Free shipping supplies?

Yes, you can get shipping supplies for free! Everything from boxes & large envelopes to mailing labels and tape. It is all availalbe from you local US Post Office.
You can visit your local office, or even shop online and have them dropped off right at your door, shipping is also FREE, how can you beat that?

They offer a variety of sizes for both envelopes and boxes, some are even available pre-paid to save you any hassle standing in line or having to buy postage.

If you don't see any boxes large enough to suite your needs, be creative. Can you combine two or more Priority boxes to custom fit the item you plan to ship?

If you do your shipping using USPS Priority Mail, all of these supplies are available at shop.usps.com
You will need to register (this is also free), browse the online store and order the items you are looking for. Enter your address and they should arrive within a few days at no cost to you.

Postal Service class educates eBay sellers

Source: Mlive.com - Seth Gordon - Sunday, December 10, 2006

Bob Clayton took six pages of notes because he wants to get started. Ellen Gillun and Heath Smith picked up a few tips that will enhance the work they've already done.

All three, and a couple dozen more, will be more savvy post office customers and eBay auctioneers thanks to the couple of hours they spent Wednesday with Dan Lesperance and Darrow Scruggs, members of the U.S. Postal Service's Business Development Team.

At least 250 million people are registered users of the online auction site eBay, Lesperance said. And many more are about to be.

"We consider eBay people small businesses,'' said Lesperance, who has been an eBay seller for six years. "Every person that we teach to sell on eBay becomes a postal customer that ships through us, so it only makes good sense for us to teach these classes.''

Lesperance and Scruggs presented two free eBay seminars Wednesday at the Augusta Township hall, hosted by Whittaker Postmaster Linda Gurka. They outlined the eBay process and shared tips on how to best take advantage of the Postal Service when shipping items sold online.

Clayton, an Ann Arbor resident, said he hasn't tried selling on the Web site yet, and found the seminar more informative than he expected.

"I have a roommate who has done this type of thing, but I've never watched him, or done anything (myself),'' Clayton said. "This is much more thorough and complete than he could have ever told me.''

In most cases, Lesperance and Scruggs run the seminar while connected to eBay and the U.S. Postal Service Web site, but because there was no Internet connection available in the township meeting room they were using, they presented a slide show to walk people through each step.

Gillun and Smith, both from Whittaker, have been selling items on eBay for about a year, but both picked up a few new ideas.

"We had to figure everything out on our own,'' Smith said. "We're neighbors and we were constantly going back and forth with questions.''

Smith was having problems scheduling his auctions to end at the most advantageous times - weekend evenings - but Lesperance quickly identified the problem: eBay operates on Pacific Standard Time, not Eastern Standard Time.

"I saw three of us (sellers) with the same item, and theirs went for three times the price of ours because their auctions ended at 7 or 8 in the evening, and mine finished at 2 o'clock in the afternoon,'' Smith said.

Willis resident Kathy Grougan and her daughter, Kathy Tepper, plan to sell clothing, glassware and other items they no longer need after the holidays. Grougan, who is not familiar with computers, appreciated how easy it was to follow along with the seminar.

"I'm not good at doing yard sales, so I thought this would be a great way to get rid of these things,'' Grougan said. "I have all of these Taco Bell dogs and I know people like those.''

The Postal Service's Business Development Team is a pilot program developed to assist small businesses with growth, shipping and advertising. Aside from their regular duties and appointments, Lesperance and Scruggs give presentations all over southeast Michigan.

Because of his regular schedule, Lesperance said he has cut back the number of events he leads to about three a month, but the demand is much higher. He ran two seminars on every business day for the entire month of August and said he could present one a day for the entire year and not exhaust the demand.

"As we were doing them, people would ask where we were doing them next,'' Lesperance said. "We had to pass out schedules because people would come to this class, then the next day they would go to that class with two friends. A week later we would see them at another class with two other friends. It just grew and grew.''

Lesperance said several sessions are scheduled in Livonia in January, but most post offices have sign-up lists, and once the interest is high enough, they schedule an event.

Gurka, who had a sign-up sheet at her Whittaker post office for people who were interested in the seminar, said she spots new eBay sellers all the time, tipped off by questions about how much it will cost to send packages of various weights.

"I was glad that even what I consider my seasoned people, who have been doing it for a while, took home tips that they didn't know before,'' Gurka said of the seminars. "I'm pretty happy, and from the response, people want to do this again. So maybe in January or February we can do another one.''

For further information, contact the Business Development Team at 734-728-4910 or e-mail bdtdetroit@usps.gov

Easy online shipping using the Post Office

The United States Post office and eBay have made online shipping as easy as selling!

Let your computer and printer become your own Post Office™

The U.S. Postal Service and eBay have teamed to make shipping from eBay easier than ever. You can print and pay for Express Mail® and Priority Mail® labels with postage using your PayPal® account or credit card. It's a fast and easy way to prepare your packages.

