Everything eBay - How To..

eBay Bing Cashback is back!

Jeff — Tue, 18 May 2010 16:26:49 +0000

Like I mentioned in my previous post, there is a good chance that eBay Bing Cashback will be back, and it looks like now is the time. Search for “panasonic” or try the usual keywords/terms, and you should be getting 8% eBay Bing Cashback. Happy shopping! Related posts: How to get up to 35% Bing [...] Related posts:

eBay Bing Cashback has Ended

Jeff — Sun, 02 May 2010 07:49:57 +0000

I never thought this day would come, but as of right now, the eBay Bing Cashback promotion is not available. This has happened before, but it has never been gone for more than a couple of days. We still have a chance though because the promotion is still officially shown in eBay’s pages: Microsoft Bing eBay Cashback

So, for right now, we are left with eBay’s eBay Bucks program, which only gives us 2% back, and we have to use it towards a future eBay purchase.

UPDATE: According to the official Bing Cashback Twitter page, “eBay is off of cashback for the time being but check back soon for updates.” So, we still have hope folks. Keep those fingers crossed.

UPDATE: As of 05/18/10, eBay Bing Cashback is now back!

How to add pictures on eBay listings for free!

Jeff — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 23:56:43 +0000

When adding pictures to your eBay listing, eBay offers the first picture for free, but any additional pictures after the first one is $0.15 each. You are also limited to 12 pictures, which should be enough in most cases, but sometimes you need more.

.. but don’t worry, there is a way to put pictures on your eBay listing for free, and you can put as many pictures as you want. You can put whatever size you want as well, and not have to worry about eBay resizing or compressing the images so you end up with lower quality images.

Just follow the steps below:

Sign up for a FREE account at Photobucket (www.photobucket.com).
Once you have your user and password, log in to your Photobucket account and upload your pictures. There should be a fairly large button once you log in to your account that says “Upload images & videos.” Click on this button, and select all the images that you would like to upload. You can select multiple pictures to upload by pressing and holding the CTRL button on your keyboard while you’re clicking with the mouse. I usually put all of the pictures that I want to upload on my desktop so I can find them easily when uploading.
Once the pictures have been uploaded, Photobucket will ask you if you want to add titles, descriptions, etc. for the pictures that you have just uploaded. Ignore all this stuff, and just click on the Save & Share Now! button.
After you click on the Save & Share Now!” button, you will see all of the pictures that you just uploaded. Each picture will have a Direct Link under it. Open up a blank Notepad in Windows, or whatever operating system you use, and copy and paste these “direct links” to in Notepad. One link/URL per line.
Once you have all the links/URLs for the all the pictures, copy the following code and replace the URL_GOES_HERE text with the URL for each picture:
In the previous two codes, include the quotes. The links should look like this once you’re done:
Do not close the Notepad window after you finish, leave it open. You’ll need it again later.
Now, go start creating your eBay for sale listing. When you get to the pictures section, upload the best picture you have. This will be the picture that will show up in the eBay search results so you want the picture that best represents or shows off your item.
The next section of the eBay listing form should be the “Describe the item you’re selling” section. Enter the item description in this section as you normally would (under the "Standard" tab), but wherever you want to put the pictures, type PICS_GO_HERE (..or whatever you want. This will simply act as a place holder.)
When you’re done with the item description and ready to add the pictures as your final step, click on the HTML tab. You should see a bunch of mumbo jumbo if you’re not familiar with HTML. Click anywhere in the box with all the HTML stuff, and hit CTRL + F on your keyboard. That's the CTRL key AND the F key. You should see a search box appear on your browser. Now, search for PICS_GO_HERE or whatever you typed earlier as your placeholder, and it should find the PICS_GO_HERE text within all that mess and highlight it.
Go back to your Notepad window or open it up again if you saved and closed it, and copy (highlight the link then hit CTRL + C or right-click and click Copy) the link/code for the first picture that you would to add.
Go back to the eBay listing form page, and replace the PICS_GO_HERE text with the first link/code that we just copied by deleting the PICS_GO_HERE text and pasting the code for the picture (CTRL + V or right-click with mouse then click Paste). If you want to add a second picture, just copy and paste the code/link for the second picture from the Notepad window, and paste it to the eBay listing form just like the first picture.
After you finish adding the pictures, click on the Standard tab and you should see your pictures, but you will see them all in one line. If you have big pictures or if you have a lot of them, they will go horizontally across your browser. You can easily fix this by clicking right after picture, and pressing ENTER on your keyboard. This will put the next picture onto a new line. You can add spaces between pictures by again hitting ENTER again. Do the same for all the pictures.
Done!

