Powersellers Blog

I’ve been selling online for more than a year now and I must say that business is doing well. PayPal is one of my accepted mode of payments. But it is just soo annoying that PayPal now won’t let you change your Shipping Destination to a country other than your registered PayPal address. Doesn’t this defeat the purpose of using PayPal as a global currency? 

 I found this out when I sold one of my items through eBay and the buyer told me that she wanted to have the items shipped to USA, but she can’t change the shipping country in her PayPal account since she has a Hong Kong-based PayPal. I decided to check it out myself. Using my Philippine-based PayPal, I was surprised to see that I can’t change the shipping country to USA. It tells me that I’m not allowed to have my items shipped to USA! It’s a definite setback for PayPal. A lot of Filipinos buy tons of stuff online and have it shipped to their relatives living in USA. So it should not be a problem. Furthermore, it cuts off the seller from more potential buyers. 

 I tried to use my Philippine-based PayPal in drugstore.com, but it told me that the website does not ship to that country. They definitely lost 1 customer and a $300 order because I was not going to have it shipped to the Philippines..It was supposed to ship out to Los Angeles, California. 

I wish they’d just go back to their old policy. Because I used to be able to change the shipping country to USA. It could save me dozens of email exchange with the buyer trying to explain, plus I don’t lose any international buyer at all! 

 I have been using Bidz .com web site quite some time now. It is auction site and they have different valuable items like jewellery, computer, paintings and etc. I bought some items from them. I avail their free shipping international service offer and also free code of $25 off from total successfully. Over all the Bidz.com is a safe web auction site especially for jewellery. They have wonderful jewellery and other collection. I never had any complain against them.

I use Amazon.com web site very frequently and when count in a month I can say loads of time. Amazon is a wonderful site and here one can find any thing or I can say and every thing. From jewellery to electronic item. Games to clothing every thing is here. They offer free shipping at order $25 and above at United Sates site and £5 and above at United Kingdom site .
Amazon is a best place to shop. I browse the site almost daily. These days there are loads of Christmas gift options and offers on the site. They add almost daily new deals, hot items and different bargains. The return policy is also very good . Some times I buy items and when reach home I find it different from original picture or even if I find not needed I returned that with full refund without any problem at all.
The amazon.com is US based while they also offer other sites for United kingdom (Amazon. co.uk), Neither land, France , Germany and etc.
Fully recommend the site to every body.

I have tried many online business in the past few years and none have been very successful or profitable.  My newest is making custom made swarovski crystal jewelry.  I have made quite a few items and even this time around have a website.  The jewelry is truly beautiful but I have not had any customers.  It is rather depressing.  The site is www.diamondeffects.com – I need advice and help on how to make this site better and how to become a powerseller because the ebay thing wasn’t working for me either!

The Internet company eBay is both tightening its belt and expanding its reach in preparation for the coming economic storm.

On Monday, eBay announced it would lay off 10 percent of its 16,000 workers, including 1,000 permanent employees, and pay $1.35 billion to acquire the Web payment firm Bill Me Later and the Danish classified advertising companies Den Bla Avis and BilBasen.

EBay, based in San Jose, Calif., said most of the layoffs would be in its core marketplace division, which has suffered from declining single-digit growth rates while online commerce has been growing at a double-digit clip.

In an interview, John J. Donahoe, eBay’s chief executive, said the layoffs were the first significant cuts in eBay history, and that he would be communicating via webcast with eBay’s employees around the world to convey the bad news. “We are treating the affected people with the kinds of values you would expect out of eBay,” he said.

Meanwhile, the company is doubling down on what it sees as the most promising parts of its business, like online payments. Revenue from PayPal, which eBay acquired in 2002, is expected to grow at a 35 percent rate this year as large companies like Southwest Airlines and Wal-Mart stores offer it as a payment option on their Web sites.

PayPal got its start by allowing individuals and small merchants to send money to one another over the Internet from their bank accounts or credit cards.

EBay is paying $920 million in cash and options for Bill Me Later, an eight-year-old firm based in Timonium, Md. The company takes a different approach to online payments. It allows people to buy items on the Internet and then sends them a bill within 30 days, at which point they can either pay the bill outright or take out a loan.

Bill Me Later works by asking consumers for their date of birth and the last four digits of their Social Security number and then performing a rapid electronic credit check. Because it also knows what people are buying and where they are shipping it, Bill Me Later says it can conduct sophisticated analysis to determine whether purchases might be fraudulent and whether the buyer is capable of paying the bill on time.

Amazon.com, eBay’s main rival in online shopping, invested in Bill Me Later last year and has integrated the payment service into its site. It is unclear whether that relationship will continue. Amazon declined to comment on the transaction.

