• Welcome from Brian McGregor 
• Inspirational Quote of the Day
• News and Views
• Gone Phishing?
• How to Prevent Your eBay Auction From Being Removed
• Selecting the Best eBay Category
• A Gift from Me to You
• Someone's auctioning what? Unusual items currently available
• Finally
• My Products Catalogue
• Back to Newsletter Archive

Hello and welcome.

A particularly warm welcome to you if you're a new subscriber. It's good to have you as part of the family taking my eBay newsletter.

Just a short welcome note today as I'm very busy working on a new service which I hope to announce before the end of the year.

This is something any eBay seller would benefit from and, as far as I can tell, is a first.

What with the new service and Christmas approaching, there isn't a lot of time left.

Look forward to speaking with you again soon.

Brian
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1. Bird Flu Reaches Paris!

I know it's not eBay, but I'm also aware that many people have questions and concerns about Bird Flu. Getting to Paris is a landmark.

Take a look here.


On a more serious note, if you want to know about bird flu, I have written an ebook about it. What I did was find answers to the questions which I had.

The ebook was updated on 15 November, so it's pretty well current. It's free. Plus there's a link in the ebook so you can get it sent automatically to any of your friends, relations or colleagues. And, you'll also find a second book on bird flu on the download page should you wish to read that too.

You can get my ebook from here.


2. A Sign of the Times

Unless you live there, you may not have heard of the Oregon Department of Administrative Services.

I think these guys are pioneers, and way ahead of their time. Let me explain...

Have you ever thought what happens to all those items which are confiscated at airports? You know the sort of thing; nail scissors, lighter refill canisters and the like. Well, Portland airport have all their confiscated items collected by Oregon's DAS. And DAS then list them for sale on eBay.

Now, they're not going to make much income for the State coffers from nail scissors, but what about a Volkswagen carburetor or a 30 inch machete? These are just a couple of the items which DAS auctioned thanks to Portland airport passengers.

Where DAS goes today, I wonder how many airports will follow tomorrow?


3. On a Similar Theme...

Ever wanted to own a Police car?

Think of the convenience. You'll never have a parking problem again!

If you're alert, you'll be able to catch the next sale of Groveland Police's obsolete police cars on eBay. Their next sale is due in March 2006.

The only downside is that they remove all the good bits before they part with the cars. So, sorry, no lights, no siren, no police decal along the side!

Not sure if it's worth bidding now!


4. New eBay Resource

As an eBay buyer or seller, you will know that it is useful having market intelligence about the niches in which you operate.

eBay have recently announced a new resource which you could find to be tremendously helpful. It's called Marketplace Research. You can view and analyze top searches, average start prices, average sold prices and much more.

Find out about Marketplace Research here.


5. Make Sure Your PC is 'Clean'

I don't know about you, but I am more and more concerned about spyware and viruses getting onto my PC. It's absolutely vital for my eBay business that I prevent people from getting hold of my passwords. Not to mention my online bank details, my PayPal information and my access details to several other sites which are financially related.

I've used Norton anti-virus for the past two years and, touch wood, never had a major problem in the area of virus infection.

I also use Lavasoft AdAware, which I run to detect spyware, key loggers and the like.

I read a report recently which mentioned that those nasty people who produce spyware and key loggers have made advances. And that the products which previously were effective in detecting spyware and key loggers may no longer be so. The article mentioned that a product called Spyzooka was the new generation of detection systems. So I decided to run an experiment.

I ran AdAware first, and this produced 52 nasties. I requested AdAware to delete these.

So, now my PC was theoretically clear of spyware, key loggers etc.

I then ran Spyzooka.

Spyzooka found 101 more nasties!

This was quite a shock for me. Anyway, they've gone now, and I have Spyzooka preventing further infections of spyware and key loggers.

If you want to run the experiment on your own PC, you can download Spyzooka here.

Or, if you want to read about Spyzooka first, you can do so here.


6. Now You See it...

I thought you would like this.

Who was it who said you can't believe your eyes?

Well, with this, you won't!

Take a look here.

You've probably heard of phishing.