I know this whole thing might sound complicated, but it’s not. It should be basic computer stuff for most of you. If it’s not, then it’s time to learn.

Have fun!

How to get up to 35% Bing Cashback on eBay

Jeff — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 23:58:03 +0000

First of all, the eBay Bing Cashback program basically gives buyers a percentage of the selling price of the eBay back. This cashback is often given instantly, but sometimes they put a 60 day hold before releasing the funds to your PayPal account. You can use the Bing Cashback program on eBay to get cashback from your eBay purchases using the Buy It Now feature. The eBay Bing Cashback rate have gone as high as 35%, but currently it is at 8%. The cashback percentage changes randomly. No one knows when it will change.

In order to take advantage of this eBay Bing Cashback program, you need to have an eBay account (obviously), a PayPal account, and a Bing Cashback account. You must also add/tie your PayPal account to your Bing Cashback account. You also need to pay for your eBay purchases using PayPal even when there is a third-party checkout system.

Here is how to get Bing Cashback on eBay:

Find the eBay Buy It Now listing that you would like to buy.
Open a new tab in your browser (CTRL + T).
Go to http://www.bing.com/
Type “Buy It Now” in the search field and press ENTER.
You should see some sponsored links at the top of the page, and one of these should be for eBay. It should have a ($) dollar sign symbol next to the link, and says “Bing cashback.”
Click on this link and it will take you to eBay. You now have 60 minutes to complete your purchase in order to get the eBay Bing Cashback.
Go back to the eBay Buy It Now listing/item that you want to buy and reload/refresh the page (hit the F5 key).
Once the page has reloaded, you should see a “Microsft cashback” logo at the top with a dollar sign and a percentage of how much eBay Bing Cashback you will be getting.
Purchase the item, and make sure during the checkout that you see the “Microsoft cashback” logo. Remember to pay with your PayPal account.
After a few minutes (it can take up to 48 hours sometimes, but usually minutes) you should receive an email and a message in your eBay account saying that you have qualified for eBay Bing Cashback. This is usually an instant cashback, and you will see the money in your PayPal account shortly after, but if not an instant cashback, they will release the money to your PayPal account after 60 days.

Done!

When is the best time to end an eBay auction?

Jeff — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:59:48 +0000

When it comes to eBay auctions, tiny details like when to end an eBay auction matters. For popular items such as laptops and Nintendo Wiis, it really does not matter when you end your eBay auction. You can end an auction at 5am in the morning, and you will still have buyers fighting over the item. There is literally a listing for each of these items ending every minute.

In general, for less popular items, the best time to end an auction is during the evening; between 9:00pm and 12:00pm EST. This has been proven to be the busiest time of the day for eBayers. People go online right after dinner and before heading off to bed to check their emails, Facebook, and browse the internet. This time span takes into account the timezone differences between the east cost and west coast. I personally end my auctions around 10:30pm EST.

The very best day to end the auction is on a Sunday. There have been many studies showing that Sunday evening is the busiest time on eBay.

With that said, there are also a few reasons why ending your eBay auction during this time can be a disadvantage. Other eBay sellers might be ending their auctions during this time as well since it is proven to be a busy time. Competition is not good for the sellers. The eBay market might be saturated with that item, and will drive the final price of the item down.