Why leave your home or office?

With the U.S. Postal Service pickup options, we'll come and get your eBay packages from you. Use our Free next day Carrier Pickup™ or use our time-specific Pickup On Demand service for a fee. Simply request your package pickup online and we'll do the rest!

For more information about these services, visit the USPS website at: www.usps.com

Googles online payments takes on PayPal

It looks like Paypal has some serious competion in the online payment arena, in comes Google.

Souce: USA Today - Jefferson Graham

Google is offering merchants free use of its online payment service as it squares off against eBay's market-leading PayPal.

The Internet search giant introduced Google Checkout in June, with sweeteners such as free ad credits for merchants. In November, it began offering rebates to consumers, $10 off $30 purchases. PayPal quickly matched the offer.

On Wednesday, Google ratchets up the pressure by dropping merchant fees through 2007.

"I'm thrilled," says Lanny Morton, whose Sportscloseouts.com uses both Google Checkout and PayPal. "The online business is really competitive, and every little percentage helps."

Merchants pay a variety of fees to use the services. PayPal charges 2.9 percent plus 30 cents per transaction on sales up to $3,000 a month. Google's fee is 2 percent of the sale plus 20 cents, less if the merchant is a Google advertiser.

"Google has the potential to own this market," says Fred Lerner, president of photo print and accessory site Ritz Interactive, which uses Checkout. "PayPal is essentially laying down and letting Google buy market share."

Google's consumer rebate can be used many times. The PayPal rebate expired in November, but the company is offering a one-time-use discount to selected customers via e-mail. Some stores may offer extra incentives through either service.

EBay had no comment on Google's plans.

Benjamin Ling, the Google executive who runs Checkout, says it was not designed as Google's answer to PayPal but as a way to cut down on the steps (registering, typing in credit card and shipping information) needed for consumers to complete a purchase.

Once consumers sign up for Google Checkout, they can make purchases with one or two clicks.

The company decided to drop its merchant fees for now as a way to induce more businesses to try Checkout. "Once people use our service, they love it," Ling says.

Ling says "thousands" of merchants use Checkout, including Toys 'R' Us, Buy.com and Ritz.

Google won't say how many consumers have signed up for Checkout accounts.

PayPal says it has 123 million consumer account holders. It doesn't disclose merchant account figures.

"In a retail sense, using Checkout as a loss leader to get market share works for Google, because they will make it up with more advertising, which is highly profitable," says Martin Pyykkonen, an analyst at equity firm Global Crown Capital.

EBay, however, has reason to be concerned, he says. "Twenty-five percent of eBay's profits come from PayPal, so any pricing pressure isn't a positive."

eBay discontinues Pre-approved Bidder/Buyer List feature

Souce: Auctionbytes.com - Ina Steiner

An eBay spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday that the company will be eliminating the Pre-Approved Bidder feature for sellers. Catherine England said the change would take place after the holiday shopping season, but could reveal no details about the change at this time. eBay is currently alerting sellers of the impending change through messaging on the site, such as the notice on this page (http://pages.ebay.com/services/buyandsell/biddermanagement.html), but has not posted it to the main announcement board.

The optional Pre-Approved Bidder feature is used by some sellers to eliminate nuisance bidding and to control who may bid on their items. Users not on a seller's pre-approved list are asked to contact the seller by email before they can place a bid on the item. But apparently scammers may have been using the feature to collect email addresses of potential bidders.

A seller who contacted eBay about the change posted the response she received from customer support that cites Trust & Safety concerns. "Pre-Approved Bidder is being discontinued because it enables sellers to collect, and potentially misuse, the email addresses of prospective bidders. Inappropriate use of bidder information is, of course, a violation of the eBay Privacy Policy. Occasionally, sellers who have been approved by eBay may receive limited access to this feature."

But another seller questioned why eBay wouldn't keep the feature, but prevent sellers from seeing the potential bidder's email address.

eBay's attempts to thwart scammers through policy changes are often met with mixed reviews as well as skepticism - and frustration - from users.

A reader who contacted AuctionBytes about the impending change to the Pre-Approved Bidder feature said, "There goes one of the most powerful tool sellers have to keep Nigerian Scammers away from their higher priced BINS. No mention of it in eBay's announcements. Just this notice on the Pre-Approve page. Guess who won't be listing any more higher priced BINS now? Anybody who's been scammed by Nigerian Scammers using BIN - a group that includes myself."

eBay Motors recently instituted a new bidding policy called Safeguarding Member IDs, also in an effort to thwart scammers. That policy reduces the transparency of bidding activity for shoppers on eBay Motors for items that reach $200 in an effort to fight scammers who employ spoof phishing techniques. eBay also rolled out Safeguarding Member IDs on the UK site.

