Section A.5. Further Education | eBay[c] The Missing Manual

A.5. Further Education

Most eBayers are self-taught. They might read some great books (like this one), go through the information in eBay's Help section (Section 11.2), or ask questions in discussion groups (Section 10.1.1). Mostly they just jump in and try the site: bid on an auction, pay for a purchase, go step by step through the Sell Your Item form (Section 5.4.2). If you're someone who prefers instruction to trial-and-error, though (and since you're reading this book, you probably do), you might be interested in taking an eBay workshop or class.

A.5.1. Take a Workshop

Workshops are scheduled, Web-based hour -long chats on a particular topic. Each chat is a combination of lecture and Q&A. Someone leads every workshop: the leader could be an eBay staffer, an outside guest, or an everyday eBayer. Workshops cover just about every eBay- related topic you can think of. Here's a list of recent and popular workshop topics:

Using keywords.
Search strategies.
Figuring out what to sell.
Getting publicity for your auctions.
Dealing with eBay changes (category, policy, procedures, new features, and so on).
Protecting yourself from identity theft.
Best practices for sellers.
Shipping tips and tools.
Cross-promotions.
Digital photography.

Workshop schedules vary. Some months, eBay offers a dozen or more workshops; others, a mere handful.

To see a list of recent and upcoming workshops: from eBay's home page, click Community Workshops. When you do, the Workshops page (Figure A-13) appears.

Note: The brown bag lunch is an informal workshop that's becoming increasingly popular. Staffers from an eBay department, such as eBay Stores or Shipping, go online for an hour to answer eBayers' questions. Check the Workshops calendar to see if one's scheduled.

Workshops function just like eBay chat rooms (Section 10.1.4), except they open and close at specified times and have a leader to keep some semblance of order they're not the free-for-all of a typical chat. Usually, an eBay staffer starts things off and introduces the workshop leader. The leader puts up a couple of posts that constitute his or her lecture. Workshop attendees read the posts and ask questions, which the leader answers until time runs out.

Figure A-13. Choose Community Workshops to get to the Workshops page. The list shows workshops scheduled for the current month. Click any workshop title to read its description. Left-hand menu links let you view archives of past months workshops or check out Town Halls (see the box on Section A.5.3). If you have an idea for a workshop you'd like to lead, click the right-hand Host Your Own Workshop link.

Attending a workshop is easy. All you have to do is:

Go to the Workshops page (from www.ebay.com, choose Community Workshops) on the right date at the right time .

You can find out the date and time of upcoming workshops on the Workshops page.
Click the workshop's title .

The workshop description appears, as shown in Figure A-14.
Click the title again .

eBay asks you to sign in to the discussion boards (even if you're already signed into eBay).
Sign in .

The workshop page appears, and you're in.
Keep hitting your browser's Refresh or Reload button to see new posts as they come in .

If you have a question or comment, click "Post a reply." Type whatever you have to say into the text box, and then click Post Message.

Note: Because of the chat-style format, workshops can be hard to read. Attendees might post several questions that show up all at once, and even an instructor with lightning-fast typing skills can take a few minutes to find and answer a question. That doesn't necessarily mean that the conversation slows down in the meantime, though, as more questions pour in and eBayers chat with each other.

Figure A-14. The workshop description tells you the time and date of a workshop, who's hosting it, and a brief overview of what the workshop covers. To attend a workshop, click its title and sign in. If a workshop you want has already happened , click its title to read a transcript.

If you can't attend a workshop, you can always read the transcript later. From the Workshops page (Community Workshops), click the workshops title (if it happened in the current month), or click one of the left-hand Archives links, then the workshop title. Archives go back through 2004, so there's lots of information to check out.

Tip: To network and get a little publicity, host your own workshop. eBayers can propose to lead a workshop at any time; just email your idea to workshopevents@ebay.com. It's a good idea to attend or study a few workshops before you lead one of your own. When you've got a workshop scheduled, write out your opening comments in advance, so you can save time by copying and pasting the "lecture" portion of your workshop into the text box (instead of typing it from scratch). You can even try to anticipate some of the questions you might get and type up your answers in advance, too, to keep things moving when the Q&A period starts.

