Notable Websites Articles

Article / Updated 10-28-2024

When a demonstration of the product you are selling on eBay would benefit from more graphic illustration, consider adding a video. The easiest way to add a video to your eBay listing is to use eBay's new listing tool when you are creating or revising your listing. Follow these steps Click on the Add video button. Select a file on your device or drag and drop the video to the web page. You can also use the Import from mobile and Import from web buttons. When you type your description, you have the option of jazzing things up with a bit of HTML coding, or you can use eBay’s HTML text editor. If you know how to use a word processor, you’ll have no trouble touching up your text with this tool. Here are a few additional codes if you’d like to manually insert the code in the HTML view. HTML Code How to Use It What It Does cool collectible cool collectible (bold type) cool collectible cool collectible (italic type) cool collectible cool collectible (bold and italic type) cool collectible Selected text appears in red. cool collectible cool collectible (font size normal +1 through 4, increases size x times) coolcollectible cool collectible (inserts line break) coolcollectible cool collectible (inserts paragraph space) cool collectiblecheap cool collectible_____________cheap (inserts horizontal rule) cool collectible cool collectible (converts text to headline size) You can go back and forth from the HTML text editor to regular input and add additional codes here and there by clicking from the Standard form to the HTML entry form tabs. You can prepare your listings ahead of time and save them in My eBay folder as plain HTML files — that way they’re always retrievable for use (you can just copy and paste) — no matter what program or form you’re using to list. To insert additional photos in your description, use the following code. (Just insert the URL of your hosted picture, along with the photo’s file name.) The example above used the following code: <img scr=##http://www.collierad.com/catbed.jpg##> Occasionally, sellers offer an item as a presale, or an item that the seller doesn’t yet have in stock but expects to. If you’re offering this kind of item, make sure that you spell out all the details in the description. eBay policy states that you must ship a presale item within 30 days of the auction’s end, so be sure that you will have the item within that time span and include the actual shipping date. Putting an item up for sale without having it in hand is a practice fraught with risk. The item you’re expecting may not arrive in time or may arrive damaged. There are many sellers who have had to go out and purchase an item at retail for a buyer to preserve their feedback when caught in this situation.

