Online Auctions are unmistakably among the hottest e-Sourcing technologies on the Internet business today. But what exactly is an online auction anyway and what are its benefits? According to The Pocket Oxford Dictionary, fourth edition (1942), an auction is a “public sale in which articles are sold to the highest bidder.” And if done on Internet it is online auction.

Online auctions create a competitive advantage because they make it relatively simple for Procurement managers to negotiate on all corporate purchases and create better deals. read full article…

In part one we covered the popularity and the possibilities that internet auctions can bring you. In part two we discussed how to set an auction business on ebay. And in this final installment we will discuss tips and tricks to shoot your ebay profits through the roof.

With internet auctions you make your money when you buy. What this means is that if you did not buy the item for a low enough price, you will not be able to make a great profit. You need to research the price of an item before you put it up for an auction and before you buy it. While you are researching pay attention to price, which categories the item has sold the best, quality of photos, and which key points in the description have worked best in the past. read full article…

One of the keys to success on eBay is to carry out thorough research on your market. There are numerous software programs and online tools to help you do this but recently the San Francisco Publishers No Starch press came out with a new print book that serious eBayers will find very useful.

The eBay Price Guide by Julia L Wilkinson covers every category on eBay.com and in its 570+ pages with examples of prices achieved for many thousands of articles. read full article…

Buying in any auction either on or offline can be an exciting experience. You see an item that you are interested in and you make a bid. But then someone else bids and you are no longer the high bid. Well, your bid was a bit low anyway so you might as well raise it a little and get control because there are only a few minutes to the end of the auction.

And so up and up go the bids until the end of the auction arrives. One of two things will have happened, you will either have won the item and paid way over the odds or you will breath a sigh of relief as someone else has the winning bid. read full article…

At first glance, selling and buying items online would appear to be as easy as sending an email or downloading a song after a few clicks of the mouse. But with the rate at which several online auction and shopping websites pop up and disappear, and the growing number of bidding frauds done online, one can say that online auctions are getting to be risky undertakings.

The popularity of auction and shopping sites trivialized the issue of security against fraudulent transactions. As online companies such as eBay continue to pile up on customer complaints of varying degrees, online sellers, buyers or bidders should enter into online transactions with a discerning eye, and armed with at least the basics of online auctions. read full article…

Introduction

The success of eBay has been attracting millions of people looking for things to buy or sell online, and its growing popularity helped set off a flurry of similar online auction and shopping businesses. But online auctions were among those who were badly hit by the dotcom bubble burst, and many of those websites that appeared like mushrooms in 2000 were as quick to disappear online.

Luckily, such was not the case with other online auction and shopping companies that have managed to survive and continue its business. Among those companies, aside from eBay, are Yahoo! Auctions, Amazon Auctions, uBid.com, and bid stuff finder such as BidFind.

Three Types of Online Auctions

If you are looking to buy or sell a specific item online, the wide plethora of auction and shopping sites with hundreds of products or services offered is enough to get you lost, sidetracked to other items, or even turn you off and just drop the whole idea. There are millions of items being traded online and it would be a good idea to have a basic idea on the types of online auctions sites.

Person-To-Person Auctions

This type of online auctions, while not necessarily the most secure, most certainly allows a large window of trust and credibility as it involves actual negotiations with individuals. As such, it allows greater leeway for haggling of the price, quantity, or other terms of the sale or purchase, and wider choices in goods. But be cautious of some companies’ practice of plunking their products in auctions at stock prices that are actually equal to or more than their usual retail price.

Company Commercial Auctions

This type of auctions involves big companies that use auction sites to sell their surplus stock, reconditioned items or withdrawn products. Other companies go into commercial auctions as a complementary method of selling items.

Real-time/Live Auctions

Some auctions go a notch higher by doing live auctions via Internet broadcast. Bidders participate in the bidding at real-time either within a specific auction site, or from through the Internet. This type of online auctions usually requires pre-registration to be able to participate in the actual bidding.

Some Auction Terms To Live By

Participating in an online or offline auction does not involve ordinary terms of buying and selling. Knowing the proper auction terminologies is a must for anyone who plans to take part in an auction. “As is, where is” is the term that refers to an item on sale as it is found or in its present form. This usually connotes non-return of sold items. Bid Cancellation refers to the unilateral cancellation by the seller of a bid item. Bid Retraction refers to the unilateral cancellation by a bidder of hi/her bid during an auction. Deadbeats refer to winning high bidders who fail to pay for the item won. Escrow refers to the money held in trust by a party other than the seller and buyer, and paid to the seller after delivery is made to the buyer. Minimum Bid refers to the smallest amount set by the seller for which the item is auctioned. On the other hand, Maximum Bid refers to the highest bid amount that a bidder will pay for the auctioned item.

About the Author:

Mikel Beck is the owner of ListedWrong.com, which is a search engine that allows you to search eBay for listings that have misspellings. He can be reached by e-mailing mikel.beck@elite-computing.net or webmaster@listedwrong.com.

The eBay Story

Compared with other dotcom companies launched almost at the same time as eBay, none has ever reached the level of success and popularity among a very huge client base than that of eBay’s. Throughout its existence, the company remained steadfast in surviving the bubble burst, but also maintained if not improved its position in the market today.

What is eBay? read full article…

Testing the Waters

If you’ve ever dreamed of quitting your job and going into business for yourself, you may have considered online retail. But opening your own website is quite an undertaking—you’ll need to get a URL for your website, acquire a shopping cart, have someone design your web pages, get listed with the major search engines. And you’re going to have to pay for all those services up front, which means you’ll need to have some capital set aside. So before you tell your boss what you really think of his toupee, you may want to consider trying a less-drastic route first—the eBay store. read full article…

Home Business Review: Sell $20,000 per month on eBay

First of all let me tell you selling on eBay is easy, but it takes time or money. eBay has fees that you have to pay and if you want to grow quickly you will spend a lot on fees while you are learning.

My wife had an eBay business and she was a Gold Power Seller selling more than $20,000 per month. She sold mostly watches, lots and lots of watches. read full article…

No matter what you sell on eBay having a digital scale is probably the second most important item you will need in order to be successful (a digital camera is the first). If you’ve ever shipped a package you know that you need to have the correct weight so that you have the correct postage on it. If you estimate the weight you’re either going to pay too much for postage or your package will be returned for not having enough postage. With the price of stamps these days you cannot afford to pay too much for shipping. read full article…