How to properly check eBay sellers feedback

http://toolhaus.org/

Whenever you think about buying something from ebay, it helps to know a sellers feedback is.
Use the site above and put in the sellers name and it will pull up all the sellers bad and neutral feedback.
It costs nothing, You dont sign up for anything. Its been around for years now, I have personally used it for 7 years myself.

Alot of buyers seem to make a mistake of buying from a seller and they try to look at their feedback, but finding the bad stuff is kind of hard to do if they have a ton of feedback. Toolhaus is perfect for this.

A tip to evaluating feedback... Just dont see the number of bad feedback and say "wow he has alot!" Look at the feedback.
Notice what they are and who is saying it.
WHat I pay attention to is shipping comments. I would not want to buy something from a seller that takes 2 weeks to ship the item. That means he is getting it dropshipped to you and has not even seen the merchandise.


You see people talk about high shipping fees. I dont like sellers that charge ALOT extra for shipping fees, BUT if it states $10.00 to ship say a CD to you and the auction is for 99 cents. ANd you get the item, it has 80 cents worth of postage on it. It is wrong to leave bad feedback about high shipping fees. You are being told up front what you are paying so if the shipping and the cost of the item is what you are willing to pay, then why leave bad feedback?

Yes I dont agree with high shipping costs. But if it is explained up front then you shouldnt complain.
I DO hate the sellers that do not tell you shipping costs up front. If it doesnt say what shipping is, then email the seller, if he doesnt answer then do NOT bid on that auction.

A sellers feedback is quite a usefull tool when evaluating a seller.
So many people see a cheap price and just bid without checking, then it causes problems in the long run.

Also, Stay away from these guys with ebooks for sale on ebay that are like 1 cent to 99 cents with "digital delivery"
You will notice almost all those sellers have feedback less than 100.
1 Thats becaus ethey are abusing the feedback system.
A couple books about selling on ebay say to run auctions (if you have under a 100 feedback) because alomost anyone will jump on a auction for less than a buck. You will win it, get an email saying where to download your ebook and then they will beg you for the feedback.
This is a way forthem to build feedback FAST to get past 100.
WHy 100? because once you have 100 feedback, it allows you to use eBays resources such as running multiple auctions of the same product. It allows you to be able to use a certian classified section of ebay so you get noticed faster.

That statement above is one of the biggest sold peices of information when buying an ebook on how oto sell on ebay.
If ebay catches you missusing the feedback system in that manner, you will loose your account.

You would not believe how many of those sellers are in violation of eBays TOS (terms of service).
eBay does not go around their site policing it. They rely on the bidders to reports such auctions.

I recently was looking around ebay for office 2007. I came across office, xp, and vista auctions. ALOT of those in the auction stated they were "Academic" versions. A few of the sellers state in the auction, that they are full time teachers and have the rights to sell that software on eBay.
Well, I contacted Microsoft and after them calling me back a few times. Those sellers are no longer a part of ebay!
Do NOT purchase any academic or student versions off ebay. When the programs goto update they log the ip the machine is updating from. From time to time, Microsoft checks the ips against their databases and guess what. You get an unvalidated copy of your software.

One seller on ebay was selling on average of 20 copies of vista daily at average of $200.00 a pop!
Microsft sent me a check for 500 last week for acting upon this as a reward. Did not know that would happen.
I am also in a Microsoft focus group now that pays $75.00 for each time I do the focus group. Which last about 1 hour.

So I hope this info helps some with ebay.
Ebay is a grteat tool if used properly.
One of my seller accounts has over 11 thousand feedback from when I started. and only 7 bad feedback on that account.

If you sell on ebay, describe your items to a tee! (I always under describe them) that way expectations are not so high and I get tremedous feedback like "Looked better than decribed!"

Price accordingly Do NOT do "reserve" price auctions. They tend to make buyers stear away from you.
I tend to try sell items I know will move and start auctions off at 99 cents. I have found if the item is popular enough it will sell for more than I wanted that way.
i.e... I sell 2 widgets, One I start for 99 cents and the other same auction i start at $11.00, the price Iactually need for the item. The 99 cent auction gets 500 more page hits than the 11 dollar auction.
The 99 cent auction sells for $14.00 and the 11 for the 11.

Strange but true. It mainly depends on what you sell.

ANother tip. Dont sell one item. Wait till you have at least 4 or 5 items to sell. Then you will be able to start at least 2 auctions for 99 cents (i dont care if its a car, do this) then set the other auctions for the price you want.
By running a couple auctions for 99 cents, you exposure. If you have an item wanted 20 bucks for but only list it. It probally wont sell. If you list other items as well and a couple of those are staring off at 99 cents or lower. The buyers will always click "look at sellers other items." and then you get more exposure to get you top dollar on the other item!

Well, thats all for now, I have a work to do. ask questions will be adding an ebay section here soon.