Article / Updated 04-26-2023

When pricing your items on Etsy, the trick is to strike a balance. You want to price your pieces high enough to cover your costs and turn a healthy profit. But you need to price them low enough that you can sell a reasonable volume of goods. Finding that sweet spot is the focus of this article. Not all creative types share a general distaste for math, but lots of us do. Unfortunately, if you hope to run a profitable Etsy shop, you need to get comfortable with doing a little arithmetic, especially when it comes to pricing your pieces. But don’t freak out! We’re not talking calculus here, or even trigonometry. All you have to learn are two very simple formulas: Wholesale price = (materials + labor + overhead) x 2 Retail price = (wholesale price x 2) + shipping Calculating the cost of materials When calculating your cost for materials, include the price of every little component in your piece. For example, suppose you sell handmade puppy plush toys for babies. Your material cost for each toy may include the cost of fabric, a label, rickrack, stuffing, and thread. What matters here is the cost of what you used to produce one piece. For example, suppose you spent $125 on materials to produce 50 plush pups. To calculate the price of materials per piece, you divide $125 by 50, for a total of $2.50 per piece. Figuring labor costs What if, while perusing the want ads in your local newspaper, you happened upon this listing: Wanted: Skilled professional to expertly fabricate product by hand. Must also run every aspect of business, including sourcing supplies, maintaining and marketing shop, interacting with customers, and ensuring that items sold are artfully packaged and shipped to buyers. Pay: $0. Odds are, that’s a job you’d pass up. And yet, many Etsy sellers pay themselves exactly nada to run their shops. Don’t fall into this trap! Like anyone, you deserve to be compensated for your work. Your pricing formula must include the cost of your labor. To calculate your labor costs, first set an hourly rate for your time. Be sure to pay yourself a fair wage — one that accounts for the skill required to craft your piece. Also think about how much you want or need to earn for your time. If you’re just starting out, you may opt for a lower hourly rate. You can give always yourself periodic raises as your skills improve. Another approach to figuring your hourly rate is to work backward. That is, figure out how much you need to be able to “bill” for each day and divide that by the number of hours you intend to work. So say you need to earn $160 a day and you plan to work eight hours a day. You simply divide $160 by 8 for an hourly rate of $20. We aren’t saying you should charge $20 an hour! This is just an easy round number that works well for this example. Armed with your hourly rate, you’re ready to work out your labor costs. These costs must take into account the time it takes to design a piece, shop for supplies for the piece, construct the piece, photograph the piece, create the item listing for the piece (including composing the item title and description), correspond with the buyer, and package and ship the item. As with materials costs (described in the previous section), you can amortize some of your labor costs — that is, you can spread them out. For example, if it took you four hours to develop the design for a piece, but you plan to make 50 of them, you can amortize those four hours over the 50 finished pieces. Similarly, you likely shop for supplies for several pieces at one time, meaning that you can spread the time you spend shopping across all the projects that you plan to craft using those supplies. If you’re collaborating with others, you want to make sure that you include the cost of their labor as well! Let’s use those plush toy pups as an example. Suppose you spend four hours designing your toy and another hour shopping for enough supplies to construct 50 units. Assuming that your hourly rate is $20, your labor cost is $100 — or, spread out over 50 toys, $2 per toy. Suppose further that each toy takes 30 minutes to make, photograph, and package ($10 in labor). (Yes, we know, 30 minutes is on the low end. Humor us. It makes the math easier.) Your labor cost per toy is then $12. Underestimating the value of your work doesn’t just hurt you; it hurts everyone who’s trying to earn a living selling handmade goods. Deflated prices are bad all the way around! Adding up overhead Your overhead may encompass tools and equipment used in the manufacture of your products, office supplies, packaging supplies, utilities (for example, your Internet connection, electricity used to power your sewing machine, and so on), and Etsy fees. (Note: These costs don’t include shipping. You generally calculate these costs separately and pass them along to the buyer. More on shipping costs in a moment.) As with labor costs, you need to amortize your overhead costs — totaling them up and then spreading them out over all the items you make. As a simple example, if you calculate your monthly overhead at $50, and you produce 50 pieces a month as with those plush pups, your overhead is $1 per piece. Of course, this calculation gets tricky when your overhead involves purchases of items like tools and equipment used in the manufacture of your products. In those cases, you want to amortize the items over their life span. For example, maybe you’ve bought a $250 sewing machine that you plan to use for five years. In that time, you anticipate that you’ll sew 500 pieces. Your overhead for the machine is then 50 cents per piece. If you simply can’t face calculating all these overhead costs, add up your materials cost and your labor cost for each piece you make, multiply the sum by 10 or 15 percent, and call that your overhead. It won’t exactly reflect your actual overhead, but it’ll probably be in the ballpark. Understanding the “times 2” Earlier in this article, we provide the wholesale pricing formula, which calls for adding together your costs for materials, labor, and overhead and then multiplying the sum by 2. What’s up with that? That “times 2” covers a host of things. It’s your profit. It’s what you invest back in your business. If your sewing machine breaks, the “times 2” is what you use to buy a new one. If you decide to expand your product line, that “times 2” is where you find the capital you need to grow. Or you may just use your “times 2” to build a nice nest egg for your business or a fund to fall back on if times get tough. You may feel uncomfortable with all this two-timing, thinking that your labor costs are your “profit.” Don’t. Yes, you may be paying yourself to make your products, but if your business grows, that may not always be the case. Multiplying your costs by 2 enables you to ensure that your business is profitable, regardless of how it’s structured. Pricing for wholesale and retail As the proprietor of your own small manufacturing business, you need to establish two prices for your goods: the wholesale price and the retail price. The wholesale price is for customers who buy large quantities of your item to resell it. That customer then sells your piece to someone else at the retail price, which is usually (though not always) double the wholesale price. As mentioned, to determine the retail price, you typically multiply the wholesale price by 2 and add shipping costs. Some sellers choose a higher operand — for example, multiplying the wholesale price by 2.5 or even 3 to determine the retail price (assuming that the market will bear it). We know what you’re thinking: “I’m going to sell my stuff only through my Etsy shop, so I’ll just charge everyone my wholesale price.” Right? Wrong! Even if you plan to sell your items exclusively through Etsy, you need to establish both a wholesale price and a retail price, and you need to sell your pieces on Etsy at the retail rate. Why? Two reasons. First, even if you have no plans to expand beyond your Etsy shop, you don’t want to cheat yourself of the chance to offer wholesale prices to bulk buyers if the opportunity arises. And second, you’ll almost certainly want to run the occasional sale in your Etsy shop. Pricing your goods for retail gives you some leeway to discount them as needed and still turn a profit. (More on running sales in a minute.) Adjusting for free shipping and handling Anymore, thanks to big-box businesses (think: Amazon), most online shoppers pretty much expect free shipping — including shoppers on Etsy. In fact, according to Etsy, shoppers on the site are 20 percent more likely to complete a purchase if shipping and handling are free. To facilitate this, Etsy enables shop owners (read: you) to offer a free shipping guarantee. This guarantee automatically applies free shipping and handling to buyers in the U.S. when they spend $35 or more in your shop. Note: As an added bonus, Etsy’s search algorithms prioritize items that ship for free, making it easier for buyers to find them. If you want to offer free shipping and handling on all orders, not just orders over $35, you can create and apply a special “free shipping” shipping profile. Ugh. Does all this mean you have to eat your shipping and handling costs anytime people avail themselves of your free shipping guarantee? Negatory. It just means you need to factor these costs into the price for each item you list. So, if shipping and handling an item will set you back $5, you need to up that item’s listing price by that same amount. Your shipping and handling costs aren’t limited to postage. They also include mailing supplies, like an envelope or box, tissue, tape, and whatnot, not to mention labor. Enabling the free shipping guarantee If you decide you want your Etsy shop to offer a free shipping guarantee, you need to perform a few steps to set it up: Click the Settings link on the left side of the Shop Manager Click Shipping Settings Click the Free Shipping Guarantee tab. Click Get Started to open the Set a Free Shipping Guarantee dialog box and click Set Free Shipping Now. Etsy confirms that you’ve set up your free shipping guarantee; click Got It.

