Navigating eBay the Easy Way

The navigation bar is at the top of the eBay home page and lists five eBay
links that take you directly to different eBay areas. Using the navigation bar
is kind of like doing one-stop clicking. You can find this bar at the top of
every page on eBay. Hovering over some of the links reveals a subnavigation
list with links to other, related (and important) places.

Think of links as expressways to specific destinations. Click a link and, the
next thing you know, you’re right where you want to be. You don’t even have
to answer that annoying old question, “When are we gonna get there?” from
the kids in the backseat.

✦ Buy: Takes you to the page that lists the top-level eBay categories and
provides many buying-related links, links to the home page’s Featured
Items (see Book III), and a Search window, as shown in Figure 2-3. You’ll
find a mini-version of your My eBay page here, with drop-down links for
your favorite searches, sellers, and categories. From this page, you have
many ways of finding any one of the millions of items for sale on eBay.

You’ll find top-level categories on the Buy page. When you click to
browse a category (for example, Books), you’ll be brought to a category
hub page that lists the subcategories of that category. Click your desired
subcategory, and you arrive at the subcategory page, where you see
three yellow tabs at the top of the listings. These tabs offer you different
viewing options to browse:

• All Items is the default setting for the page. This option delivers on
its promise — you see all items, including auctions and those items
that can be purchased immediately using Buy It Now.

• Click the Auctions tab to see only the items that are up for auction.

• The Buy It Now tab isolates a view of all items listed with the Buy It
Now feature.

You can sort in these ways:

• Best Match is the default search option; it sorts the listings you see
by their relevance. A listing’s relevance is based, in part, on past
successful buyer behavior for similar items. The added reasoning
behind this search is to identify sellers who provide great buying
experiences and sellers who don’t, all gauged by the use of Detailed
Seller Ratings and feedback ratings.

• Time: ending soonest allows you to view the category listings in time
order, with the soonest to end on top. (This is the way I always sort
when I’m browsing.)

• Time: newly listed shows the items that have recently been listed in
the category.

• Time: ending today displays items that end in the next 24 hours and
are displayed with the item ending soonest listed first.

• Time: new today is where you can get the jump on other bargain
hunters and see the full listing of items launched within the past 24
hours.

• Price + Shipping: Lowest first sorting can be deceiving. Many sellers
list their items at an extremely low starting price to attract bidders.
You may have to wade through twenty pages of ninety-nine cent
items before you reach the dollar ones — a huge waste of time.

• Price: Highest first and Price + Shipping: Highest first are good
choices if you’re looking for high-ticket items in a category.

• Distance: nearest first. If you want to buy a large item (sofa? refrigerator?
car?) and would rather save on shipping or want to drop by
to inspect the item, this is the best search for you.

You can also search through the category. Type some keywords in the
search box to find, for example, a particular book. Because more than 20
million items are up for auction at any given time, finding just one (say, a
book on antique Vermont milk cans) is no easy task.

✦ Sell: Takes you to the first stop of the Sell Your Item form that you fill
out to start your listings. (More on how to sell in Book III.) You also see
a bunch of links that can take you to a zillion different places on eBay.
Stop by someday when you have a lot of time on your hands.

✦ My eBay: Takes you to your personal My eBay page, where you keep
track of your buying and selling activities, account information, and
favorite categories (more about My eBay 

✦ Community: Takes you to a page where you can find the latest news
and announcements, chat with fellow traders in the eBay community,
find charity auctions, and discover more about eBay. Several boxes in
the subnavigation bar correspond to the links on the page (more on the
eBay 

✦ Help: Opens the eBay Help Center overview page (which consists of a
search box in which you can type your query) and links for help topics.

Below the eBay navigation bar (on most eBay pages) are powerful links that
are just as important as the links on the navigation bar:

✦ eBay Logo: Takes you directly to the eBay home page. Use this link from
any other page when you need to get back to the home page right away.

✦ Categories: When you click here, there’s a drop-down menu for all
eBay’s top-level categories.

✦ Motors: Takes you to the eBay Motors site. Here, you can find links that
connect you to the largest vehicle sales site on the Web.

✦ Stores. To view or browse eBay stores you click here.

✦ Site map: Provides you with a bird’s-eye view of the eBay world. Every
top-level (or main) link available on eBay is listed here. If you’re ever
confused about finding a specific area, try the site map first. If a top-level
link isn’t listed here, it’s not on eBay — yet.

✦ Sign In/Sign Out: This link, which is below the navigation bar, toggles
between Sign In and Sign Out depending on your sign-in status. This is
an important link, and I remind you about it throughout the book. When
you’re signed in, it reads Hello, followed by your user ID.

