Sunday, November 28, 2010

How Does E-Bay Work Again?

Am I the only person in the world that knows naught about E-bay? Today is the day to discover what I need to know to run the Project for Awesome book auction to raise money for P4A Charities! So, what have I done so far? Gathered the books, gotten the books signed (that was the fun, fun part!), photographed the books. (See my kitchen photo shoot on the left. I love the quilt my Mom made out of my son's family drawing.

I've uploaded the book photos to my Nerdfighters' Ning page and now I need to learn about eBay.

I know Etsy. Do you know Etsy? I desscribe it as an E-bay for artists. It's one of my favorite places to buy gifts. I've opened an Etsy shop, Copper Monkey, but have not populated it with collage art and domino necklaces yet. I've got to file some DBA paperwork first. But I digress. Etsy is not an auction site like E-bay.

What I want is to post each signed book to E-bay and have folks participate in an auction for purchase. To do this do I need a separate email or account? Should I just use the spillarke account my husband and I have used on eBay before?

So many questions, I thought I'd list them and share with students when we get to talking about our Project for Awesome projects next week:


  • How much does eBay charge to list auction items?
  • Can I set a start and end date for the auction?
  • Does eBay notify you each time a person bids?
  • Is it self-regulating? Can you list and item and then ignore it until the auction closes?
  • What kind of write up do I need to post with each book?
  • Can descriptions of auction products be hyper linked to other web spaces where I could have more info? Or is it a plain text the only option?
  • How many pictures can I use in my listing? 
  • How much does eBay charge per listing?
  • Are listing rates different for differently priced items?
  • How much will it cost me to sell items on eBay?
  • How do you figure out shipping charges?
  • How long does media rate shipping take? (okay that's not really an eBay question)
  • Will I pay for eBay listings up front and when the sale ends?
  • How long will it take to list 50 items? 
  • What else do I need to know in order to make this eBay charity book auction successful? 
What do you think? Am I going to be to giving Nerdfighter books to everyone in my Christmas network? Or are we going to be able to raise some money for awesome? 

1 comment:

  1. I have posted items for sale on Ebay before, so has Chuck. It is very simple and Ebay walks you through it. And I LOVE ETSY! And I did notice your domino necklace and wanted to ask you about it! :)

    I finish my internship on December 10th and I will have some down time after that. I would not mind helping you post items for sale at all once I have some time to volunteer. :)

    I think I have the flu now (perfect timing cus I should be well in time to walk on graduation actually) so maybe later I'll be able to run down your list of questions and fill in some answers for you.

    This is such a beautiful thing you are doing.

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