My Article Database: Free Articles for Teaching and Studying English as a Foreign Language in China - by Paul Sparks




 Homepage
 About Me
 Teachers
 Students
 Lessons
 Photographs
 Links
 World News
 ICQ Chat
 Contact Me
 Articles
 
My Article Database:

 

Accounting
Acne
Adsense
Advertising
Aerobics
Affiliate
Alternative
Articles
Attraction
Auctions
Audio Streaming
Auto Care
Auto Parts
Auto Responder
Aviation
Babies Toddler
Baby
Bankruptcy
Bathroom
Beauty
Bedroom
Blogging
Body Building
Book Marketing
Book Review
Branding
Breast Cancer
Broadband Internet
Business
Business Loan
Business Plan
Cancer
Car Buying
Career
Car Insurance
Car Loan
Car Maintenance
Cars
Casino
Cell Phone
Chat
Christmas
Claims
Coaching
Coffee
College University
Computer Tips
Cooking
Cooking Tips
Copywriting
Cosmetics
Craft
Creative Writing
Credit
Credit Cards
Credit Repair
Currency Trading
Data Recovery
Dating
Debt Relief
Diabetics
Diet
Digital Camera
Diving
Divorce
Domain
Driving Tips
Ebay
Ebook
Ecommerce
Email Marketing
E Marketing
Essay
Ezine
Fashion
Finance
Fishing
Fitness
Flu
Furniture
Gambling
Golf
Google
GPS
Hair
Hair Loss
HDTV
Health Insurance
Heart Disease
Hobbies
Holiday
Home Business
Home Improvement
Home Organization
Interior Design
Internet Tips
Investment
Jewelry
Kitchen
Ladies Accessories
Lawyer
LCD / PLASMA
Legal
Life Insurance

Return to Articles about Ebay

Five Ways To Detect Shill Bidders On eBay So That You Don't Pay Absurd Prices

by: Sydney Johnston
There is as a lot of buzz about shill bidders on the eBay forums. But in actuality, shrill bidding isn't that common and is rather easily detected.

A buyer will sometimes attempt to use shill building to raise the price of merchandise he is selling. The idea is that the shiller will bid increasingly high prices, in the hope that legitimate buyers like you will top the artificially high prices in an effort to win the goodies for sale.

Here are five ways you can recognize a shill bidder:

1. Few shill bidders will have any feedback. This is because they never follow through with transactions and therefore don't have anyone to leave feedback. If the shiller does have legitimate transactions on ebay, he is usually smart enough to use a separate ID, because he does not want to get caught shilling and lose all buying and selling privileges.

{It is important to note, however, that just because a bidder has no feedback that does not mean that he is necessarily a shrill bidder. This may simply be a new account that has not had time to build a feedback reputation.}

2. Generally, a shiller only bids on the auctions of a particular seller. When in doubt, you can check the current and completed options of a seller and see if this shiller has bid on other auctions by the same seller.

3. Shill bidders are most often newbies. You can check the feedback, and the date that the eBay account was created, for any ebay member. If the bidder's account was created two days ago and he is bidding on several auctions of the same seller, you can be pretty certain about what is going on.

4. eBay has ways of the tracking shillers. Of course we don't know everything they do (and if I did know I wouldn't tell!) but some clues all are dead giveaways. For example, if the seller and the bidder have the same IP address, eBay knows to take a closer look.

5. Shill bidders retract many more bids than normal buyers. eBay does allow any buyer to retract a bid, although this is only supposed to occur for specific reasons. But in actuality, a retraction is rarely challenged and ultimately what can eBay do? It cannot force a person to pay for a particular item.

It is wise not to use this option on a frequent basis. Remember that your eBay behavior deal is constantly tracked. A retraction is considered to be a "black mark" on your reputation so don't do it very often. Shillers, on the other hand, don't care because they're unconcerned about their reputation. If caught, they simply open a new account.

Sometimes a shiller is the high bidder at the end of an auction. In that that case, the seller and buyer can agree to cancel the bid, rather than retract it. However, all this takes a lot of work, planning and effort. In the end, shill bidding is rarely worth the trouble and time. Instead, smart sellers spend their time finding products and writing listings - the two basic moneymaking activities of an ebay business - instead of plotting how to raise profits on individual listings. Success in business is about efficiency.

About the author:
Learn how to sell on eBay with 16 hours of online instruction taught by a 10 year eBay veteran. Own an eBay business instead of an eBay hobby.
http://www.auction-genius-course.com




 

New! Watch Online Articles with YouTube for Free:

 

 

 

 

Click Here to Return to Top of Page