Shares of eBay fell on Monday along with the overall market, dropping $1.05, or 5.5 percent, to $17.89. Although eBay’s stock is at a five-year low, Mr. Donahoe said the company’s strong balance sheet and cash balance have allowed it to take advantage of Bill Me Later’s declining value in a market that has been rough on all companies in the finance sector.

“We feel a little like Warren Buffett. We are a strong company, and at times like this we can move to take advantage of the market environment,” he said in an interview.

EBay also announced on Monday that it was acquiring the popular Danish classified advertising site DBA.dk and the automotive marketplace BilBasen.dk for $390 million, from the Danish media mogul Karsten Ree. The deal is one of the largest in Denmark’s history. A local newspaper reported that the companies had negotiated on and off for four years.

EBay has been steadily building or buying classified Web sites and already owns properties like Kijiji, Gumtree, Marktplaats, LoQuo and mobile.de. EBay also owns a 25 percent stake in the American online classifieds leader Craiglist, but its interest in buying the firm outright led the companies to sue each other this year.

EBay’s attempt to stitch together a global network of classified advertising sites is partly intended to create an alternative to its sagging traditional business of auctions. For the first time on Monday, eBay disclosed some financial information about its classifieds holdings, saying they generated $260 million in revenue last year — which it described as three to four times the estimated annual revenue of the closely held Craigslist.

Source : Nytimes

Online auction site eBay has said it plans to overhaul its feedback system and will ban sellers from leaving negative comments about buyers.EBay said problems were occurring, and slowing down trade, when buyers left negative comments about sellers who then retaliated with their own views.

From May, those selling on eBay will not be able to leave unfavourable or neutral messages about buyers.

The move, which will affect users worldwide, has angered many sellers.

Sellers say it will leave them unprotected.

‘Open forum’

The feedback forum was introduced by Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar in February 1996.

In a message then, he said: “By creating an open market that encourages honest dealings, I hope to make it easier to conduct business with strangers over the net.

“Now, we have an open forum. Use it. Make your complaints in the open.

“Better yet, give your praise in the open. Let everyone know what a joy it was to deal with someone. Above all, conduct yourself in a professional manner.”

Tricky customers

Critics of the changes argue that by taking away a seller’s right to complain about a problem buyer they will have very little recourse for action when a sale goes wrong.

And they complain that by still allowing buyers to leave dissenting comments about sellers, eBay has skewed the whole trading process.

When both sides have equal access and rights to leave negative comments about each other it is a well balanced trading process, they say. However, eBay counters that problem buyers can still be dealt with.

“If a buyer doesn’t pay, the seller can easily contact eBay, we will review any complaint and maybe remove the buyer,” a spokesman said.

The changes aim to “improve the overall customer experience”, eBay said.

It added that many buyers would not leave negative comments for fear that sellers would retaliate.

As a result, buyers and sellers may not get a fair picture of what is actually happening between trading parties.

It maintains that the majority of transactions go “swimmingly”.

EBay says that only a minority of sellers leave negative feedback for buyers.

Source : BBC News

Following there are some tips to sell better your products in ebay :

- always start your bid very low, it will promote more easily the bids

- always put a picture of your product, sometimes a picture is better than a description

- if you are going to sell similar products, better to put some space time to your selling

- do the promotion of your product by showing the original price for example

- put the maximum days for your bidding (10 days)

- select the right hour when it will end your bid (ie 9PM)

- dont put a wrong price for your delivery

- try hard to have a good reputation (better to have 100% of positive evaluation than 90%)

If you are selling in Ebay, one of the way for your futur customers to trust you and to increase you like seller, use the counter option that you can activate it when you create your post. More higher the counter numbers, more people will trust your product.

Selling in ebay is very easy but how to get back his money or to do a change when you are a buyer and you get your product in bad condition or not corresponding at what you bought ?

Many people get bad experience when they dont get what they bought and want a refund or an exchange. First because the cost to send it back can be expensive, 2ndly it is hard to convince the seller to change or a refund in spite that conditions have been put in the page and 3rdly normally you prefer to keep it and try to repair it and put a very bad feedback on the seller profile.

Hopefully not all sellers are bad seller and not all buyers are good buyers but for all buyers be carefull and for all sellers please be honest.

I’m just new in using Paypal. I guess I was just a member of it for just a month or so. I have read lots of warnings about using Paypal accounts and I even read somewhere here that there are some fake paypal emails. Those articles really makes me think if its safe to use paypal. I am still trying the site and I am not yet familiar with the usage and the different transactions with paypal. I don’t wnt to just jump on a conclusion of paypal is safe or not. Though I have made one or two transactions with them and I haven’t got any problem with that so I might stay with using paypal though I will still keep my eyes on guard and to make your that there’s no fraud happening on my account.