Article / Updated 11-04-2022

Listen to the article:Download audio Want to translate a website to English or another foreign language? Google Translate can help you with that. And it’s not just single web pages, either. You can browse an entire website in the chosen language, and even change languages as you browse. You can also use Google Translate on your iOS or Android mobile device. Like other online translation tools, Google Translate isn’t perfect. It does have a good reputation for accuracy, but it does make mistakes. So use it with caution. It should work fine with casual browsing of websites — for example, if you want to read a website that is in Portuguese — but be very careful in relying on Google Translate for anything official. To translate an entire website using Google Translate, follow these steps and see Figure 1 for reference: Open a web browser and go to translate.google.com. You don’t need a Google account to access it, because it’s free to all. In the text box on the left, type in the entire URL (including the http://) of the website you want to view. On the right, choose the language you want to see the website in. Click on the highlighted URL. The translated website appears (see Figure 2). You can browse the entire website in that language by clicking links on the site — as long as you stay within the Google Translate user interface. The Translate toolbar at the top enables you to do a couple of other things: From the language drop-down menu at the top of the page, you can change the translation language on the fly. Using the drop-down menu at the top-right of the page, you can toggle back and forth between the translated website and the site in its original language. You may wonder why some words and phrases are not translated. Google Translate translates only the actual text on a page. Any text that appears in an image is not translated. That’s why, in Figure 2, the titles in the book cover images are not translated; they are images.