A.5.2. Take a Live Class

Another way to learn more about eBay is to strap on a backpack and head back to school. Live classes let you put in some face time with the instructor and ask your questions as they come up. If you want to go to eBay school, you've got a couple of options:

eBay University (Section A.5.3) takes its curriculum on the road, traveling around the country teaching day-long classes in how to sell: either how to get started or how to sell better. Go to Help eBay University to see when theyre coming to your neck of the woods.
Many community colleges offer evening and weekend courses related to eBay: how to get started, how to buy, how to market your wares on the Internet. Call your local community college's Continuing Education office for a catalog.

Note: One of the biggest benefits you get from a live class doesn't happen in the classroom. If you take a course about eBay, use the opportunity to meet and network with other eBayers in your area.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION
Town Halls

I've seen announcements for Town Halls. Is that the same thing as a workshop?

Town Halls are a special kind of workshop that eBay offers from time to time. Town Halls give eBayers a chance to interact with some of the company's top brass in a question- and-answer format. Instead of an online chat, eBay broadcasts Town Halls live using streaming audio, so to listen, you need Windows Media Player or Real Player (see the box on Section A.3).

Recent speakers have included Bill Cobb, president of eBay North America, and vice presidents of Customer Support and Rules, Trust, and Safety.

When it's time for the Town Hall, go to the Town Hall page at http://pages.ebay.com/townhall to sign in and listen. You can ask questions in advance or during the broadcast. To submit a question: from the Town Hall page, click the Town Hall Sign-in button. The page that opens has a text box where you can type in and submit a question. You can submit a question any time after eBay announces the Town Hall through the end of the broadcast; if a lot of questions come in, though, the speakers may not get to them all.

eBay often schedules Town Halls smack in the middle of a workday , so many eBayers can't listen in. For about a month after the broadcast, you can listen to the archived program from the Town Hall page. After that, you can read a written transcript; from the Town Hall page, find the discussion you want and then click the link that says "Click here for the transcript." Transcripts are in PDF format, so you need Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat to read them. If you don't have one of these products, download a free copy of Adobe Reader at www.adobe.com Products "Acrobat family Reader.

A.5.3. Get Your B.A. in eBay

eBay University doesn't give out any degrees. What it does, for a price, is teach you how to become a more effective seller. Type http://pages.ebay.com/university into your Web browser to get to the page shown in Figure A-15.

Figure A-15. To see descriptions of eBay University classes, look on the eBay University page in the lefthand menu and then click Online Courses. Attend Classes shows you upcoming live courses you can register for, along with their dates and locations. Use other links to read instructor bios and tips from Jim "Griff" Griffith, the "dean" of eBay University and host of eBay Radio. The Education Specialist Program link takes you to an offsite program that prepares you to teach others about eBay (Section 7.5.2).

Note: eBay offers a ton of free resources for sellers right on the site: how-to-sell tutorials in the Learning Center (Section 11.1), workshops (Section A.5.1), seller tools like Turbo Lister (Section 9.1.1). So is it worth shelling out the money to take an eBay University course? Ask other eBayers who've been there, done that. Click Community

Discussion Boards

Seller Central, and ask the folks there what they think.

eBay University offers two courses, both aimed at sellers:

Selling Basics . Aimed at brand-new or inexperienced sellers, this course introduces you to selling on eBay, from opening a seller account and doing research to listing an item, using a PayPal account, and closing the sale.
Beyond the Basics . This course targets sellers who want to ramp up their sales. Improve your listings, learn marketing basics, use eBay's listing tools, open an eBay Store.

If you want to take an eBay University course, you've got two options:

Computer classes . These are self-paced courses that you take at home when you have the time. Both courses are available on CD; you can also take Beyond the Basics online (but only if your computer runs Windows 2000 or XP).
Live classes . eBay University travels to large cities around the country, offering both courses as one-day workshops. Classes start at 9:00 a.m., break for lunch, and finish up mid-afternoon. To find out if there's a course near you, go to http://pages.ebay.com/ university and then click Attend Classes. There's a drop-down menu under Register Now. Select a city and date; the next page has more information and a "register now" button you can click to sign up.