Building Confidence in your Buyers.
by Dave Bromley

I assume that all the readers of the UK Auction Line Newsletter are honest and trust worthy people. You have shown excellent judgment in subscribing to the Uk's leading online auction newsletter and based on that I would have no hesitation in bidding on an item you listed with eBay. However, not all eBayers are quite as trusting as I am and they might want a little more evidence of your honesty and reliability.

The feedback system gives the first clue although even that is not infallible. There was a case in the USA a while back when someone built up a 200+ feedback rating buying and selling $1 and $2 items and then suddenly listed a large number of expensive items such as lap tops for auction. The successful bidders sent the money but the goods never materialised. eBay do monitor for sudden pattern changes which should have warned of possible problems but they missed this one. But these are rarities and generally feedback is a good indication of an honest trader.

Another good way to persuade potential bidders that you are a good person to do business with is to offer an unequivocal guarantee. If you think about it, unless you want a very short eBay career you are going to have to accept any items a bidder returns anyway so make a feature of your guarantee. At the end of your listing put something like this:

"100% Guarantee. If for any reason you are not satisfied with the item, return it within 7 days for a full refund."

I believe that if you get any dissatisfied customer on eBay it is better to quickly give them a a no quibble refund than run the risk of them giving you negative feedback. It causes a lot less trouble in the end. So you are not really offering anymore than you should normally provide by giving the guarantee.

Another way to create trust is to join Square Trade. (You can find details on the eBay site map) For a cost of $7.50 per month you will have the Square Trade logo posted on your listing and your customers are guaranteed up $450 insurance in the event of you failing to deliver. As I discovered recently Square Deal also provide a mediation service which I found very useful in getting an undeserved negative feedback removed. You can try the service free for 30 days.

Don't forget the About Me page.This is your chance to present yourself to your customer.Tell them a little about yourself ,your family and where you live. We are all far more likely to deal with somebody we know and the About Me page is your opportunity to let your customers get to know you.

Finally, what image does you eBay id name give? Would you buy something from "Sleezyfox", "Backof a lorry" or "makemerichquick". A name that you think is funny and clever could upset or put off potential bidders. And of course it should go without saying avoid any name that could prove offensive.

Remember on eBay you have to build trust to build success.

Selling on Behalf of Others.

I have never made any secret of the fact that I believe that selling on behalf of the less computer literate people offered great potential. I notice that someone in my town has started putting up flyers advertising this service. It is also possible after you have achieved a feedback of 49 or more to register as a Trade Assistant. (Someone who is willing to sell on behalf of others.) However in all the time I have been registered as a TA no one has contacted me to make a sale on their behalf.

In the USA entrepreneurs have opened shops to provide this kind of service and I would have thought they might have done very well. However, and article in the San Francisco Gate indicates that it is not all plain sailing. Read more about it here.

The kind of operation that I was thinking about is a lot smaller than the $3 million dollar enterprise discussed in the article. And perhaps you might be better targeting local businesses such as antique and collectors shops offering to sell items through eBay on their behalf.

This could be a low cost way of starting an online auction selling business but I would advise a word of caution. It is essential that you have some form of agreement drawn up between you and the owner of the item you are selling. And if you are really serious I would recommend that you contact a legal expert to have this agreement drawn up. It is an expense that may prove a saving in the long term.

Final Thoughts

This week I received an e-mail from a subscriber with this question:

Personally I am not a great fan of putting reserves on items that you are listing. It definitely effects the chances of making a sale. I read recently that only about 20% of listing with reserves actually sell and this is quite a poor percentage. And if you place a reserve and it does not sell you have incurred extra listing charges.

My own preference is to decide what is the minimum price that I am prepared to accept for an item and I enter that as the minimum bid price. This way you are no worse off than if you had set this as a reserve price and there is no extra fee if you do not make the sale. The argument that some people put forward is that by having a reserve price this allows you to set a lot lower minimum or start bid price which will attract more bidders. They may come to your listing but once they see the "reserve not yet met" displayed most of them will go away again.

One suggestion I would make is for you to have a Browse around the appropriate category on eBay to see if there are any similar items to yours for sale and to find out what kinds of prices they are achieving. This will give you a good idea of what to start yours off at.