The elimination of Pre-Approved Bidder lists helps protect bidders, but prevents sellers from trying to protect themselves from scam bidders. Similarly, while the Safeguarding Member IDs is designed to cut down on phishing emails targeted at bidders, it also hinders bidders' efforts to detect shill bidding from sellers.

eBay sellers are also frustrated over a new initiative by eBay to counter the sale of counterfeits on the site. eBay began conducting manual reviews of sellers listing items prone to counterfeiting - leaving some sellers unable to list during critical holiday-shopping days.

Ebay 2nd Chance Scam emails

This appears to be one of the many email spoofing scams out there today. Unlike most that can be spotted immediately, this one looks legitimate since it appears to be in reply to an item you have previously placed a bid on.

Source: wcpo.com 12/6/2006 - John Matarese

A warning today for anyone who shops on eBay...Or is considering buying something on the popular auction site.

A new scam is snaring even experienced eBay users!

And if you don't know about it, its very easy to fall for.

--------------

"I fell for it, and I can't believe I did... because I'm pretty savvy on the computer."

Ramona Combs is a veteran eBayer. She's now the latest victim of an an online scam targeting its members as victims.

It all started when she bid in this Sony laptop computer... And lost.

"I was outbid, but I received a second chance offer that looked legit to me."

Shortly after missing out on the laptop, Ramona received this email, purportedly from eBay.

It said the winning bidder dropped out.

"It has the eBay logo on this, and it had the link to the item.

Ramona was so excited, she failed to notice a few obvious misspellings...Like "good luch," instead of luck.

"He asked for my name, phone number, and eBay user number...to send an invoice."

So she gave all her personal information.....But the invoice never arrived.

The person who emailed her? Gone without a trace.

--So don't let this happen to you!

--eBay says real 2nd chance offers don't come as unsolicited email: You have to log into your account to find them.

--If you do receive an offer, email the original seller to make sure the offer is real.

Consider any email from eBay to be a possible scam...Just like emails from Pay Pal or your bank.

Scamsters will copy logos and email addresses so that you think its the real thing.

More Holiday shopping on eBay

Source: Rocky Mountain News - December 4, 2006

You won't find Marsha Collier fighting for a mall parking space on the Friday after Thanksgiving. The author of Santa Shops on eBay and eBay for Dummies practices what she preaches and does all of her holiday shopping at the world's biggest auction site.


See Marsha's books on Amazon:




Collier, who lives in Los Angeles, recently chatted with Rocky Mountain News reporter Joyzelle Davis about the best strategies for holiday shopping on eBay, even for first-timers. Collier, who started shopping on eBay 10 years ago when it was Auction Web, also teaches eBay University courses offered through the company.

Why do you focus on eBay and not other online retailers?

I love all online shopping. But to be honest, when it comes to finding the unique, the different, the wonderful, I have found more unique gifts - the kind of gifts where you say, "how cool," through eBay.

Such as?

If you had planned ahead, there are sellers who will put pictures of children on a purse. That's the perfect gift for grandparents. You'd have to shop hard around your neighborhood to find that.

Try running the person's last name through the search engine. You might find some antique advertising. I once found for friends some antique beer glasses with their last name from a small brewery that's since gone out of business. They didn't even know it existed and wouldn't have without eBay.

What about shoppers who are worried about fraud?

You can't walk into a new store in your neighborhood and see comments from the last hundred or thousand people who were there. On eBay, only one feedback is allowed per shopper so they're legitimate numbers.

What about shipping?

It's the seller's duty to ship the item, but make sure that the seller charges extra for insurance. Getting an item that isn't what it was described is one thing, but if you saw a picture in the listing that was in one piece and it arrives in six that's another. FedEx and UPS include up to $100 in insurance, but they tend to be more expensive than the Postal Service.

What if you don't know what to get someone? Don't you miss browsing for a good idea with eBay?

Wandering around and browsing is what gets me in trouble. Make a list ahead of time on who you want to give presents to and what amount you want to spend. Any kind of shopping takes a bit of pre-planning so you don't shoot your budget in the foot.

I have a friend who loves her little dog, so I bought a pink fake fur stole and hat that cost $9. And for the man that smokes cigars, it's apparently the ultimate to light a cigar from a cedar stick. I bought 25 sticks from a seller in Estonia, and the whole thing cost $5 including shipping. In other words, don't limit your imagination.

What's something about shopping on eBay most people don't know?

Sharper image has an outlet on eBay. Oreck - the maker of vacuum cleaners - has an outlet, as does Hewlett Packard. They may be unsold merchandise or returns that have been checked over by their tech people.

You know that high-end FrancisFrancis Espresso machine? You can get the really fancy X5 machine from their eBay outlet store for half-price.