Getting your head around the new eBay UK store fees

Hello again everyone and welcome to my latest newsletter.

I`ve had a very busy week trying to get everything ready for the Auction
SOS! launch this coming Tuesday – August 1st 2006, I even managed to add
a neat little countdown timer to the page which I think looks very good!

Whilst I was beavering away with my Auction SOS! tasks I also received an email
that I`m sure a lot of you also received, it was about the new eBay store fee`s.
As some of you may already know, number crunching is a weak point of mine, so
these new fee structures may have well been written in Chinese for me! So I
have decided to work out – in simple terms this will do to our eBay fee`s. Here
we go –

The dreaded new eBay store fees 🙁

Last week I (like many of you) received a nice email from my good friends over
at the bay! This week my good friends informed me of some impending fee “restructuring”
that will effect eBay store/shop listings. If you didn`t get the email you can
read it here:

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/sell/importantinfo/

Looking through the new fee`s that will be implemented on August 21st you may
not think it looks all that bad, lets face it, 7p a month for a GTC (good til
cancelled) listing isn`t going to bankrupt any of us. HOWEVER what I feel is
most worrying is this section:

– – – – / / / – – – –
Auction SOS! is set to launch this Tuesday, I have opened up the free affiliate
program with a VERY special offer for my affiliates. Access the secret page
by clicking here,
but dont tell anyone!
You can also view a spy video by scrolling down the page, make sure you finish
reading the article first though 😉
– – – – / / / – – – –

As you may know I sell a couple of fairly high priced items from my eBay store
– these items sell for £44.99 and £39.99 respectivly. lets compare
the fee`s I will be paying before and after the changes: (Thanks to Paula Breet
for doing the maths!)

Old prices
@ £39.99

Insertion fee GTC – £0.03
total £0.03
FVF – 6.75% of first 29.99 = £2.02 plus 3.75%
of remaining (£10) = £0.37
total £2.39

New Prices from 21st Aug
@ £39.99
Insertion fee GTC – £0.07
FVF – 10% of first £4.99 = £0.49 plus
8% of initial £5.00 – £9.99 (£4.99) = £0.39
plus 6% of remaining (£30.00) = £1.80
total £2.75

Old prices
@ £49.99

Insertion fee GTC – £0.03
total £0.03
FVF – £2.02 plus £0.75
total £2.77

New Prices from 1st Aug
@ £49.99
Insertion fee GTC – £0.07
FVF – £0.49 plus £0.39
plus £2.40
total £3.28

Confused? I know I am! But hopefully those numbers will help you figure out
how these changes will effect your monthly eBay bill.

Why have eBay decided upon these changes??

For the reason eBay do most things, I decided to make an illustration to get
my point across 😉

Is there anything we can do about this? Probably not, there is a planned eBay
boycott on the official eBay discussion forums but I can`t see the big E changing
their minds, money talks!

http://forums.ebay.co.uk/thread.jspa?threadID=1200020686&tstart=0&mod=1153412518097

http://forums.ebay.co.uk/thread.jspa?threadID=1100015296&tstart=0&mod=1153412454231

Another alternative is to list on the american eBay.com, at the time of writing
the fee`s are not as high so you could list on ebay.com instead of ebay.co.uk,
no doubt the fee changes will be implemented there soon but for the time being
it may be worth trying that method.

Thanks for reading, I hope that I simplified the fee`s for you somewhat. If
you have any questions or comments then as always leave me a comment!

Keep an eye out for my email on Tuesday as Auction SOS! will finally be available
for you to purchase, and I have a few surprises in store for you early adopters
😉

Auction SOS! Preview Video

OK, I don`t want to do a big intro because I know you all want to see the video!

Click the link below to view the video:

http://elpassoblog.com/video/

Remember, this video is only showing off ONE of Auction SOS`s many features! More will be revealed in the coming days 🙂

Dealing with snotty eBay members

How to deal with snotty eBay customers

Greetings everyone, I hope you all survived the mini-UK heatwave. It looks like we are back to normal today so at least it gives me a chance to write this weeks newsletter for you! This weeks newsletter may turn into a “mini-rant” so please accept my apologies if it does!

This week I will be looking at how to deal with snotty eBay members. This all stems from an email I received earlier this week, I have dealt with snotty customers before but this one really got on my wick!

I`m sure you have all come across the problem with ebay/paypal and making payments to international sellers. When you try to pay using eBay`s checkout you will get a message saying:

“This transaction has been cancelled”

Usually eBay members are good enough to contact me about the problem, I then reply telling them the problem is with eBay and that you need to send payment manually to my paypal email address. This works fine for 99% of all cases but earlier this week I received this:

“Hi
You have a problem with your paypal account. I find this totally unsatisfactory and you should cancel the transaction immediately or I will report you too eBay and paypal.”

