EBay for Dummies (69 page)

Communication and compromise are the keys to successful transactions. If you have a difference of opinion, write a polite e-mail outlining your expectations and offer to settle any dispute by phone. See Chapters 12 and 13 for tips on communicating after the auction ends — and solving disputes
before
they turn wicked, aggressive, or unprintable.

Chapter 17

The eBay Community: Joining In with Other eBay Members

In This Chapter

Looking at announcements and other important messages

Using eBay message boards

Getting to know products through reviews

Sharing through My World

Chatting it up

eBay is more than just an Internet location for buying and selling great stuff. eBay wants the world to know that it has created (and works hard to maintain) a community. It’s not a bad deal — prime real estate in
this
community costs only pennies! As in real-life communities, you participate as much as works for you. You can get involved in all sorts of neighborhood activities, or you can just sit back, mind your own business, and watch the world go by. eBay works exactly the same way.

As you’ve probably heard by now, one of the main ways to participate in the eBay community is through feedback (which I explain in detail in Chapters 4 and 6). In this chapter, I show you some other ways to become part of the community. You can socialize (making friends who live in your community or who live across the planet), learn from other members, post messages, or just read what everybody’s talking about on eBay’s discussion boards, groups, chat boards, and the corporate Announcements Board. I include tips on how to use all these places to your benefit, and then give you a change of scenery by surfing through some off-site message boards that can help you with your buying and selling.

On eBay’s navigation bar, click the Community link to connect to the happenings on eBay; I use it regularly to check proposed changes to the site on the General Announcements page. But there’s a whole lot more to the Community area of eBay. Take a little time to explore it for yourself.

News and Chat, This and That

It’s not quite like
The New York Times
(“All the News That’s Fit to Print”), but you can find all the news, chat board, group, and discussion board links from the Community Overview page. Figure 17-1 shows you what the page looks like.

Here’s a list of the core headings of the main Community page. Each heading offers you links to the specific eBay areas:

Feedback:
Find a handy link to the Feedback Forum. (More on feedback in Chapters 4 and 6.)

Connect:
Click the links in this section to be whisked to eBay’s discussion boards, groups, chat rooms, blogs, or the Answer Center.

News:
This area contains links to the Announcements page, which covers general news, policy changes, technology updates, system announcements, and more. You can also find links to eBay events, including Town Hall meetings, eBay Radio, and Online Workshops.

Making eBay Your World

Did you know that if you click your user ID on any eBay page, you arrive at your very own My World page? (You also have a link to your My World page on the Community page). Unlike the About Me page, which you have to choose to set up yourself, every eBay member has their own My World page. It’s ready and waiting for you to embellish it.

Look at my My World page in Chapter 14 (Figure 14-6). See the link at the top that invites me to customize my page? Yours has it as well. You can customize this page with your favorites, your photo, feedback, a guestbook, your own (short) biography and many of your eBay interests.

Your My World page reflects your many varied interests. From here, eBay gives you other ways to express yourself (links to all these pages are also on the main Community page):

Neighborhoods:
Have a hobby? Maybe enjoy an old series of TV shows or a movie? (No cracks about my being a member of the Star Trek Neighborhood.) Search eBay’s Neighborhoods and see if there’s a group you might want to join. The main page (where you can search the various neighborhoods) is at
http://neighborhoods.ebay.com
.

Reviews:
Wondering what other eBay members think of a particular product, book, or movie? Visit eBay’s Reviews to find out. Better yet, contribute one of your own. Reviews show up when a search is made on an item for which eBay users have posted reviews. Figure 17-2 shows a review written by an eBay member on one of my books.

Guides:
Do you have a special talent? Maybe you’re an expert on antique linens and want to share that knowledge? Here’s the place. Go to the Reviews & Guides area and post your guide to help other eBay members. Just go to
http://reviews.ebay.com
and you’ll see the page shown in Figure 17-3.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye! eBay’s Announcements Boards

If you were living in the 1700s, you’d see a strangely dressed guy in a funny hat ringing a bell and yelling, “Hear ye, hear ye!” every time you opened eBay’s announcements boards. (Then again, if you were living in the 1700s, you’d have no electricity, computers, fast food, or anything else you probably consider fun.) In any case, eBay’s announcements boards are the most important place to find out what’s going on (directly from the home office) on the Web site. And no one even needs to ring a bell.

The General Announcements Board is where eBay lists any new features and policy changes. Visiting this page is like reading your morning eBay newspaper because eBay adds comments to this page almost every day. You find out about upcoming changes in categories, new promotions, and eBay goings-on. eBay also uses it to help users become aware of critical changes in policies and procedures. Reach this page at
www2.ebay.com/aw/marketing.shtml
. Figure 17-4 shows you eBay’s General Announcements Board with information that could affect your sales.

eBay has over 200 million members — a bigger population than some countries — but it can still have that small-town feel through groups, chat boards, and discussion boards. Start on the main Connect area (refer to Figure 17-1) by clicking Community on the navigation bar. Then click the links below. You can access more than two dozen category-specific chats (although I’m not quite sure what’s discussed in the Furbies Board these days), as well as a bunch of general chats, discussion boards, and help discussion boards.

Help! I Need Somebody

If you ever have specific eBay questions to which you need answers, several eBay discussion boards on the Community: Connect page can help you. You can also go directly to the chat rooms to pose your question to the eBay members currently in residence.

Boards work differently than chat rooms. Chat rooms are full of people who are hanging out talking to each other all at the same time, whereas users of discussion boards tend to go in, leave a message or ask a question, and pop out again. Also, in a discussion board, you need to start a thread by asking a question. Title your thread with your question, and you’ll no doubt get a swift answer to your query.

Many questions can be answered by going to eBay’s Answer Center, which you can get to by clicking the Answer Center link in the Connect area. You then see boards covering almost any topic regarding selling and buying on eBay. Just post your question and some kind eBay member will probably suggest an answer (but remember to take that advice with a grain of salt, just as you would any advice from someone with unknown credentials).

eBay newbies often find that the boards are good places to add to their knowledge of eBay. As you scroll by, read past the postings; your question may already be answered in an earlier posting. You can even ask someone on a chat or discussion board to look at your auction listing and provide an opinion on your descriptions or pictures.

Community Chat Rooms

Because sending e-mail to eBay’s Customer Service people can be frustratingly slow if you need an answer right away (they get bombarded with a gazillion questions a day), you may want to try for a faster answer by posting your question on one of the Community chat rooms.