Friday, January 25, 2008

How to cancel an eBay listing

Some times life happens and you have to cancel an eBay listing. Over the years I have been forced to cancel a couple. Once the item went missing, it was never found. I kept all my eBay items in one spot and I noticed that a necklace was not were I put it. I could not find it and did not have what I needed to remake it. So I had to cancel the listing. What made it hard on me was that I had some good bids on it already. I ended up loosing the sale and still had to pay the insertion fee.

I was very lucky that I noticed it before there was less the 12 hours remaining on the auction and was able to cancel the listing. Other wise I would have had to manually cancel every bid on the necklace right up until the auction was over. That would have been difficult because people bid right up to the last second.

I explained to everyone that had a bid that the necklace was missing so I was cancelling the auction. This way they knew before they received an email from eBay saying their bid was cancelled. Once they knew I would not sell anything unless I had it right there people were ok about it. Not happy, but understood that I did not want to take the chance of selling them some thing I did not have. Good thing I did that as I never did find the necklace.

There are some very strict rules for when you can cancel an eBay listing. EBay does not like it when you cancel a listing and keeps a close eye on why people cancel a listing. Some people have cancelled listings because the bids were not as high as they wanted. So they would cancel the listing, and re-list hopping to get higher bids. That is what a reserve price is for. When people do this eBay sees it as reserve fee circumvention and will investigate if they feel some one is abusing the system to save that fee.

So how do you cancel an eBay listing? First you find the item number, you can get it from your confirmation email, the My eBay page, or the listing View Item Page. Then type the item number into the End My Listing Early form. If there are bids you will have to choose between cancel bids and end listing early or sell the item to the current highest bidder and end listing early. Then you choose the reason for ending the listing early.

OK reasons for ending the listing:
The item is no longer available for sale; changed your mind.
There was an error on the starting price or reserve amount; typo and not checking before posting.
There was an error in the listing; usually you can make a change unless it is under 12 hrs before the auction ends.
The item was lost or broken; the most common reason to end an auction, it happens to everyone some time or another.
Once you have done that the listing will end and is not displayed on eBay and any bidders are emailed that their bid will be cancelled.

This is not some thing you want to ever have to do. You loose sales and sometimes customers. People are less likely to bid on your items if you have cancelled an auction on them before. If I had found the necklace I would have re-listed it and emailed the people who had bids on it to let them know it was available again. Because of the way I handled it they may have been willing to bid again, but maybe not. I could have damaged my customer relations and lost their trust. It shows poor business skills if you cannot keep track of your product, or did not proof read your ad before posting. On the other hand it did show my integrity that I would not take the chance of selling something I no longer had.

Source: eBay

Thursday, January 10, 2008

How Go Up in The Food Chain

This article takes about the way to by wholesale clothing in small quantities less and sell them on eBay.

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Ebay Complaints and Ebay Seller Feedback

Ebay Censors Member with 100% Perfect Feedback record from posting any messages on Discussion Boards

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THIS is how eBay works. [PIC]

Seriously eBay, you should of banned that username. Ownage, literally; considering the scammer now owns those things.

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Formula: Ebay + Smart purchases + Hard Work = Fast Cash

I don’t know about you but I get sick and tired of all the dumb get rich schemes out there. If you want to make serious money with Ebay then the most important thing is getting a good product dirt cheap. This is why I go to local auctions especially

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1 Pair Diamond Earrings - Retail for $165.80

eBay auction. Great deal on some diamond earrings

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14KT Yellow Gold Men's Signet Ring with Round Diamond

eBay auction. Great deal on a yellow gold signet ring with diamond.

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Sterling Silver Pig Hog Ring Size 9 925 9.25 NEW

eBay auction. This pig hog ring cracks me up.

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Sterling Silver Mother of Pearl Claddagh Size 8 925 NEW

EBay auction. I think the Mother of pearl is nice.

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Sterling Silver Unicorn Ring Size 5 925 9.25 NEW

EBay auction. I think this is a nice unicorn ring.

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Sterling Silver Dragon Celtic Knot Work Ring Size 8 1/2

EBay auction. I love this Dragon ring with Celtic knot work. It is a good thing it is not my size lol.

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Sterling Silver Chain link Ring Size 8 925 9.25 NEW

EBay auction. This one is kind of cool because the ring moves with you, the links are flexible.

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Sterling Silver Amethyst Celtic Knot work Ring Size 9 1/2

EBay auction. Nice Amethyst ring with Celtic Knot work.

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Sterling Silver Celtic Knot Work Cross Ring Size 9 925

EBay auction. Very nice cross ring with Celtic knot work.

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Sunday, January 6, 2008

How to retract a bid on eBay

Why would any one want to retract a bid on eBay? The idea is that you want to win the item right. Well I have retracted a couple of bids over the years. One of them was because I put the wrong amount in, $100.00 instead of $10.00. I use the bid retraction form and retracted my bid of $100 and then bid the $10. I did retract one bid because the seller would not respond to my emails once I put the bid on the item. I realised that the computer part may not work with what I already had and needed some information. I never got the information, even after I retracted my bid. I did not want to take the chance of buying some thing I could not use. The retractions showed up on my feedback for 6 months, but it did not cause sellers to reject my bids. It might have been different if I had retracted a lot of bids.

EBay will only let you retract a bid if it meets the requirements of their Bid Retraction policy. Fist you cannot retract a bid on a buy it now item or after an auction has ended. You can only retract your bid for three reasons.

If you made a typographical error, like I did, putting $100.00 instead of $10.00. You must enter the correct bid amount once you retract the first bid. Otherwise eBay will see your actions as a violation of eBay's policies and your account can be suspended.
The description of an item you have bid on changed significantly after you placed your bid. I have never seen this but I am sure it happens.
You cannot contact the seller. This means that you tried to call the seller, but his or her phone number doesn't work, or that you have tried emailing a message to the seller and it comes back undeliverable. I have had one seller not respond to emails and they did loose my bid when they don’t respond.

When you placed your bid and how long is left on the auction determines if you can retract your bid as well. You can retract a bid if there is more then 12 hrs left before the auction ends. You can retract the bid within one hour of placing it. If you had a bid placed before the last 12 hours of the auction remains valid and can only retract it if the seller agrees. You contact the seller to request that your bid be cancelled and it is up to the seller’s discretion to cancel the bid or not.

EBay investigates bid retractions. If they feel that you are abusing this option they can suspended your account. They also take a very close look at bids retracted within the last 24 hrs of a listing as it can be seen as bid shielding. So be careful when entering your bids and try not to retract bids very often.

Source: eBay