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

Ebay may very well be one of the best list building and traffic generation tools available on the Internet.  So many marketers underestimate its potential and really drop the ball when it comes to incorporating it into their overall marketing strategy.  It is not just about selling old trinkets around the house and video games that you no longer play.  Ebay is a very powerful web site that can be used very effectively for market research, keyword research, lead generation, product sales and Internet traffic generation, all either for free or for significantly less than what you would pay from other sources.

One way to use Ebay is as a market research and keyword research tool. By simply creating a free account with them, you get the ability to search through all items that are available for sale.  By doing an “advanced search” you can do a search only for items in which the auction has already ended.  To do this, simply check off the option “completed items only.”

To do market research and keyword research on Ebay, simply do a search for all the completed items with some of the keywords in your target market.  This search will reveal to you what prospects are paying right now for items in your market as well as what keywords successful sellers are using to drive traffic to their auctions.  As you can probably imagine, this type of information is incredibly valuable to those who actually use such information to their advantage … which, by the way, is highly recommended.

Ebay can also be used for effective list building by making product sales. If you offer a low priced product (i.e. under $20) using their “Buy It Now” feature may very well work for you.  Even if you offer a higher priced product, you can still make money selling the product with their service.  However, you might be better off using their Classified Ads feature.  Please note that a new policy has come into effect that if you sell downloadable products online through Ebay, you MUST list that item as a classified ad.  Therefore, if you want to sell your downloadable products, make sure you either list it as a classified ad, or make it a physical product by putting it on a CD.

Ebay is also one of the most underutilized traffic generation web sites on the Internet today. Think about how much keywords in your target market go for on Google Adwords and Yahoo Sponsored Search.  By utilizing the power of Ebay to your advantage, you can generate targeted prospects for significantly less than what it would cost using a pay per click search engine.  For example, one common strategy for traffic generation is to offer a low cost downloadable report.  When your prospects purchase that report, you then send them to a download page where they download the report that they purchased and also provide them with an offer for the main product that you want to sell.

This is a great marketing strategy because you have already gotten the prospect to buy something from you. It is much easier to get a prospect that has already spent money with you to spend more money, than it is to get a prospect who has never spent money with you (and has joined your list for free) to spend money with you for the first time.  A certain percentage of prospects who buy your low cost report will also purchase your main item.  In addition, on your listing page, you can refer your prospects to check out your “About Me” page on Ebay.  On your About Me page, you can make an offer for anything you like, even a link to the main product you promote.

Keep in mind that Ebay is one of the HIGHEST visited web sites on the internet today boasting hundreds of millions of users from all across the world — ALL on that web site looking to BUY stuff.  Where else can you go to find a congregation of BUYERS for the products and services that you offer?  This is why if you are not using Ebay as part of your Internet marketing strategy, you need to strongly consider using it.

If you are interested in learning more highly effective ways to drive traffic to your websites than you should definitely consider The Analyzed Marketing website traffic generation program.  It will open your eyes to numerous off line and Internet marketing techniques available that can increase website traffic free and at a low cost!

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I hope you have found this article informative.  I would love to hear your comments.

To Your Success,
Mark Garland

P.S. If you did indeed enjoy this post, than I would appreciate a digg to the top right, or possibly pass this on to friends who might like it?