Understanding common eBay terms, words and abbreviations…

In one of my previous posts I have talked about eBay and how it can be used to effectively perform marketing research for your business or website.  Today I plan on taking you through some common terms that you may run into while at eBay.

When you decide to take a stroll over to eBay and search for (or sell) some product, you will most likely run into some term, words or abbreviation somewhere that you may not understand.  Such terms are commonly used and as such I feel it would be beneficial to make sure all my readers have a clear understanding of terms you may run into at eBay.  Some of the words can be confusing and hard to understand but hopefully after you have read this page, you will be good to go eBaying!

General Terms

Auction:  Auction formatted Ad

Auction Sniping: Bidding on an item during the last second of an auction in order to win the item. Other people don’t have the opportunity to outbid you in this case.

Best Offer: The seller will “consider” any offers that you are willing to give for the product.  Ex. Get a product listed at $100 for only $90.

Bid: The maximum price you are willing to pay for the item

Bid Increment: This outlines how much a bid will be raised every time the current bid is outbid.

Classified Ads: Now popular for digital items as eBay now requires all ebooks and such that are strictly digital in nature to be sold using this format. 

Dutch Auctions: Auctions that have more than one item available for sale.

Feedback (FB): customer “testimonials” as to how their previous transaction went over with the seller.

Non-paying bidder: self-explanatory but describes a bidder who won an auction but do not follow through and actually pay for the item.

Rare:  Hard to find.  I do not recommend believing every rare comment you see on Ebay.  This is a common and overused term.

Reserve Price: the minimum price that you (or the seller) are willing to accept for the item.

Shill bidding: bidding that artificially increases the price of a product being sold.  They are essentially fake bids made by a seller attempting to drive up their item’s price.

Store Inventory: Store inventory items appear exclusively in eBay Stores and are sold at a fixed (Buy It Now) price.

Abbreviations

AUD: Australian Dollar. Currency.

BIN: Buy it Now.

BNWT: (Brand New With Tags) An item that has never been used and still has its original tags.

BW: (Black and White) Used for selling films, photos, clothes etc.

EUC: (Excellent Used Condition) Used, but still in good condition

EUR: (Euro) European Currency.

FC: First Class. Postage type for mailing.

GU: Gently Used. Item shows a little bit of usage (usually explained)

FVF: (Final Value Fee) A fee that eBay charges to a seller at the completion of a listing.

GBP: Great British Pounds. Currency.

HTF: Hard To Find. Another way to get across the “rareness” of a product.

NIB: New in Box. Never opened and still in the original box.

NBW: Never Been Worn.  The item may not be brand new but has never been worn.

NR: No Reserve. No reserve price has been set for the item being sold. (Find great deals sometimes!)

OB: Original Box. An item that is in its original box (or comes with it) but may have been opened.

PM: Priority Mail.

PP: Parcel Post.

SH: Shipping and Handling. The fees the buyer will pay you for postage.

USD: United States Dollars. Currency.

VGC: Very Good Condition. Not mint, but still in great condition.

Now obviously I cannot list all the possibly words and abbreviations here, but the ones I have listed are each good to know.  If you know of others, feel free to leave a comment letting everyone know.

It is good to use abbreviations in some instances while selling items on eBay and other online auction websites but not in all situations.  A large proportion of eBayers are “inexperienced” when it comes to technical stuff so they may not know what you mean with such abbreviations.  But if you are targeting a specific crowd that will know such language, then all the power to you! 

I hope you have enjoyed this post and that it will help your online auction experiences better!

To Your Success,
Mark Garland

Everyone is affected by marketing in some way every single day.  Whether it be through something you remember seeing or hearing, or something that you see right in front of you.  I am sure that you have purchased something that you thought would be much better than it actually was, right?  Well, I want to help make sure this doesn’t happen to you anymore so you will learn an important tip that can help you considerable in the future when looking at an advertisement.

I am frequently asked “what is the best way to make money online”…but with the word best being used makes it very tough to answer.  If it was instead replaced with the word “easiest” then it is much simpler to answer…affiliate marketing.  This is in my personal opinion and is what my past experience tells me.

This constant question I have received from a wide variety of people is one reason why I created The Analyzed Marketing Business Area.  Businesses, websites, even individuals need to constantly be advancing their business knowledge and their marketing skills to become and remain successful in what they do.  My training program helps them do just that! Members even have the opportunity to make money with their membership by taking advantage of the built in affiliate program!

But I am getting off topic a bit here, I actually want to give you a little tip…A marketing/advertising tip of sorts.  It can be important for anyone to know…both marketing professionals and consumers.

When you see an advertisement or commercial that is promoting itself as being the “best”, “the greatest”, or  something similar in nature, then you should immediately experience a “click” in your mind.  This click in your mind should come because of your knowing that that the advertiser is most likely using the word as a marketing tactic to make their product sound better than it probably is. This may not be the case everytime, but a lot of the time it is.

Everyday, consumers are bombarded by marketing tactic after marketing tactic (I will write a blog post on this specifically in the future!) and are affected directly by a number of them every single day.  There are times when a company will use words like “best” or “greatest” in their marketing but there are also times when they can’t.  This depends on the nature of the product or service they are claiming to be the best and if it is possible that it can or cannot be a proven claim.  If it can be proven that the product is not the best as it claims it is, then legal issues could occur.

So the next time you see an advertisement claiming to be the best or something of a similar nature, stop to think to yourself.  Is it possible that a study could have been conducted to prove the statement or is it just a claim being made to make a product, service, or company sound better?

This will help you make better decisions in your everyday purchase decisions and will help you minimize your disappointment in purchasing goods that are over claiming their potential!

Mark Garland
AnalyzedMarketing.com