/ / / – – / / /
I have just released the first ever screenshot of Auction SOS. You can view it here:
https://elpassoblog.com/auction-sos-spy-screenshot-1
Remember if you aren`t on the Auction SOS launch list yet you will need to get your skates on! – www.auctionsos.com
/ / / – – / / /

I managed to bite my tongue with this eBay buyer and just sent the usual reply explaining what the problem was. They didn`t reply to the email and haven`t paid for the item, but that got me thinking why are people so snotty?

I don`t just sell on eBay, I am also a regular buyer. I often have problems with transactions so I email the buyer. NOT ONCE in my 5 years of trading on eBay have I ever sent a snotty email and I never will. Can somebody tell me what sending a snotty email achieves other than getting yourself added to my blocked buyers list?

I will be interested to hear how the rest of you handle snotty emails from eBay customers, do you find that a nice polite reply is the best way to go or do you let rip! I always use the polite reply technique but sometimes it`s very tempting to tell them exactly what you really think.

Likewise if you are one of those people that sends snotty emails please leave a comment and let us know what sort of results you get?

Personally I am much more likely to help a person if they send a nice polite email, if I receive a snotty email I will answer the question but I wouldn`t go out of my way to help the person, what do you think, should we make a stand against the snotty email senders? – feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading, sorry it wasn`t as long as usual but I have just been recorded for Bold Business Talk radio so I haven`t had much free time on my hands!

How can I generate more sales from my eBay store?

How can I generate more sales from my eBay store?

Hello and welcome to the latest newsletter, I`ve managed to struggle through
a computer virus and the warm weather to write what I think will be a very usefull
newsletter for you.

The subject for this newsletter was chosen by a reader, unfortunately I have
lost the email you sent so I don`t have your name to hand, if you are reading
this feel free to leave a comment with your name and I will give you full credit
🙂

Without any further ramblings from my goodself, lets begin with this weeks
topic – “How can I generate more sales from my eBay store?”

That`s a question that I know a lot of us would like to know the answer too,
I could spend the next few hours writing about the usual things you have probably
heard repeated over and over – include a link in your email signiture, post
on forums, submit a press release etc…. BUT that would be boring and wouldn`t
really be teaching you anything different would it?

I am now going to steal a quote from a BT advert here in the UK (the one with
Jeremy Clarkson!):

“Do you find that companies spend more time trying to get new customers,
rather than looking after the one`s they have already got?”

OK, so maybe I haven`t repeated it word for word, my memory isn`t that good
but you get the idea!

This is the same for your eBay store, it really hit home with me a couple of
weeks ago when I bought a product off the internet and 5 days later I received
this through my letterbox:

It was a simple little postcard with “Thankyou” on the front (as
you can see in the Pic), and then on the back of the postcard there was a simple
little messgae thanking me for my custom. It may not sound like much but receiving
this postcard really did make me feel like they cared about my purchase and
I will definately be buying from them again. I even added their eBay store to
my favourites!

This got me thinking, why don`t more eBay sellers do this?

It cant be the cost, I did a quick look around and found that Vistaprint
will print you out 100 postcards for £15 – thats roughly $28 for my american
readers. A 2nd class stamp costs under 25p so sending out a thankyou postcard
isn`t going to cost you any more than 50p, is that a price worth paying to make
sure that you make that customer a customer for life? I think it is.

– – / / – –
Last week I answered some of your questions about Auction
SOS, if you havent already seen my answers you can view them by clicking
here.
– – / / – –

Anyone can make at least 1 sale on eBay, no matter what you are selling. You
could then just let that customer walk off into the sunset and never hear from
them again, or you could make the effort to go that extra yard for the customer,
make sure that you turn that customer into one of your customers for life!

I like the postcard idea but i`m sure you will be able to think of other ways
to improve your aftersales service to your customers. Another idea is to set
up a simple autoresponder
email message that sends an email to your customer a few days after the purchase,
ask them for feedback, make sure they are happy with the product that you sold
them.

What I am trying to get at here is that your aftersales service is just as
important, if not more so than the original sale. Take this question as an example:

“Would you rather sell one product for £20 and never see the customer
again, or sell a product for £1 and turn that customer into a customer
for life?”