It's not the new phonetic spelling many of our youngsters are subjected to in school. Phishing is a criminal activity which has matured with the internet.

The Webopedia definition of "phishing" is:

"The act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. The e-mail directs the user to visit a Web site where they are asked to update personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers, that the legitimate organization already has. The Web site, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the user’s information."

Phishers send out these emails in their millions. And they only need a tiny percentage to respond in order to derive a huge payback.

In recent months, eBay has been a favourite "partner" of the phishers.

The latest attempt hit my inbox earlier this week and is cleverly presented.

The sender of this email is eBay Member - rivernick. In the subject line there was an official sounding "Question from eBay Member".

The email body begins with "Question from eBay Member -- Respond Now. eBay sent this message on behalf of an eBay member via My Messages. Responses sent using email will not reach the eBay member. Use the Respond Now button below to respond to this message."

This is a psychological plant which is designed to condition you to click on the Respond Now button.

The phisher applies more psychological pressure in the message itself:

"Question from rivernick: I'm still waiting payment for my item for about 7 days. What happened? Please mail me ASAP or I will report you to ebay."

The use of a threat is a classic phisher tactic, and conveys the status of them being in the right. Also, the phisher is using the prospect of a negative feedback as a persuasive device for you to get this sorted. What the phisher is hoping you do is convince yourself that there must be a transaction you haven't completed or, at the least, get you to be inquisitive about the particular transaction. The phisher hopes to tempt or persuade you to click on the Respond Now button as a short cut to getting the details of the transaction.

If you do click on the button, you are taken to a page which looks exactly like a genuine eBay page. And this is where the phisher closes in on their objective. In order that you can see the transaction, you are requested to key in your your eBay ID and your password.

When you do this, the phisher has gained your details.

But that could be just the start.

Often with these types of phishers when you've keyed in your eBay ID and password you are taken to a page to "update your account information". Innocent eBay members may proceed to input credit card and other personal information. Again, all of this is being captured by the phisher.

I've read somewhere that the banks have reported around 1% of phishing emails succeed in their objectives. This is a tremendous return for those involved in this activity. Just imagine the 1 million phishing emails I mnetioned earlier. Using the banks' figures, this means as many as 10,000 people getting ripped off from one mailing!

This is an area where it is absolutely fine to be paranoid.

I can't stress this strongly enough. Never, ever click on a link within an email from eBay, PayPal, a bank or any other organisation which holds personal or financial data of yours.

This also includes emails which appear to come from eBay members. To check if such an email is a genuine member-to-member communication, you will find it in your My Messages in My eBay. If it doesn't appear in there, it's a fraud.

If you want to review my 26 point article on how to trade safely, including phishing, you'll find it here.

Have you ever had an auction removed by eBay, but you weren't aware you had broken any rules?

I can sympathise with you. I've been there. Several times in fact.

As you know, eBay is a site which is self-regulated by its members. Any member can report another member's auctions as being in breach of an eBay rule. You as the seller, are unaware this has happened. You don't know that your auction is the subject of a review by one of eBay's legion of auction checkers. They are judge and jury - and the first you know about it is the email telling you that your auction has been removed, your fees refunded and warning you not to do it again!

An unfortunate consequence of this particular eBay policy is that you are guilty until proven innocent. You're left with the almost impossible task of persuading eBay that a mistake has been a made.

If you're innocent and your auction has been pulled unreasonably, I thought it might be useful if we discussed a tactic which might help in preventing your auctions from being removed in future.

I mentioned that if your auction is reported, it will get reviewed by eBay. This is the key for you.

Create a statement about your auction covering any potential rules question which you may be susceptible to.

For example, as you might know, I write ebooks. When I first started selling these on eBay, I was getting my ebook auctions removed by eBay on the basis that they had been reported for breach of copyright. Seeing as I had written every word, I was bemused as to who's copyright I was breaching!

What I suspected was that a competitor was doing the reporting! It might equally have been a youngster with more time on their hands than was good for them, just being mischievous.

So, I created a statement which I use to this day on all my ebook auctions. It simply says:

[Note for eBay]
[I am the copyright owner of the ebook in this auction, and I am a member of eBay's VeRO programme]

By adding this, I found my ebook auctions were far less likely to be removed.

