April 2006 General Meeting

MEETING NOTICE – Tuesday April 4, 2006

This months CCCGC General meeting will be held Tuesday April 04, 2006. Fred McCarthy of the Venice Group will give a presentation on eBay buying and selling. An overview of the presentation follows:

EBAY 101 by Fred McCarthy
Frederick McCarthy has been a Venice resident for over 10 years and is a member of VACUG, SPCUG and DIMAGE.

Fred completed his doctoral degree in Higher Education at Indiana University with minors in research methods and media production. He retired from the State University of New York (Potsdam College) where he taught Research Methods, Instructional Media and Tests and Measurements, in addition to serving as Graduate Studies Extension Coordinator. Dr. McCarthy admits to a life-long addiction to the practice of photography and collecting photographica.

My April 4th, 2006 presentation is planned as a review some of what I have learned in 8+ yrs as an eBay user. This will be somewhat of an “unauthorized” talk as I am not a certified eBay instructor though I have considered such. This is intended as a general How-To- Do-It and review of one person’s experiences in this area of the electronic market place.

If you attend this meeting you will learn how I almost lost over $1,200 in buying an undelivered Lladro figurine and what I did about it. Also, how you can protect yourself from fraudulent listings and handling requests for personal information that could lead to trouble if not handled properly.

EBay has been both fun and profitable for me. My wife and I have been active collectors and we have been using eBay to both acquire and liquidate items in our collections. As an active photographer and collector of photographica for over 30 years, I have reached the point where I need to downsize and can’t imagine how much more difficult this would be without the eBay marketplace.

If you haven’t already figured it out, eBay is BIG business. There are currently over 168 million registered eBay buyers and sellers located throughout the world. It is estimated that eBay did over $30 billion in sales in 2005. In my interest area alone, there were over $190 million in photography items sold last year. On any given day there are millions of items actively posted for sale on their site. Sellers range from regular store based retailers to folks like myself, selling out of the family room or garage. Many see eBay as a “community” of buyers and sellers where each side tries to help the other. Feedback on items bought and sold is encouraged and is an important part of the eBay experience.

Now to specifics.

Browsing eBay.
If you are not already familiar with eBay, I suggest that you start by doing extensive browsing on the www.ebay.com web site. You will find this to be both fun and educational. This is where you can find what others are buying and selling and at what prices. Suppose you have an original Walt Disney Classic Collection copy of Cinderella’s dress and want to find out what it’s worth. Here’s where you can do so. Want to buy a book to practice your origami skills? Type the word in the search box and soon you’ll be off and folding! Once you get into it, browsing on eBay can become very addictive. You’ll definitely run out of time before you run out of categories and items to search for during your browsing activities. Have a family member who’s into Hummel figurines? Don’t type this word into the search box unless you have a lot of time. I just did so and found that there are currently 5957 items available with prices ranging from $3999.00 to $.01.

Buying on eBay.
Before you can actually bid on an item, you have to register with eBay. This involves your entering personal information such as name and address, etc. The procedure is very straight forward is done over a secure internet connection. As a “registered” eBay user you’ll be able to do more sophisticated searches (like reviewing the prices that particular items sold for over the past 30 days) and of course, entering bids on things you wish to purchase. You’ll find that many items are offered with a “Buy It Now” option that will close the auction immediately on your agreeing to purchase at a predetermined price. Not surprisingly, there are a lot of options in the bidding process and I will attempt to review these during my presentation. In addition to completing the normal eBay registration, you may also want to register with Pay Pal (an electronic banking system). You will find that many sellers will only deal with customers who have Pay Pal accounts. Pay Pal is a full story by itself but will be touched on lightly during this evening’s

program.

Bartering on eBay.
Here is where you put items up for sale on the eBay auction web site. There are a number of options available and lot of decisions to make when you get into the bartering arena. How much is your item worth? What is the lowest price you are willing to accept? How many days do you want your listing to appear? It seems that the decision list is almost endless. My suggestion is to start small and get a good feeling of how this system works before dealing with expensive and or rare items. The good news bad news here is that the current market place actually determines final values. Actual sales turn on a willing buyer willing seller environment.

I plan to go over the listing procedures with you and will show by example some of my personal tricks of the trade. Needless to say, good photographs of your items are a must as is an accurate and honest description of the item you’re listing. Key words are important and spelling matters. If you are trying to sell surplus accessories for your

Beseler enlarger and enter Besseler, don’t be surprised if you get few if any bids. On the other hand, you may use this to your advantage when searching. If you search for Besseler under the above situation, you’re bound to find a real bargain with little competition should you get a hit. I’ll touch on some of the pros and cons of selling in this electronic market place as well as noting some personal experiences on both sides of the coin.

Time permitting, I will close with some “after-the-sale” issues such as communicating with the buyer, packaging and shipping, leaving and receiving feedback, etc. I anticipate a packed hour and am anxious entertain your questions and ideas.

For driving directions, click here.