I know that for me I would take the £1 sale, in the short term my bank
balance wouldn`t look as pretty but in the future that customer will come back
to me to buy a product rather than buying from my competitors! Gaining 1 sale
is easy, turning that sale into a relationship between you and the buyer is
the hard part 🙂

Thanks for reading, as always if you have any comments or suggestions for future
newsletters feel free to leave them. I read them all and enjoy your feedback.

Speaking of feedback a MASSIVE thankyou to all of you that filled out my survey
last week, if you click on the “Newsletter” link to your right I have
published some of your testamonials.

Until next week!
Dan

Identify Spoof Emails and Stop Identity Thef

Today`s topic is Identifying Spoof emails and protecting you and your bank
account from online fraud!

Before I begin I will give you a bit of background on this article.

I first wrote the piece about 8 months ago and made it into an e-Book. Since
then Spoof emails have been getting much more advanced and the fraudsters are
getting even smarter, I found this out the hard way 🙁

Take a look at the image below:

 

That`s a screenshot of my bank statement in January 2006, have a look at the
four charges from “OceanViewSA”. The transactions were all made on
the same day and it wiped £500 straight out of my bank account. These
charges were unauthorized and were not made by me, I had been scammed!

I quickly phoned up the bank and told them what had happened. They quickly
started an investigation into the transactions and found out that someone had
used my card details to deposit the £500 into some sort of online casino
website. Luckily for me the bank returned the £500 to my account but it
just goes to show how easy it is for these scammers to get your details. Thats
why I felt the need to update my article so hopefully the same thing won`t happen
to any of you, enough chat, let`s begin 🙂

What is a spoof email?

Spoof emails (sometimes also called “Phishing”) are emails that pretend
to be from a company or bank. The most common often come from eBay, PayPal,
Barclays Bank etc. These emails will then contain a web link, if you click on
this link then you will be taken to a login page and asked to enter your details.
Most of these scammers go a long way to try and get your details, most spoof
emails contain links to identical websites and users are tricked into entering
their personal information. If you submit your information through one of these
spoof websites then the fraudster has all of your details and can commit crimes
using your identity.

How do they get my email address?

You may wonder how the scammers got your address or knew you were a member
of a particular bank or institution. Often it is just good luck on the part
of the scammers. They normally do not target individuals, but send out thousands
of scam emails to randomly generated email addresses, in the hope that just
a few will be successful. They also trawl the web for valid addresses they can
use, and swap this information with each other. If you have ever posted on an
Internet forum or published something on the web, there’s a good chance your
address is out there somewhere just waiting to be found. If you have fallen
victim before, your address is normally added to a list of ‘easy victims’, and
you are likely to then receive even more scams.

How can I identify these emails?

Here are 4 simple tests that you can perform on any email you suspect is a
spoof. Your email can only pass the test if it passes ALL FOUR of the tests.
If your email passes all of the four tests then you can be 99.9% certain that
it is a genuine email. If your email passes all four of the tests then we would
also advise you to check the “Other Tips” section just to double check
that your email is genuine.

If your email fails

If your email fails JUST ONE of the four tests then the email is a spoof and
shouldn’t be replied to and should be deleted immediately from your computer.
Even if your email fails the test, I would still advise you to check out the
“Other Tips” page for more good ways to spot a spoof email.

If you are still in doubt

Unless you are 100% sure that your email is genuine, DO NOT click on any links
within the email. Contact the company in question (See the “reporting a
spoof” page) and ask them to confirm if the email is genuine or a spoof.

Test 1 – Who is the email addressed to?

Have a look at how the email addresses you. Most spoofs will say something
along the lines of “Dear eBay user”. This is the very first thing
you should look for in a spoof email. Any email that doesn’t address you by
your name is a spoof. Ebay, PayPal and banks always address you by the name
you registered with on their site, they NEVER send out emails saying

“Dear valued customer”, “Dear member” etc.

If your email isn’t addressed to you personally then it is a spoof! If your
email is addressed to you then move onto the next test to see if it is a spoof
email. Some more advanced spoof messages have started to include your name or
email address instead of the generic “Dear member” or “Dear user”.
So even if your email were addressed to you I would strongly advise you to carry
out the 3 other tests.

Test 2 – Where does the link go?

Most spoof emails will contain a link telling you to verify your details. You
can quickly tell if your email is a spoof by hovering your mouse over the link.
When your mouse is over the link, look in the bottom left hand corner of your
screen and you will see the “link destination”. The destination of
a spoof link will usually look something like this:

“http://slp.clinker.net.mx/.sh/.a/index.htm?SignIn&ssPageName=h:h:sin:us”

Compare this with a real eBay link:

http://k2b-bulk.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?MyeBaySellingSummary

And you can see the difference. You can easily check if you email is a fake
by looking at the first part of the link destination, if the destination is
a combination of numbers (102.382.54.23) or a link like the one in my spoof
link above then the chances are that your email is a spoof.

