Question How Do I Know If The Seller Name For My Ebay Store Is Legal

Writen by Steve Weber

QUESTION: What legal considerations are there in chosing the seller name for my online store? I don't want to use someone else's name or a prohibited name.

ANSWER: Technically, there are some legal requirements for naming your business, but many of these rules are obsolete (and unobserved and unenforced) for online sellers.

In most counties in the United States, you're required to obtain a "fictitious name" permit if you're operating a business using a name other than your full legal name. (In some counties they call it a "doing business as" permit.)

In my county, for instance, the permit costs $20. After you submit the application, a clerk simply searches the county's files to ensure no other business is using the same name. Right off the bat, you can see this practice has limited value today -- as an online seller, you may be transacting worldwide, not just in your home county.

The original rationale for these regulations was to protect consumers from fly-by-night businesses. If someone purchased a product or service that turned out defective, the buyer might need to obtain the real name of the business owner to get a refund or sue.

With today's marketplaces like Amazon and eBay, resolving problems is usually much simpler. If a buyer is unhappy with a purchase, they e-mail the seller. If the seller doesn't respond appropriately, Amazon or Paypal makes the buyer whole. If a seller (or buyer) gets into disputes often enough, their trading privileges are revoked.

Another reason for "fictitious name" permits is to prevent new businesses from accidentally (or purposefully) using the name of an existing company, creating confusion. For example, in the Amazon context, if someone tried opening a seller account with the name "Barnes And Noble," that would be inappropriate -- they'd be taking advantage of an existing business name. On the other hand, somebody could probably open an account using the name "Joe's Place" even though there are probably 5,000 restaurants using that name -- but there's no chance anyone would confuse the online bookseller with the restaurants. And if someone on Amazon is already using the name "Joe's Place," Amazon's system would simply prevent new sellers from using the same name.

If you're a part-timer, I wouldn't lose too much sleep over the choice of a seller name. A Google search on the name within quotation marks will probably show whether it's being used. If you accidentally began using an existing business name, you might receive a "cease and desist" letter from the company's lawyers, threatening to take you to court unless you stopped using the name.

One more consideration: If you think you might want to operate a store on your own Web site someday, you should check now to see if the domain name is available. You can search for available domain names at the Web sites of many host providers, including Register.com. Even if you don't decide to launch a Web site now, you can register the domain and pay a nominal fee to keep the name until you launch your site.

See a real-time list of the most highly sought after used and collectible books.

Read more free articles on selling used books profitably online: http://www.weberbooks.com/selling/selling.htm

Steve Weber is author of "The Home-Based Bookstore: Start Your Own Business Selling Used Books on Amazon, eBay or Your Own Web Site" (ISBN 0977240606). Got a question for Steve? Send to: steve_weber@yahoo.com

How To Get Bids On Your Auctions

Writen by Michael Russell

Getting bids on auctions on Ebay or Yahoo can be challenging . To get bids on your auction first you must research the item you are about to list. This is quite simple - just do a search on closed auctions. Ebay and Yahoo auctions let you do this on their site. Look at all the prices the item closed at as you will want to start your bidding at the lowest price at which an item closed. If you want to add a "buy it now" option, choose any price between the highest price closed and the lowest price.

Next, take a look at the items that did not get a bid, notice what they did wrong and then look at the auctions that got bids and notice that they did right. Use this to your advantage. Make your headline similar to a winning headline and use the same area the winning item was listed.

Next, and this is a most important tip, when writing your description ,write it as if you're trying to sell an item to your friend. Give the condition and tell the benefits of them having your item. Now for shipping, keep the price reasonable and say that you ship out within 2 days and offer tracking. To really get bids, list yours as a featured item, but this will cost extra. Also take some good pictures so that who ever sees your auction can view the item, as if they were looking at it in person. Take your picture in a good lighting and turn the flash off because it can cause glare. You can take you picture outside or, if your item is small get a desk lamp and adjust it so that it shines on your item. A good background like a poster would help too. The more pictures you take the more confident the bidder will be in bidding on your auction.

Offer more than one payment method. The more options you offer the more bids you will get. Try to start your auction on such a day that it will end on the weekend because shoppers will have a chance to see and bid on it. If you have past customers, tell them about your new auctions. They already know you and have done business with you. You can also offer something free to the winning bidder of your item.

A money guarantee can help you get lots of bids too. Make sure to let everyone know they are ordering through a secure server for credit card payments. And if you have past ebay customers write in your item listing that potential bidders should view your feedback from all the other Ebay members. If you have great comments from your past customers then this will help.

Don't use reserve auctions - people get discouraged trying to figure out the reserve cost.

If you follow all these tips you should be getting bids to all of your online auctions.

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Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to Online Auctions
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Avoid The Ebay Snipers

Writen by Lionel Estridge

Sniping always occurs when a bid is about to end. Sniping is against the rules at eBay, but in most cases, even if you report it, the sniper will get away with it. In order to avoid losing the items you want to snipers at eBay, you have to take on the sniper way of thinking. You also need to snipe in a way that will not violate eBay's rules.

Snipping can be done in one of two ways. The first way is the safest, but not necessarily the easiest. Simply keep up with the item you are bidding on. And make certain that you are in front of your computer and logged into the auction well before that exact time. The idea is to either bid higher than the highest bid during the last few seconds - which is what snipers do - or to just make sure that you are not outbid by a sniper.

Keep in mind that sniping is against the rules, so you should log in about thirty or forty five minutes before the bidding ends, and get your bid up until it is the highest bid. If you've been logged in for a while, this cannot be considered sniping.

Unfortunately it is very hard to bid against people who use bidding software. So here is the second method.

