Book description
Want to know how best to use eBay? Whether you're a newcomer or longtime user, eBay Hacks will teach you to become efficient as both a buyer and seller. You'll find a wide range of topics, from monitoring the bidding process, getting refunds, and fixing photos so that sale items look their best, to in-depth tips for running a business on eBay and writing scripts that automate some of the most tedious tasks. That's just the nuts and bolts. The book also gives you an inside look into the unique eBay community, where millions of people gather online to buy and sell. Author David Karp--an eBay user himself, with years of experience--teaches you how to work within this community to maximize your success. eBay Hacks includes four powerful sections:
"Hacks for All" covers eBay's diplomacy and feedback system, describing how you can maintain a good feedback profile and use it to inspire trust in others.
"Hacks for Buyers" shows you how to focus your searches to find auctions before anyone else--including ways to create an automated search robot. Then, learn how bidding works in the real world, using eBay's proxy bidding system to improve your win rate while spending less money.
"Hacks for Sellers" teaches strategies for competitive selling, like promoting your items without spending extra money and protecting yourself from deadbeat buyers. Learn how to run a fulltime business on eBay by streamlining the listing process, communications and checkout.
"Hacks for Developers" delves into eBay's API, an interface for writing programs that do the work that most users have to do by hand through a web browser.
With eBay Hacks, you'll be more than a buyer or seller. You will become a savvy power user who knows the smart way to save time, save money, and dramatically improve auction success.
Table of contents
-
eBay Hacks
- Credits
- Foreword: This Magic Marketplace
- Preface
- 1. Diplomacy and Feedback
-
2. Searching
- Hacks #9-19
- Focus Your Searches with eBayâs Advanced Search Syntax
- Controlling Fuzzy Searches
- Jumping In and Out of Categories While Searching
- Tweaking Search URLs
- Find Similar Items
- Search by Seller
- Search Internationally
- Save Your Searches
- Create a Search Robot
- Find Items by Shadowing
- The eBay Toolbar
-
3. Bidding
- Hacks #20-32
- Sniffing Out Dishonest Sellers
- Snipe It Manually
- Automatic Sniping
- Conditional Sniping with Bid Groups
- Keep Track of Auctions Outside of eBay
- Take Advantage of Bid Increments
- Manipulating Buy-It-Now Auctions
- Retract Your Bid Without Retracting Your Bid
- Tools for Dealing with Fraud
- Send Payment Quickly and Safely
- International Transactions Made Easier
- Save Money on Shipping
- Dealing with Disappointment: Getting Refunds
-
4. Selling
- Hacks #33-54
- Whatâs It Worth?
- To Bundle or Not to Bundle
- Reserve Judgment
- The Strategy of Listing Upgrades
- Putting Keywords in Your Auction
- Track Your Exposure
- Expectation Management
- Formatting the Description with HTML
- Customize Auction Page Backgrounds
- Framing Your Auctions
- Overriding eBayâs Fonts and Styles
- Annoy Them with Sound
- Put a Shipping Cost Calculator in Your Auction
- Allow Visitors to Search Through Your Auctions
- List Your Other Auctions in the Description
- Make Good Use of the About Me Page
- Opting Out of Checkout
- Make Changes to Running Auctions
- Dynamic Text in Auction Descriptions
- Letâs Make a Deal
- Diplomacy 101: Answering Dumb Questions
- Keeping Out Deadbeat Bidders
- 5. Working with Photos
- 6. Completing Transactions
-
7. Running a Business on eBay
- Hacks #72-81
- eBay Stores
- Streamlining Listings
- Streamlining Communications
- Streamlining Checkout and Payment
- Obtaining Sales Records
- Make Money by Linking to eBay
- List Your Auctions on Another Site
- Accept PayPal Payments from Your Own Site
- Process PayPal Payments Automatically
- Keep Tabs on the eBay Community
-
8. The eBay API
- Hacks #82-100
- Climbing Out of the Sandbox
- API Searches
- Retrieve Details About an Auction
- Automatically Keep Track of Auctions Youâve Won
- Track Items in Your Watching List
- Automatically Keep Track of Auctions Youâve Sold
- Submit an Auction Listing
- Automate Auction Revisions
- Spellcheck All Your Auctions
- Negative Feedback Bidder Alert
- Automatically Relist Unsuccessful Auctions
- Send Automatic Emails to High Bidders
- Generate a Custom Gallery
- Leaving Feedback
- Negative Feedback Notification
- Automatic Reciprocal Feedback
- Queue API Calls
- Cache Auction Data to Improve API Efficiency
- Working Without the eBay API
- Index
- Colophon
Product information
- Title: eBay Hacks
- Author(s):
- Release date: August 2003
- Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
- ISBN: 9780596005641
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