Also, know the audience that you are trying to sell to. If you are selling an item that is more popular to an older audience, you might want to experiment ending your auction between 9:30-11:30am since most older people will be at work. If you are trying to sell a video game targeted for teenagers, you might want to try ending your auction during the evening since teenagers tend to stay up very late at night or not sleep at all.

In addition, keep in mind that holidays are a bad time to end auctions since people go out of town during holidays, and have no access to computers. Another good tip is end your auctions a few minutes after :00, :15, :30, or :45. For example, if you want to end your auction at 10:30pm, end the eBay auction at 10:33pm instead. 10:30pm will have a higher chance of having another seller ending their auction at that time than at 10:33pm. Small details like these can get you those extra few dollars.

Best way to win an eBay auction

Jeff — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:54:18 +0000

You’re probably reading this because you’ve been outbid trying to win an eBay auction at the last second after you just spent a good amount time waiting for the auction to end with you as the highest bidder only to get outbid in the eBay auction at the last second. Don’t do that. You’re just wasting your time, and just hurting your feelings. There is really no “best” way on how to win an eBay auction. Different circumstances allows for different strategies to win an eBay auction. I’ll just go over some general tips for you beginners.

First of all, if you can avoid it, I advise you to not bid on the actual eBay “auctions”, but instead, use the listings with the Buy-It-Now features. I personally rarely purchase anything from eBay using the conventional eBay auction. Why? ..because it’s fast, and I know exactly how much I’m going to be paying for the item from the start. I’ve wasted too much time in the past bidding on auctions, and have the final bid price of the auction be more than the average Buy-It-Now price for the exact same item. I could have simply purchased the item using the Buy-It-Now feature, and be done with it. No time wasted, no emotional stress–easy. Just search of the item that you want, click on the “Buy It Now only” tab, sort the results by “Price + Shipping: Lowest First.” This will now order the listings with the cheaper price including shipping at the top. Just make sure you skip the “junk listings” at the top, and look for the actual item that you’re looking for with the lowest price. Make sure it’s from a good seller with excellent feedback.

Another reason why I like doing it the Buy-It-Now way is because of the Bing Cashback program, which currently gives you an 8% discount/cashback off the price of the listing not including shipping fees. I’ll write another whole article on that topic later.

If you have no choice but to purchase the item through the conventional bidding way via a real eBay auction (e.g. no Buy It Now listings for that item or if the auction looks like it’s going to end up with final price significantly lower than the Buy It Now listings), the first thing you should do is pick your maximum bid price. You can look at completed eBay auction listings for the same item, and see how much they generally end up selling for, and use that to help you get a ballpark price. It also depends on how badly you want the item. There are a lot of factors that tie in, but in the end, choose a maximum price, and stick with it.

Once you have your price, I highly suggest just waiting till the last minute or so, and bid that amount as late as you can before the auction ends. Set an alarm on your phone if you have to. This will prevent you from getting into a bidding war, and end up exceeding your maximum bid price, and more importantly, it prevents other potential buyers a chance to outbid you since you placed the best ten seconds before it ends. There are tools that can do this for you automatically called “snipers.” The one I personally use is called Auction Stealer. It comes with three free bids/auctions per week. There is no need to pay for this service.

Another tip is to look for auctions that end at the least busiest times of the day such as very, very late at night or very early in the morning. Early morning time is probably best. If there are no eBay auctions that end at these times, choose the one that is closest to ending at the least busiest time. Using this tip in conjunction with an auction sniper should yield you good results.

Another good tip is to choose a maximum price a few cents higher than a typical bid. Most people bid in whole numbers. Let’s say your max bid price set for an item is $50.00, change that to $51.23 or so instead. That extra dollar and those extra few cents will give you the nod over someone who bid $50 or $51 for only a few cents more.

I think that is all I have for now on the best way to wing an eBay auction. I probably missed something since I do this so much that it’s natural to me now. If you are confused about something or need some help, leave me a comment and I’ll get back to you.