Any non-spoof link will contain the name of the company in the first part of
the link, eg:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk http://cgi.ebay.com http://cgi.paypal.com

Please note: Some spoof links will contain the words “eBay” or “PayPal”
in the final part of the link. These are also spoofs!

All real emails will only contain the company name in the very first part of
the link; after http://. If you still aren’t sure if you have a spoof email,
move onto the next test.

Test 3 – Who really did send you the email?

This test may seem a little confusing but don’t worry it isn’t as difficult
as it looks. What we are going to do is find out where the email came from.
Most people don’t know this but you can trace the origin of your emails in most
mail programs. To do this we have to view the “FULL message header”,
here is how you do this in the following email programs. If your program isn’t
listed here please contact your email provider for instructions:

Hotmai – 1. Click on “Options” 2. Click on “Mail display settings”
3. The 3rd option can be used to display the header settings, select “Full”
from the check boxes 4. Click on “OK” to save your settings

Outlook Express – 1. Right click on the email and select “Properties”
2. Select the “Details” tab

Now that we can view the message headers, here is how you identify a spoof:

Look in the part of the header that says “Received From”. If the
email has come from anyone other than the sender it’s a spoof. I had a spoof
email and performed this test and notice that the email had been sent from a
Yahoo account. Obviously a real email from eBay would not have been sent from
a Yahoo address!

Test 4 – Click on the link

Only try this if your email has passed the previous 3 tests. Some spoof emails
have been known to contain viruses that are activated by clicking on the link.
Please ensure that you have a good virus scanner installed on your PC before
proceeding. If you have important data on your PC you may also wish to backup
that data on a removable backup device.

When you click the link in your email a web browser will open and take you
to what looks like a legitimate login page. There are two ways to identify a
spoof login page, and I will show you both of them! Have a look in the address
bar at the top of the login page. Have a look at the http:// part of the URL.
Any genuine login page from eBay, PayPal or your bank WONT start with “http://”
it will start with:

“https://”

The “s” in https:// stands for “secure” and is there to
show you that you are about to submit data over a secure connection.

Any page not starting with https:// is a spoof. The second difference between
the two pages is the padlock icon in the bottom right hand of the screen. Notice
that the spoof login page doesn’t have a padlock, and the genuine eBay login
page does. This padlock appears to show you that you are about to submit data
over a secure connection. If your login page DOESNT have a padlock icon in the
bottom corner of the screen then it is a spoof!

Other Tips for spotting Spoofs

1. Punctuation – Read your email carefully and look for any spelling
mistakes. You can be sure that any genuine emails wont contain simple spelling
mistakes.

2. Adverts? – Real emails from eBay don’t contain adverts for burger
king!

3. Hotmail identity check – A new feature in hotmail now warns you
if a senderID could not be verified. Any spoof email will contain this warning.
(please note that recently I received a genuine email from eBay that contained
this warning, so don’t judge an email purely by this method)

4. PIN number – Any website asking for your PIN (personal identification
number) is a spoof. Do not enter your PIN number! If you have entered and submitted
your PIN then contact your bank immediately.

5. Popup boxes – Some spoof sites will include popup message boxes
like the one below. Genuine sites don’t use popup boxes telling you to enter
details.

6. False sense of urgency – Most spoof emails will make you think
that your account is at threat if you don’t act quickly. This is not the case.

7. eBay Messages – Any genuine email sent to you from eBay will also
appear in the “My Messages” section of eBay. To access your eBay messages,
login to ebay and click on “My eBay”. On the left hand side of the
screen you will see a “My Messages” link. Click on this; if the email
you received in your inbox isn’t listed there then it is a spoof email.

8. Ignore the email address – Ignore the email address that the email
was sent from. Almost all spoof emails will appear as if they are from a genuine
address. Some of the emails I receive are “from”:

service@paypal.com memberservices@paypal.com awconfirm@ebay.com safeharbour@ebay.com
operator_862736743@halifax.com

9. Download the eBay toolbar – The eBay toolbar is a great piece of
software that can be used to spot spoofs. As soon as you enter a spoof website
from eBay or PayPal the toolbar will give you a warning telling you that web
page is a spoof. The Ebay toolbar is FREE to download.

That`s the end of the article, thanks for reading! If you have any questions
or would like to make a comment on the article, as always feel free. I read
every comment that you post and do my very best to reply to them!

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