1. Know the value of the product before you bid. If
the product is brand new, check to see what price
retailers are charging for it. If the product is used or
reconditioned, you will want to pay way less than the
retail value.

2. If the product’s description or picture isn’t detailed
enough for you, contact the merchant to get more
information before you bid. You don’t want to take a
chance to waste your hard earned money.

3. Know the highest price you will bid for the product
and stick with it. Don’t get caught up in a bidding war;
you may end up paying more than the product’s worth.
Don’t forget to add in the shipping price with your bid.

4. Visit a few online auctions before bidding because
some merchants auction the same product in many
auctions. You usually can purchase the product for
a lower price in a unpopular auction because there
are less bidders.

5. Know the time the auction begins and ends. You
also want to know how long it will take to ship. If
you need the product by a certain date, you’ll want
to estimate the time it will take to receive it.

6. Know the payment options the merchant accepts
before you bid on their product. If they only accept
checks or money orders, it may take even longer to
get the product because the payment has to clear. If
they accept credit cards make sure they have a secure
server.

7. Know if the merchant offers a warranty or money
back guarantee or before bidding on a product. You
don’t want to get stuck with a product that does not
work or you’re not satisfied with.

8. Online auctions will, sometimes, allow you to check
the merchants history with their auction. Check to see
if people have complained about the their products or
business practices before you decide to bid.

9. It’s important to place a bid early in the auction to
show other bidders you are interested in the product.
If someone does out bid you, don’t be afraid to out
bid them. Remember not to go over your maximum
bid price.

10. Another reason to know when the auction ends;
you can place a last minute bid. The other bidders
may not be keeping track of when the auction ends
or may not have the time to bid again.

About the author:

Rojo Sunsen is a specialized bounty hunter who prefers to work quietly/confidentially for the benefit of her clients.

Share This

eBay sales may have grown 51% last year over the previous year, but general online complaints jumped by 66.6% over the previous year to some 207,000+ complaints in 2004. The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), stated in its yearly report that 71.2% of all complaints received pertained to auctions.

Online fraud is a growing problem on the internet and the auction segment is far from immune. The IC3 reports that most complaints consist of late or no shipment of products, items that don’t match advertised condition and bogus payment or escrow services.

If you decide to offer “all items to be shipped within 24 hours”, make sure you keep your word, and go to great lengths to honestly represent and describe the item in your auctions. Your bidders will appreciate your honesty and it will eventually show up in your feedback.

As consumer fears increase, there are a number of common sense ways to help protect you from fraud, as well as enhance your reputation as a trustworthy seller and set you apart from the crowd.

Watch Out for Bad Checks, Money Orders and Cashiers Checks
Years ago I had a buyer who complained rather loudly when I didn’t ship an item as soon as I received the check in the mail. In hind site it was a good decision to hold the shipment since the check ended up being fraudulent. Bad checks, money orders, and cashiers checks are rampant in ecommerce today. The simplest way to offset the danger of bad paper is not to ship the auction item until the check, money order or cashier check clears your bank for payment.

Overpayments

Never accept any overpayments for any item. One of the more popular scams today is for a buyer to send a cashiers check for an amount that is higher than the agreed upon final price. They then claim it was in error and ask the seller to kindly return the overage when the item is shipped. Off goes the item, the overage amount in good money, and the defrauded seller finds out too late the cashiers check was fake.

Use an Escrow Service for High Priced Items

The primary purpose of escrow services is to protect buyers and sellers from fraud. Basically what they do is to accept the money from the buyer and hold it until the buyer receives and approves the merchandise. Please note that fake escrow services are increasing on the internet. If a buyer contacts you after a sale and recommends an escrow service you are not familiar with BEWARE. At present eBay only recommends one escrow company: www.escrow.com. For information go to http://pages.ebay.com/help/confidence/payment-escrow.html

Records, Records, Records

Keeps a copy of every transaction detail from the original auction listing to the last email. You will need that kind of proof to validate your claims if you should find you need to file a complaint.

Protect Yourself by Being Educated

At the very least you need to be knowledgeable about your legal obligations as a seller and familiar with the fraud protections and policies for the auction sites and payment processing services you use. eBay and Paypal have extensive sections on their websites dedicated to fraud policies and protections. You should take the time to read through these or similar information pages for the sites and services you use on a regular basis and be very familiar with the material.

A few of the key recommendations from Paypal’s Protection for Sellers section include:

Ship only to the address listed on the Transaction Details page

Use a shipping service with tracking

Check out the buyer’s reputation

Accept payment from only one Paypal account per buyer

Limit credit card payments

Enhancing Your Safe Seller Image

Here are a few tips that will help improve your image as a safe seller for your bidders.

