eBay made easy: ready to start an eBay business? These 5 simple steps will get you on your way

Entrepreneur, May, 2005 by Cliff Ennico

In cases where a buyer posts negative feedback that is inaccurate or unfair, eBay affords you a limited opportunity to respond to the negative posting and tell buyers your side of the story. In extreme cases, eBay's SquareTrade service helps mediate disputes between eBay buyers and sellers.

Step 5: Build a Brand on eBay On eBay, sellers are offered a number of tools to help establish their brand identities, including:

* ABOUT ME: A free page that enables you to describe your business and any relevant information that would make buyers feel more comfortable buying from you.

* EBAY STORES: A virtual storefront that puts all of your current auctions together in one place, so buyers can see everything you're selling at a glance. You'll pay a monthly fee based on the level of store services you want, plus additional fees for items listed and sold.

* CUSTOMIZING TOOLS; A number of features (accessible from your "My eBay" page) that enable you to make your pages stand out from others offering similar merchandise.

Like any marketplace, eBay is constantly changing. "A lot of people get set in a comfort zone, especially if they have an initial rush of success," says Griff. "If you get to the point that you really feel comfortable you know what you're doing on eBay, I guarantee you there's a brick flying at the side of your head at 80 miles an hour that you're not seeing because you're not looking in that direction."

You can expect pricing and demand on eBay to change over time. As more and more people start operating on eBay, competition will increase and prices may decline slightly. Still, keep in mind that eBay has reached only a small fraction of its potential worldwide market. And it will continue to grow even faster as internet access becomes more readily available worldwide. "EBay is the leader in internet auctions," says Morphy. "It has such a strong hold on the market and such a huge following, you can't beat it."

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: For more information on starting a business on eBay, log on to our eBay Business Center at www.entrepreneur.com/ebay. If you're new to doing business online, we've got you covered. Check out our free downloadable PDF, "The Entrepreneur's Guide to Doing Business Online" by Rieva Lesonsky, at www. entrepreneur.com/ebay/paypalguide. It discusses marketing, customer service, shipping charges, payment methods, helpful resources and more.

BECOME AN EBAY EDUCATION SPECIALIST

For those of you who already know all about eBay and are looking for a new way to make money with it, eBay University offers an Education Specialist program that will train you to teach eBay's "Selling Basics" course to others. Upon completing the $149 online training program, you'll be able to advertise your own training events in eBay's Education Specialist directory, have access to official student-training materials from ebay, be able to use the "Education Specialist--Trained by ebay" logo on your business cards and more. For details, log on to http://pages.ebay.com/university/specialist.>