I don't know which part of the statement the eBay checkers took note of. But I know it works.

If you're suffering from your auctions being removed, yet you believe you have a perfect right to run the auction, create your own statement for eBay and place it in every auction. You will need to cover why the auction isn't in breach of the rules for which you believe you're being reported.

(I mentioned VeRO in my statement as VeRO is all about Rights Ownership. Incidentally, the way you become a member of VeRO is simply to report a seller who is auctioning an item for which you own the rights and for which you haven't conferred these to the seller. In other words, you join VeRO by using VeRO.)

Another tip is to make sure your statement is easy to see. There's no point in hiding it away near the bottom of your auction. Whilst the checkers will look at your auction, they don't have time to check every word. And remember, their default position is that you're likely to be guilty of the "offence" anyway. So you need to make it prominent.

I always have my statement as the very first item on my auction description page. And that's where I recommend you have yours.

As a final comment, I'm not writing this so that you can get round eBay's policies. If you're guilty of breaching the rules, I've no sympathy for you at all. Don't do it! There's plenty of opportunity to make money on eBay without bending the rules.

If, however, you are genuinely an innocent party, I hope this helps you avoid the frustration of getting your auctions removed by eBay.

One of the features of eBay is that with so many members, 193 million at 31st March 2006, there will always be buyers interested in what you have to sell no matter what the item is.

It will be very difficult not to find an eBay category which perfectly reflects your item.

Sadly, I once counted the number of categories on eBay. To give you some idea of the numbers, there are around 2,000 computing categories and 1,350 clothing categories. The point is, there will almost always be category which is exactly appropriate for your item.

Is it important to find the right category when you're listing an item?

When you consider that around 30% of buyers select a category to browse through when looking to buy or bid on something of interest, getting in the right category is worth the effort. Also, if you're listed in the wrong category, or in an inappropriate category, you're going to miss these browsers.

Plus, don't forget listing items in the wrong category is against the rules. eBay will remove auctions that are wrongly categorised and reserve the right to cancel the membership of persistent offenders.

The good news is that there's no reason why you should ever wind up with your item in the wrong category.

eBay's category suggestion tools which you see when you list an item are particularly useful. With the category search facility, all you need to do is type in a few keywords related to your item, and eBay comes back with suggested categories together with a percentage of the number of items which match your keywords. If you use one of these categories, you will be fine.

Incidentally, one tip is to list your item in the lowest level of category possible. This is because items listed in a sub-category are also included in every category above. For example, if you're listing a wedding dress which is size 14, place it in Clothes>Wedding>Wedding Dresses>Size 14.

If someone searches for a size 14 wedding dress, your item will appear in the search return list along with the other size 14 wedding dresses. This is the best place to be, as there is the least competition. If someone searches on wedding dress without specifying a size, your item will appear in the search return list along with other wedding dresses of any size. So your dress will be up against more competition on this search.

There will be occasions when you might want to place your item into more than one category, which you can do for an additional fee. But please make sure this is really worthwhile. If your item is a genuine fit into one category, this is the one to go for. If it is a marginal fit for a second category, it may be a waste of your fee in using the second category.

It's definitely worth taking time to determine the best category for your item.

Let's say you're in the UK, and you have a set of golf clubs to auction. You see there are 8,000 sets of golf cubs currently for sale on eBay. But your clubs are left handed. Do you think you'll have better success placing your golf clubs in the left handed golf clubs category?

It's an absolute certainty!

Here's a useful software item that runs right within Internet Explorer. It's called Auction Gizmo.

The authors claim this is much better than eBay Toolbar! Well, I guess that's up to you to decide.

You can check out Auction Gizmo for yourself here.

Nothing surprises me when it comes to internet auctions. Amuse yourself with some of these beauties.

As the auction text says, "A very unusual gift"!!!

Are these the best seats in the house?

This is what I call a bargain. Shame about the size!

"We're doomed I tell you. We're all doomed!"

It looks like Captain Kirk's to me. What do you think?

Disclaimer - I have no association with any of the sellers of the above items.