Identify Yourself - Make use of the about me pages to let your customers know who you are, how long you’ve been in business and how much their business means to you. Be honest.

Feedback Ratings - Auction buyers want to see 100% positive feedback.

Methods of Payment - Make it easy for your customers to buy but consider convenience, cost and security in choosing any payment method you offer.

Full Disclosure - Your auction listings should clearly state the condition of the item you’re auctioning, your shipping/insurance and return policies.

Bonding programs - A number of bonding programs are available on the internet. One of the more popular is BuySafe (www.buysafe.com). In a bonding program the seller agrees to certain obligations such as shipping on time, representing the item correctly, and standing behind the transaction. In return the seller can display a seal on their auctions showing bidders they are honest sellers and providing transaction insurance in some cases up to $25,000.

Other programs you should be familiar with include:

IDVerify
SquareTrade
Trust-e

If You Become a Victim of Online Fraud

You need to know exactly what should be done in the event you are victimized. Make your plan now, before it happens. The most recommended steps to take if you are victimized are listed below but please keep in mind these are general recommendations and you should have you own plan based on your needs.

File a complaint with your auction site
File a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission
File a complaint with the IC3
File a complaint with the National Fraud Information Center
Contact your local and state law enforcement agencies
Contact the local and state law enforcement agencies in the perpetrator’s home area
File a complaint with the shipping company you used
It the perpetrator is a business and a member of the Better Business Bureau you should also file a complaint there.

Further reading

Paypal Seller Protection Policy (go to your Paypal account)

FTC recommendations http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/online/auctions.htm

To read the entire 2004 IC3 Internet Fraud Report http://www1.ifccfbi.gov/strategy/2004_IC3Report.pdf

More Important Fraud Links

Find Your Local Police http://www.usacops.com
FBI Internet Fraud Unit http://www1.ifccfbi.gov/index.com
FTC Internet Fraud Unit https://m.ftc.gov
USPS Mail Fraud http://www.usps.com/postalinstpectors/fraud/

© Copyright 2005 Steven Woodward - All Rights Reserved

Steven Woodward is the owner, editor and publisher of the Auction Sellers Network (ASN); a web site for individuals and companies who are serious about utilizing the online auction marketplace for their business. In addition to topical articles, ASN provides an extensive resource center, news feeds, member forums and classified ads. For more information or to become a member please visit http://www.AuctionSellersNetwork.com

No permission is needed to reproduce an unedited copy of this article as long the About the Author tag is left intact and included. We do request that we be informed where it is posted and reciprocal links will be considered.

Share This

If you’ve followed us through this series about how to become a bulk reseller, you’ve now learned how to cost out bulk, figured out where to store your merchandise, created an inventory management system and have a detailed plan in place to pack and ship your items. Now comes the finale: where and how to sell your procured items using the online auction marketplace.

We’ve chosen online auctions as the focus of this entry because of their ease of use, widespread availability and simple setup. Of course, there are other ways to sell your bulk reseller items (both online and off), but that’s beyond the scope of this particular article.

First, find a couple of auction sites and browse to see which you enjoy using more. Although eBay is still the top online auction site, weigh your options carefully before settling on one: look at the listing fees (the cost to just place an item up for auction), end of auction fees (normally a percentage of the final auction sale amount), payment fees (to accept checks, credit cards or other online payment methods such as PayPal), and any other incidental fees that will drive up your costs. Many of the smaller auction sites may not have as much traffic, but they can save you a pretty penny in fees.

Next, take some high-quality pictures of your wholesale items. You’ll be able to reuse these pictures with every auction, so the more angles, colors and sizes you have, the better. Then store the photos on a freebie storage site (Xdrive offers a free trial and 5GB of space, whereas PhotoBucket is completely free but has file limitations) to save yourself more auction fees.

Next, do a search on the online auction site to see if anyone else is selling the exact same item as you. If so, wait until their auction is finished before you start one of your own. You can also look at the seller’s history to see if they’ve sold these items before, and what price point they’ve sold for previously.

Once your wholesale item(s) have sold, email the top bidder(s) promptly thanking them for their business and to arrange payment. (Note: many auction management programs do this for you, which is extremely helpful if you have a lot of online auctions running at the same time).

Of course, I’ve offered only a simplified version of how to sell your wholesale items by online auction. A complete explanation would take up a lot more space than what I have available here.

Jim Staley is the is the CEO for WholesaleGopher (http://www.wholesalegopher.com/), one of the most trusted dealer and distributor directories on the Internet, offering visitors wholesale items, import and export goods, surplus and closeouts from true wholesale sources. Read more about wholesaling in general in his free, bi-weekly blog (http://wholesalegopher.com/blog/).

Share This