Sporting Goods, Toys, Video Games
July	Week 3 & 4	Art for Every Palette	Paintings, Prints, Sculptures
July	Week 4	Cars for Every Budget	Cars, Car Electronics, SUVs, Trucks
July Week 4	August 1, 2 & 3	Olympic Spirit	Books, Coins, Collectibles, Fan Shop, Stamps
July Week 4	August 1, 2 & 3	Back to School	Textbooks, Clothing, Shoes & Acc., Computers & Networking, Consumer Electronics, Home & Garden, Musical Instruments

Questions?

If you have eBay questions, let me know and I'll try to answer them in future newsletters.