Article / Updated 10-19-2022

Google Translate doesn’t just translate words and phrases for you; it can also translate entire documents, such as plain text and rich-text documents, Microsoft Word documents, HTML, and even translate PDFs. (It also translates entire websites.) The file-size limit for translating documents (as stated in Google’s FAQs) is 1MB. However, you may have success with larger documents. After all, it doesn’t hurt to try. Keep in mind, the larger the document, the longer the translation will take. To use Google Translate to translate an entire document, follow these steps and see the figure below for reference: Open a Web browser and go to translate.google.com. You don’t need a Google account to access it, because it’s free to all. In the top left area of your screen, click the Documents button. Click Browse to navigate to a document on your hard drive that you want to translate. At the top left of the window in which your document appears, choose the language that the document is already in — for example, English. On the right, choose the language you want the document translated into — for example, French. Click Translate. The translation appears in a blank browser window. If you hover over each line, you can see the original English text that it was translated from. If you think the translation is incorrect, you can change it ― just hover your cursor over a line of the translation and click the Contribute a Better Translation link. Type your translation into the text box and click Contribute. Your translation is submitted to Google Translate. To use the translated text, simply copy and paste it from the browser window into a new document. Just like other online translation tools, Google Translate is far from perfect. It does have a good reputation for accuracy, but it does make mistakes. So use it with caution. It may work fine in casual situations — for example, if you’re translating a love poem into another language for Valentine’s Day. But if you rely on it for translating official business documents, be very careful. It’s probably better to pay for a reputable translation when business is on the line.

Article / Updated 06-23-2022

If you have your own website, you can use the Google Translate extension to automatically have your website translated into more than 90 languages. So, there’s no need to have multiple versions of your website created. Google Translate requires code to be placed on every page of your site, so you need some website know-how to do this. If you have a small website, you may be able to add the code to every page. However, if it’s a large site, you’ll want to use some kind of template to place the code on every page, depending on the platform your website is on. Here’s how to add Google Translate to your site: In a web browser, go to translate.google.com. At the bottom of the page, click Website Translator. On your first time visiting the Website Translator, you see a page asking you to add your website. Click the blue Add to Your Website Now button. Type in the URL of your site. For example, www.dummies.com. Choose the language your site is in, such as English. Click Next. Choose whether you want your site translated into All Languages or Specific Languages. If you choose Specific Languages, you see a list in which you can check the languages you want. Under Display Mode, choose how you want the Website Translator banner to appear on your site. Clicking each radio button shows how the box will display. Under Advanced, decide whether to check these options: Automatically display translation banner: If your site is in English, and someone who has their browser set to display French, then the translation banner automatically appears. The banner won’t appear for people whose language is the same as your site’s. Your page has content in multiple languages: Check this box if your site contains different languages, so that the plugin knows to expect content in different languages. Track translation data using Google Analytics: If you use Google Analytics to monitor the traffic on your site, you can view data on the usage of the plugin on your site. When you check that box, you will need to provide your Google Analytics property ID number, such as UA-55555-55. Click Get Code. You’ll get two pieces of code that you need to place on your site. The first piece of code, which is the tag, goes in the header (that is, between the tags) of your HTML pages. The second piece of code, which is in and tags, goes where you want the translation banner to appear on your pages. This code determines what the translation banner looks like and how it behaves. <p class="Warning">How you place the code on your site depends largely on the platform you use. Some platforms, like WordPress, make it easy to place code on all pages of the site. However, if you’re not sure how to do this, you should seek out someone with website know-how to help you out. Otherwise, you could mess up the appearance of your pages.</p>

