• Welcome from Brian McGregor
• 1. Thought for the Day
• 2. Be eBay's Guest
• 3. Re-visit Your Own Listings
• 4. News & Views:
  Get Your Name in Lights
  Promote for Christmas
  Want to Buy a Ferry?
  A New Way to Search eBay
  Don't Get Banned by eBay or PayPal (free download)
  Now for the Lighter Side - Very Funny video
• 5. Someone's Auctioning What???
• Back to Newsletter Archive

eBay is currently launching "Guest Buying". The idea is that non-eBay members can buy fixed price items and from eBay Stores, and they don't have to open an eBay account to make the purchase.

This mirrors the experience which buyers are familiar with on internet e-commerce sites. They see something they like, and they can go ahead and buy it.

So, as "Guest Buyers", people can try out the eBay purchasing experience without having to register first.

The only requirement for buyers is that they have to use PayPal to pay for their purchases.

For sellers to have their items included and made available to "Guest Buyers", you need to:

a) Have a PayPal Premier or Business account.

b) Include shipping costs on your listing.

c) Qualify for the top tier of buyer protection of $2000 (£500 in UK).

d) The item price must be less than $2,000 (£500 in UK).

e) Use eBay's checkout system. Third-party checkout are not supported at this time.

Finally, these brand-new buyers can't leave feedback - at least not until they register.

eBay says they will encourage those new buyers to register and leave feedback after the sale.

This is a useful addition by eBay. I'm sure lots of people might try eBay if they don't have to become a member first.

You can find more details about "Guest Buying" here:

eBay.com
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200711.shtml#2007-11-05145608

eBay.co.uk
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/uk/200711.shtml#2007-11-16161242

You may recall I mentioned in the last newsletter about the discriminatory treatment of UK eBayers, who could not have their auctions appear on ebay.com.

As this announcement showed, the policy could be in retreat!

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/uk/200710.shtml#2007-10-18151300

Items in the Collectibles, Antiques, Stamps, Coins, Art, and Pottery & Glass categories placed by UK sellers WILL appear in ebay.com search results.

Let's hope other categories follow soon!

What I should have added was that if you're a UK based seller in these categories, and you want to make your items available to ebay.com users, there's something you need to do. You should re-visit your auction listings and make sure that you're specifying North America as a territory to which you will deliver.

Wow! And tomorrow the world?

Get Your Name in Lights

Have you ever looked at eBay's Reviews and Guides?

Reviews and Guides gives you the opportunity to write about your market and product area, for other members to read.

It's very easy to do. You can write a short Review about a specific product. Or you can write a Guide, sharing your knowledge and experience with the eBay community.

If you know your stuff, anyone reading your Review or Guide might well want to take a look at your listings.

You can find out more here:

ebay.com
http://reviews.ebay.com/

ebay.co.uk
http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/

Promote for Christmas

With the holiday buying season approaching, make sure you use these two tips to generate new traffic to your auctions:

a) Print a promotional flyer showing your auction and website special offer links, and include it in every package you send out.

b) Create a holiday special offers newsletter and email it to all your previous customers.

These actions are easy to do, and give you the opportunity to generate additional business with very little effort.

Want to Buy a Ferry?

If you've ever been on a ferry, be it over a river or a lake, and you've always thought you'd like to own one - now's your chance.

Two ferries ar going on sale on eBay in the next few weeks. And very nice they look too!

By the way, you'll need around $4 million to buy one.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004015821_webferry15m.html

A New Way to Search eBay

When searching on eBay you can sometimes get a bunch of extraneous items in your search results that you don't want.

For example, if you're searching for a Mac ibook g4 laptop, your search results will probably include laptop parts, accessories and other things.

Let me introduce you to http://www.getitnext.com

This is a free, award winning search service to help users find what they're looking for on eBay. Get it Next is very easy to use and has some useful functions.

Don't Get Banned by eBay or PayPal

If you're a seller on eBay, one of the worst things that can happen to you is that your eBay account gets suspended.

Just imagine now, you're a PowerSeller and you're making thousands a month on eBay. It's your main source of income. Then PayPal and eBay shut you down. Instantly!

This is the story of one UK eBay PowerSeller who had that happen to him. And he takes you through the steps he took in his battle for account re-instatement.

And it's quite a battle!

Does he win?

I'll let you find out for yourself:

http://www.workwinners.com/ebaysuspend/

Now for the Lighter Side - Very Funny video

Ever been called by a telemarketer? Did you get annoyed, or are you amazingly tolerant?

Here's a video showing one way of handling a telemarketing call.

I like it. I hope you do to....

http://www.workwinners.com/telemarketer/

As regular readers will know, the "Someone's Auctioning What???" section has been an important part of my newsletter for several years.

Sad to say, but the time has come to move on.

The good news is that I have decided to give this section a new life of it's own.

If you like the kind of humour found in "Someone's Auctioning What???", you'll love this.

I have a new website called http://www.funnyauctions.co.uk

I post an unusual eBay auction there virtually every day, together with my comments.

If you want to be notified automatically whenever I add an amusing auction to the funnyauctions site, just subscribe to the RSS feed on the home page.

The reason why I'm producing funnyauctions of UK eBay is simply because the UK is where I am based. I may introduce other country versions in the future.