Avoiding Spoof Sites and Emails
by Jim 'Uncle Griff' Griffith
eBay Staff Member

Q. I just received an email allegedly from control@ebay.com and it wants me to enter my password and User ID in the email. Is this something eBay is doing?

A. Absolutely not! Rest assured-the email you received was not sent from or by eBay. eBay will never, never, never ask for your eBay password, User ID, financial or other personal contact information and you should never provide this information to anyone by request. If you feel you need to update your information on eBay, you should go to eBay directly and use the site map to update that information.

If you receive any email containing a request for your eBay or personal information or containing a link to a web page for filling in such information, alert eBay through our email web form. To find the web form, click on Help on the eBay Navigation Bar located on the top of any eBay web page. Then, locate and click on the link for Rules and Safety in the resulting pop up windows. After that, delete the email from your inbox. If it contains an attachment, don't open it

Q. I just opened an eBay Store. Before I opened the Store, I was getting bids on items daily. Since I've opened the Store, I haven't had a single bid! Did I do something wrong? I know many people shop at malls and outside stores for holidays, but this is my first holiday season selling on eBay and I don't know what to expect.

A. eBay Stores are a perfect solution for eBay sellers with large inventories of identical items for sale. Using an eBay Store, a seller can place these items up for sale on eBay without having to relist unsold quantities over and over - saving time and money.

However, there is an important consideration eBay Store sellers must note about eBay Store items - they do not show up in a regular Title Search. There is a special Title Search for eBay Store items, but since most eBay buyers use the regular Title Search to find items on eBay, a seller who places all their items in an eBay Store may find that traffic to their items decreases.

Instead of listing all your items in your eBay Store, reserve a selection of items and put them up for sale in a regular, non-eBay Store listing, either in the fixed price or auction-style format. Make sure that within all your item descriptions you have a prominent link to your eBay Store. That way, you can use a regular eBay listing to drive traffic to your eBay Store items. To learn more about linking strategies for Stores, read this month's feature article: Linking Strategies for eBay Stores.

Also, if you are using an eBay Store, you should take advantage of Merchandising Manager. This excellent eBay feature is free for all eBay Store sellers. It allows you to establish connections between your regular eBay listings and your eBay Store items so that you can "cross promote" all your eBay items, regardless of listing format.

With Merchandising Manager, you select the items you want to feature and the relationships you want to create between them. Then, each time a buyer bids on or buys one of your items, up to three of your other related items are promoted in two places: on the Bid Confirmation page and during Checkout In addition, if you are a featured or anchor Store seller your merchandise selections will also appear on each of your listing pages.

You can read more about Merchandising Manager at: http://pages.ebay.com/storefronts/merch-ov.html.

Q. What is the best way to get pictures of your merchandise on eBay? What program can I use to take out the background and crop the photo? What program do you recommend?

A. The quickest way for a new seller to get pictures of their items on their eBay listings is to rely on eBay Picture Services. This service is built into the Sell Your Item process. You will need digital pictures of your items on your computer before you start listing by using a digital camera to take the pictures. Follow the camera manual's instructions for transferring the resulting digital images to your computer.

Any good image editing software program will allow you to crop your digital pictures. Some applications (like Adobe Photoshop) provide tools for changing the background of a picture. However, you can do it for free by placing a solid-colored background behind and under your item before you photograph it.

If you buy your digital camera new, it will come with a CD-ROM containing an image editing application. Install it and use it for cropping, rotating and resizing your images (again, by following the instructions for the application either in an accompanying manual or by clicking the Help link on the menu bar of the application).

There's tons of helpful digital image information and tutorials online, both on and off eBay. You can find our basic tutorial here: http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/photo_tutorial.html. Also, check out A.B. Russell's Photography for eBay column in every issue of the Chatter for more tips.

Additionally, go to your favorite search engine (like www.google.com, for example) and enter "digital image tutorial" to find other websites with helpful information on how to create digital pictures.

-Griff