Article / Updated 09-13-2021

If you and your family want to start using a common calendar to keep your schedules in sync, view multiple calendars on the same screen, and use your mobile devices to view, create, and modify appointments on the go and have them sync with your main Google calendar, then Google makes this process fairly easy. It also uses some new features that make updating your calendar from anywhere quite simple. Credit: ©iStockphoto.com/BernardaSv The first step is getting and sharing Google calendars: Head to the Google Calendar page. Either sign in to your current calendar or create a new one. Once you're done, click the Settings menu (little gear icon) at the top of your screen and select the Calendar tab. Click the link under the Sharing head to see your sharing options. You can make the calendar public to everybody, but you don't have to — just enter the e-mail addresses of the people you do want to view the calendar. You can also give each person the ability to read or modify your calendar. Click Add Person when you're done. Add as many as you want. When you're done, click Save. Each person will get a link to the calendar. Once your Google calendar is set and shared, and you've got everybody's calendar links, you can set up a single view to view multiple calendars on the same screen, instead of switching from link to link. Sign in to your Google Calendar and look to the left side of the page. Under the heading of Other Calendars, if you don’t see the calendars you've been invited to share, then click the Add link to enter the e-mail addresses associated with those calendars you'd like to see. For the sake of convenience, make these calendars different colors so you can tell all of the appointments apart. Just click the down arrow next to the calendar to choose a color. Once you've shared all of the calendars, you can use your mobile devices to view, create, and modify appointments on the go and have them sync with your main Google calendar.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 09-02-2021

Before you jump into buying and selling on eBay, learn a few terms, check out some helpful tips to be a successful seller and buyer, and understand the importance of feedback. The following offers helpful eBay information, tips, and selling strategies.

