Building Your Reputation ”with Positive Feedback Now that you're signed up for eBay, you're ready to start selling, right? Well, not quite. Before you can achieve high-volume seller status, you first have to establish your reputation with other eBay users. As you learned in Chapter 2, "Using eBay's Advanced Features," your reputation is tracked via eBay's feedback feature. The better your feedback (the higher the feedback number), the most trustworthy you are. Potential buyers are less likely to deal with you if you have a zero or low feedback number, so you have to do a little groundwork to establish positive feedback before you enter the big leagues.  | eBay automatically assigns all new users a $10 "credit line." That means that you can immediately start listing items for sale, as long as the listing fees total less than your $10 limit. If you want to list more items, you definitely need to set up your account for credit card billing or eBay Direct Pay. |
The easiest way to establish positive feedback is not as a seller, but as a buyer. That's right, before you start selling, you need to go online and buy some stuff. Here's what you need to do. You need to identify a handful of auctions that meet the following criteria: -
Feature merchandise that you actually want to buy -
Incorporate the Buy It Now feature -
Have relatively low prices tip  | Know that not all sellers leave feedback, and those that do don't always do so immediately ”so you may need to buy 10 items to get 5 positive feedbacks. Alternatively, you can email the seller and ask them to provide feedback ASAP, so you can get your feedback rating up faster. |
That's right ”you want to find auctions that are quick and fast. By using Buy It Now, you can end the auction immediately; you don't have to wait a week for the auction to close, or risk being outbid. Most sellers will leave positive feedback for you soon after you pay, so if you play your cards right you'll have a positive feedback number within a day or two. Repeat this procedure until you build your feedback to 10 points or more, and then you'll look like a trustworthy user ”and be ready to start selling for real. The Absolute Minimum When you're ready to sign up for an eBay account, keep these points in mind: -
All users have to have an eBay membership before they can buy or sell on eBay. -
eBay membership is free ”but you have to arrange for credit card payment or automatic checking account withdrawal to pay your seller fees. -
Before other users will trust you, you need to establish a positive feedback rating ”which you can do by some targeted eBay purchases. |
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