Snipping services are easy to find online, and they are fairly cheap. You can also buy your own snipping software. If you want to become a sniper, purchasing your own software is usually the best way to go if you bid on a lot of items.

But remember that it is against the rules, and while eBay hardly ever enforces this rule, you will be running the risk of getting banned from eBay.

Outbidding somebody is one thing, sniping is something altogether different.

Get eBay tips, and tricks directly into your mailbox: ebay1@aweber.com or more at: http://www.lionel1.com/ebay1.htm

Possibilities Abound Ebay Online Auctions

Writen by Carmen Anderton

One of the hottest online trends, and one that does not look like it is going to abate any time soon, are Ebay online auctions. Ebay online auctions are becoming increasingly popular for both buyers, sellers, and even just for browsers. While there are other online auction sites trying to jump on the bandwagon, or get a piece of the initial action in new markets, there is no argument on who is king. In rock n' roll it is Elvis, in country it is Hank Williams, and for online auctions, the undisputed king is Ebay. Ebay online auctions contain literally tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of various items at any given time. Searching Ebay's listings is almost akin to an online version of an explorer shifting through the jungle, looking for his or her personal treasures.

Ebay online auctions range in a variety of categories. Professional antique book collectors can find occasional one thousand dollar treasures going for less than a hundred dollars, glassware is a hot market, and there are always thousands of autographs at any given time. Computers, clothes, dolls, toys…whatever you want, you will be able to find it on Ebay. One reason why Ebay online auctions are so popular is that the web site goes out of their way to make listing and searching as easy as possible. Even someone who has never logged onto the Ebay web site before can have a log-in name will be able to easily figure out how to put an item online. There is a big side banner that says "Sellers," and another banner on top that says "Sell an item." Once the person clicks on one or the other, then the web site's format takes the seller through step by step to put their item in an Ebay online auction. The listing can have a ton of information, or just the absolute basics. Either way the site walks the seller through, each section numbered, clearly marked, clearly explained, and (where applicable) with an example of the graphics change.

Ebay online auctions guarantee a wide market of tens of millions of buyers across the entire world. These are also many good reasons why to go to Ebay online auctions as a buyer. There are always thousands of items put online in every conceivable category: including categories for just plain bizarre and miscellaneous. In fact, one category is even marked, "And Everything Else…" If you are looking for a cheap book, some decently priced Christmas presents, or a video game system with games that is a much better buy than anything you can find on the store, Ebay online auctions are your answer. These auctions are like the world's largest garage sales, and you never know what you will find.

Ebay online auctions have revolutionized online businesses. There are many individuals who make their entire living buying and selling on Ebay and doing nothing else. What is even more interesting, is how many different types of sellers can do this. Antique dealers in a small town in Iowa can now sell to anywhere in the United States, while a box of books in a Maine attic can fetch hundreds from Stephen King fans in California. An entire world of buyers can meet an entire world of sellers, and Ebay online auctions allow the wealth to be evenly distributed from college students selling their college books to old men and women learning to sell the extra odds and ends to a willing market. Ebay online auctions are capitalism in full force moving hand in hand with technology, but the beautiful part about this is that the little man is not shut out; but is the reason why the whole system works to begin with.

Carmen Anderton is a successful webmaster and publisher of Auction-Registrations.com.

She provides more auction tips and information on her website at Ebay Online Auctions

How To Use A Wysiwyg Html Editor To Make Stunning Ebay Auction Listings

Writen by Thomas Haselhorst

What kind of browser are you using for online surfing? Explorer, Netscape, Firefox, Opera?? Sure, all are good programs but I want to talk about an excellent program called Netscape. If you use Netscape, do you know that you also get an amazing WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) web design program called Netscape Composer for free? Basically you don't need expensive HTML editors anymore. The list of commercially available HTML editors software is endless – and the price tags are enormous. Most people don't want to spend a lot of money to get started with their eBay business. Fair enough, since the goal is to make money and not to spend money. So it makes perfect sense to use a program to design auction listings which is available for free. And such a program is Netscape Composer.

It has the same professional features like FrontPage or any other similar program. To design stunning and professional looking eBay auction sites with Netscape Composer you need to download Netscape first. If you start up the program, select File->New Composer Page and basically you can start immediately to design your auction listings. You can make you letters in any colour, bold, italics, use background colours (or even images) etc. The options are endless. You can save this file on your local hard drive as html file. I used to have one file for every listing I generate. The best thing is that once you have got a nice and professional looking eBay auction listing, you can use it for ever. Just open your last listing in Netscape Composer and edit according to your new item. Amazingly, this takes only a couple of minutes.

But how do you transfer your listing saved as a html file on your local hard drive to eBay? The answer is simple. Once you have logged in into your eBay account and selected your category and starting price you have to type in your "item description". Did you see that eBay allows HTML format? Have a look when you launch your next listing. That's the time where you go back to your new listing you just have created with Netscape Composer. Down the bottom of your Netscape Composer page you'll see a button called: SOURCE - the source code of your listing. Click on that and highlight and copy the entire text. Select then the eBay site and paste this text into the "Item description box". Make sure that all links are working and that all photos are uploaded to the internet.

When you have finalised your listing you will be surprised. A stunning and professional looking "DIY-listing". You can always use "ready-to-go" auction templates and edit these according to your item. You'll see that with an professional auction design you can easily attract more buyers and get higher bids. It's worth the effort. Keep in mind that professional web design software is highly expensive and does the same job. Alternatively, you can choose from a huge variety of third party auction services doing the job for you. But hey, there are incredibly expensive too. Don't you think that the eBay fees are high enough and you can easily do it yourself without spending any additional dollars.It's really simple!

Thomas Haselhorst is webmaster of http://www.auction-design-for-free.com From ebay sellers - for ebay sellers!