Article / Updated 04-23-2021

It's tempting to ignore your eBay costs as you list items for sale. As a seller, you can fall into the habit of listing and relisting without reevaluating the profitability of your final sales. But as a person in business for yourself, you must always take into account money going out costs as well as profits coming in. The cost of your initial listing is just the beginning of your outlay for that item; you have to factor in the cost of all the options and features you use as well. If you use a credit card payment service such as PayPal, that service also charges you a fee. Insertion (listing) fees Your insertion fee is based on the higher dollar amount of your minimum opening bid or your reserve price. If you start your auction at $0.99 and have no reserve, the listing fee is free (for the first 100 items per month), if you don't have an eBay Store. (If you start your listing at $1.00, your fee is $0.50.) But if you start your auction at $0.99 and set an undisclosed reserve price of $50.00, your auction costs $2.00 to post. When you place a reserve on your item, you're charged an insertion fee based on the amount of the reserve, plus the reserve price charge. Fixed-price listing fees are pretty clear-cut. If your Buy It Now price is $0.99 or higher, you pay eBay $0.50 per listing. Here's a summary of eBay insertion fees. eBay Auction Listing Fees Opening Bid or Reserve Price Insertion Fee Basic Store Subscriber Insertion Fee $0.01 to $0.99 Free* $0.10 $1.00 to $9.99 $0.25 $0.25 $10.00 to $24.99 $0.50 $0.50 $25.00 to $49.99 $0.75 $0.75 $50.00 to $199.99 $1.00 $1.00 $200.00 or more $2.00 $2.00 * If you do not have an eBay Store, you may list up to 100 auction listings in a month for free as long as your starting price is between $0.01 and $0.99, and you have no reserve price. If you exceed 100 listings with this starting price per month, you will be charged a $0.10 fee per listing. What if it doesn't sell? If your item doesn't sell, don't think you can get your insertion fees back. They aren't refundable. You do have the option of relisting your unsuccessful item without being charged a second listing fee, but only if your item sells with the second listing. If it doesn't sell the second time, the charge for the second listing will stand. Writing a better title, starting with a lower opening bid, and adding a snappier description can help in selling the item. Consider changing the category, too. eBay listing options are recapped here: Listing Option Fees Option Fee: Auction or Fixed Price 3, 5, 7, 10 days Fee: Fixed Price 30 days Subtitle $0.50 $1.50 Bold $2.00 $4.00 Listing Designer $0.10 $0.30 Gallery Plus $0.35 $1.00 Scheduled listing $0.10 $0.10 List in two categories Double fees Double fees Additional pictures $0.15 $0.15 Picture Pack 1–6 pictures $0.75 $0.75 Picture Pack 7–12 pictures $1.00 $1.00 eBay Final Value fees What if it does? eBay gets a cut when your auction sells. After your auction or fixed-price listing ends, eBay charges the Final Value fee to your account in a matter of minutes. Final Value fees on auctions are pretty easy to figure out. If your item sells, you pay eBay 9% of the selling price to a maximum of $50.00. Even a rocket scientist would have trouble figuring out exactly how much eBay receives at the end of fixed-price listings. Its Final Value fees are based on the category you listed your item in, as well as how much the item sold for. To help you calculate Final Value fees, see the following table: Fixed-Price Final Value Fees by Category If Your Item Sells for Electronics* Clothing, Shoes & Accessories; Motors, Parts & Accessories Books, DVDs & Movies, Music, Video Games All Other Categories Item not sold No fee No fee No fee No fee $0.99 – $50.00 8% of the final sale price 12% of the final sale price 15% of the final sale price 12% of the final sale price $50.01 – $1,000.00 8% of the initial $50.00, plus 5% of the remaining final sale price balance ($50.01 to $1,000.00) 12% of the initial $50.00, plus 9% of the remaining final sale price balance ($50.01 to $1,000.00) 15% of the initial $50.00, plus 5% of the remaining final sale price balance ($50.01 to $1,000.00) 12% of the initial $50.00, plus 6% of the remaining final sale price balance ($50.01 to $1,000.00) $1000.01 or more 8% of the initial $50.00, plus 5% of the next $50.01 to $1,000.00, plus 2% of the remaining final sale price balance ($1,000.01 to final sale price) 12% of the initial $50.00, plus 9% of the next $50.01 to $1,000.00, plus 2% of the remaining final sale price balance ($1,000.01 to final sale price) 15% of the initial $50.00, plus 5% of the next $50.01 to $1,000.00, plus 2% of the remaining final sale price balance ($1,000.01 to final sale price) 12% of the initial $50.00, plus 6% of the next $50.01 to $1,000.00, plus 2% of the remaining final sale price balance ($1,000.01 to final sale price) The Final Value fees for eBay Store subscribers are different when it comes to auctions. The fees are based on the final selling price: Auction Final Value Fees for eBay Store Subscribers Selling Price Final Value Fees Item not sold No fee $0.01 to $50.00 8.75% of the final selling price $50.01 to $1,000.00 8.75% of the initial $50.00, plus 4% of the remaining final selling price ($50.01 to $1,000.00) Equal to or over $1,000.01 8.75% of the initial $50.00, plus 4% of the next $50.01 to $1,000.00, plus 2% of the remaining final selling price ($1,000.01 to final price) To avoid draining your brain, use an eBay fee calculator to check your fees before you set prices.

Article / Updated 01-15-2020

Now you can take eBay along! You can use the eBay mobile app when you're out looking for items to resell on eBay. It’s especially helpful at a garage sale to see how much you can sell an item for — and to find out how many people are selling an item. If you prefer a different view, you can also type http://m.ebay.com into your phone’s browser to see a mobile enhanced version of the site. The eBay mobile app is available for download on smartphones: iOS (for the iPhone and iPad) and Android. If you don’t have one of those operating systems on your smartphone, you can always type the previous address into your mobile browser (or, if you’re reading this as an e-book, tap the link in that sentence). Several categories of actions are featured at the top of the screen on mobile, just below the search box. Tapping the words show you different views: Categories: This functions similarly to your My eBay→Buy pages. Here you can see your recently viewed items, and by scrolling your Watched Items list, you can see both your buying overview and your Selling overview. There’s a link at the bottom of each section to “view all” in that category. Saved: Here you’ll find searches and sellers you’ve saved for future reference as well as an area to input products you’re interested in. Deals: Very much like the eBay home page, tapping Deals shows you special promotions and deals of the day — and points you to various items that (based on your search history) eBay suggests you might want to purchase. In the Deals view, you can swipe side-to-side to see different categories and featured specials within those interest areas. Selling: In traditional eBay fashion, Sell is where you click to list an item for sale. You also see your selling history and listing drafts you started and haven’t yet completed. The experience is exactly the same on a tablet, but a tablet’s screen gives you a lot more real estate to use. This is especially beneficial if you want to list an item for sale. When it comes to getting the most out of eBay on mobile, I personally prefer the tablet experience to using my smartphone. If you’re out and about and find an item you think might do well on eBay, you can easily search for the item by tapping the text box next to the magnifying glass on the app. Your mobile keyboard pops up and you can type in the keywords for the item you’re looking for. Inside secret: Once you tap in the text field on the mobile app, you also see a tiny microphone. Tap there to input your text from speech. There is also an icon that looks like the lines of a barcode. This is a scan option. Just tap there to scan a barcode on an item to see whether that item is being sold on eBay (as shown in the following figure). The mobile barcode scanner is very fast and accurate; you get the results immediately. Then you can further refine your search to Sold Items Only to see at what price that item is currently selling. When you’re starting out on eBay, I recommend listing your eBay items for sale from your laptop or desktop computer. The text-formatting features available on the website’s Sell an Item page (such as bulleted lists and boldface) are harder to use on the mobile app. The app does have an HTML description writer, so if you learn a little bit of HTML code, you can give your descriptions a little extra character. Because my tablet has a great camera, I do enjoy listing from mobile. My smartphone also has a great camera, but I prefer the bigger screen so I don’t miss a detail when I’m getting a shot of the item. I start some of my listings on my tablet by writing my title, adding some details, and uploading the photos; I often complete a good portion of the listing on mobile, but I tend to click Save and then reopen the listing as a saved template on my computer. Once I am on my computer, I can search eBay more efficiently for top-selling keywords and pricing ideas. When I do complete a full listing on the mobile app, I still go to the website on my computer and buff up the description and double-check the options for the listing. Never forget: The purpose of your listing is to sell the item. So, as with a lady’s makeup, dolling up plain text (tastefully, please!) goes a long way toward making your item more desirable to a buyer.

Article / Updated 01-15-2020

On the bottom of almost every eBay page is a group of links: Click Community to connect to other eBay members, or click the Announcements link to check proposed changes to the site on the Announcements page. Keep in mind, when you see the tips and suggestions on these pages, they may come right from corporate spokespersons in disguise. Take a little time to explore this area for yourself and separate the important messages from the PR spin. News and chat, this and that It’s not quite The New York Times, but you can find announcements, groups, and discussion board links from the Community Overview page. The following figure shows you the important links on the page. (eBay is continually making changes to the community, so note that this page will change with regularity.) Although thousands of people used to discuss everything (including events of the day) on eBay’s boards, the online buzz is now a shadow of its former self, as most people have moved to social media for discussions. The most important place for you to visit in the community are the Seller Updates. eBay sends out information on all the important changes for the site here. Join in the social media conversation There are many places to connect with other eBay community members. Many are active on social media networks. You can find me (the author of eBay For Dummies) on Twitter (@MarshaCollier), http://twitter.com/MarshaCollier, or through Facebook. If you have a quick question, ping me, and I will try to answer ASAP. I also maintain a Twitter list of experienced eBay sellers who have a presence on Twitter. They are interested in helping others and are a valuable reference. More on them further on. Fill in your eBay profile Did you know that if you click your User ID on any eBay page, you arrive at your very own profile page? (You also have a link on your Feedback profile page.) Unlike the old About Me page, which you had to choose to set up yourself, every eBay member has an automatically generated profile page. Yours is ready and waiting for you to embellish. The following figure shows you aunt*patti’s simple profile. You can also add custom features to this page to share your other community moments. Your profile page can reflect your many varied interests. From here, eBay gives you other ways to express yourself: Items for sale: A few of your items you are selling will appear on the page. Reviews: Wondering what other eBay members think of a particular product, book, or movie? Selected items on eBay are reviewed by users, and you can contribute one of your own. Reviews you have posted show up when someone lands on an item for which eBay users have posted reviews. The following figure shows the review page for a previous edition of eBay For Dummies, written by eBay members. To add your own review, click the Write a review button. Following: A sample of which sellers and searches (Interests) you follow. Also, when you save a seller to follow, it shows up on that person’s profile page. Hear ye, hear ye! eBay’s Announcements Board If you were living in the 1700s, you’d see a strangely dressed guy in a funny hat ringing a bell and yelling, “Hear ye, hear ye!” every time you opened eBay’s Announcements Board. (Then again, if you were living in the 1700s, you’d have no electricity, Internet, fast food, or anything else you probably consider fun.) In any case, eBay’s Announcements Board is an important place to find out what’s going on (directly from the home office) on the website. And no one even needs to ring a bell. The Announcements Board is where eBay lists any news that affects buyers and sellers, new features, and policy changes. Visiting this page is like reading a morning eBay newspaper because eBay adds comments to this page almost every week. You find out about upcoming changes in categories, new promotions, and eBay goings-on. eBay also uses it to help users become aware of critical changes in policies and procedures. The following figure shows you eBay’s Announcements Board with information that could affect your sales. Help! I need somebody If you ever have specific eBay questions to which you need answers, click the Knowledge Base link in the Community. These boards work differently from eBay’s old chat rooms. Chat rooms are full of people who are hanging out and talking to each other all at the same time, whereas users of discussion boards tend to go in, leave a message or ask a question, and pop out again. Also, in a discussion board, you need to start a thread by asking a question. Title your thread with your question, and you’ll hopefully get a swift reply to your query. These boards cover almost any topic regarding selling and buying on eBay. Just post your question, and some kind eBay member will probably suggest an answer (but remember to double-check your answer, just as you would any advice from someone with unknown credentials). Keep in mind that the Knowledge Base is to answer questions; if someone tries to sell you something there, I’d say turn the other way. One of the best solutions is to find one of the eBay Social Media sellers on Twitter; many are very active on the site, and you’ll probably get an answer tout suite. User-to-user discussion boards eBay has some other boards that take a different tack on things. They’re discussion boards as opposed to chat boards, which basically means that the topics are deliberately open-ended — just as the topics of discussion in coffeehouses tend to vary depending on who happens to be in them at any given time. Check out these areas and read ongoing discussions about eBay’s latest buzz. Post your opinions to the category that suits you. You can find quite a few discussion boards on various topics relating to doing business on eBay. There’s one cardinal rule for eBay boards: Conduct no business. No advertising items for sale! Not now. Not ever. eBay bans any repeat offenders who break this rule from participating on these boards. Remember that you’re visiting eBay and that you’re a member. It’s not Speakers’ Corner — that spot in London’s Hyde Park where protesters are free to stand on a soapbox and scream about the rats in government. If you feel the need to viciously complain about eBay, take it outside, as the bar bouncers say. Category-specific groups Want to talk about Elvis, Louis XV, Justin Turner, or Mickey Mouse? Currently a bunch of category-specific discussion boards enable you to tell eBay members what’s on your mind about merchandise and auctions. You reach these boards going to the Community and then mousing over the word Groups. A drop-down menu appears where you can click Special Interest Groups. Of course, you can buy and sell without ever going on a discussion board or group, but you can certainly benefit from one. Discussions mainly focus on merchandise and the nuts and bolts of transactions. On eBay, you get all kinds of responses from all kinds of people. Take a portion of the help you get with a grain of salt; some of the folks who help you may be buyers, competitors, or have something to sell you down the line. Don’t be shy. As your second-grade teacher said, “No questions are dumb.” Most eBay members love to share their experiences.