Navigating through eBay

As I’ve said before, the writer Thomas Wolfe was wrong: You can go
home again — and again. At least with eBay you can! Day after day millions
of people land at eBay’s home page without wearing out the welcome
mat. The eBay home page is the front door to the most popular e-tailing site
on the Internet.

Everything you need to know about navigating eBay begins right here. In
this chapter, I give you the grand tour of the areas you can reach right from
the home page with the help of links.

Homing In on the Home Page

✦ A navigation bar at the top of the page with five eBay links that can zip
you straight to any of the many eBay areas, as well as a powerful link
right below the navigation bar
✦ An important link to eBay’s Live Help
✦ A list of links to auction categories
✦ Links to other eBay companies, and the 29 international eBay sites

At the top of almost every eBay page is a search box that helps you find
items by title keywords.

Do not adjust your computer monitor. You’re not going crazy. You may
notice that a link was on the eBay home page one day but gone the next day.
The links on the eBay home page change to reflect what’s going on — not
just on the site but also in the world.

Home-page links, the next generation
If you look carefully on the home page, you can see several other links
that give you express service to several key parts of the site. Here are the
highlights:

✦ From Our Sellers: Click the link to visit the featured items near the
bottom of the page. Here at eBay, money talks pretty loudly, so a seller
can pay extra to feature his or her listing and maybe it will land on the
home page sometime during its run. eBay rotates six featured items
throughout the day so that as many sellers as possible get a shot at
being in the spotlight. When you click the From Our Sellers See All
Featured Items link, you’re instantly beamed to eBay’s Featured Items
section.

You can find everything from Las Vegas vacations to Model-T Fords
to diet products in the Home Page Featured Items section. Home Page
Featured Items are not for mere mortals with small wallets. They’ve been lifted to the exalted featured status because sellers shelled out lots
of money to get them noticed. All you need to get your auction featured
is $39.95 ($79.95 for Multiple Item listings), plus a second or two to click
Home Page Featured Item on the Sell Your Item form.

Browsing for a Browser

When you get a computer, you get an Internet browser for free. A browser is
the software program that lets your computer talk to the Internet. It’s like
having your own private cyberchauffeur. Type the address (also known as
the URL, for Uniform Resource Locator) of the Web site you want to visit, and
boom, you’re there. For example, to get to eBay’s home page, type www.
ebay.com and press Enter. (It’s sort of a low-tech version of “Beam me up,
Scotty!” — and almost as fast.)

The two most popular browsers are Firefox (available both for MAC and the
PC) and Microsoft Internet Explorer. (They are what Coca-Cola and Pepsi are
to the cola wars.) Both programs are powerful and user-friendly. Figures 1-3
and 1-4 show you these browsers and how they show pages in the same way.
(Sit, browser! Now shake! Good browser!) The one you choose is a matter of
preference — I use them both!

You can get Microsoft Internet Explorer and Firefox for free. To find out
more information (or to make sure you’re using the most up-to-date version
of the software):

✦ Go to www.microsoft.com for Microsoft Internet Explorer
✦ Go to www.mozilla.com/firefox for Firefox

Have you ever wondered what all those buttons and drop-down lists at the top
of your browser do? In the following sections, I explain Explorer and Firefox
in more depth. According to my recent eBay statistics (from Sellathon), 70
percent of the hits on my listings come from people using Internet Explorer,
23 percent are from people using Firefox, and the balance come from users of
Safari, MSN, and AOL. Read on while we browse together.

Perusing the menus
At the top of almost all Microsoft-enabled programs are standard drop-down
lists that invoke various programs. Who’d ever think you’d need to use
menus, given all the colorful icons that Internet Explorer provides? Well, the
drop-down lists give you more in-depth access to the program’s capabilities.
Tables 1-1 and 1-2 give you an overview of the various tasks you can perform
from the menus.

Dabbling with the toolbar
Being a graphical interface, Explorer presents you with lots of colorful icons
that allow you to invoke programs or tasks with a click of the mouse. Table
1-3 gives you an introduction to these icons. You can customize which ones
you view from the Tools menu, or you can choose just to see words

Expert keyboard shortcuts
I’m all about using keystrokes instead of clicking! I also love the controls
available on my mouse. Table 1-4 and 1-5 give you a list of all the shortcuts
I could find. You’ll see that Microsoft Internet Explorer and Firefox share
many of the same shortcut keys. I hope they help cut down your desk time.

Accessing E-Mail

After you have access to the Internet, you need access to e-mail. If you have
your own computer and an ISP, you probably have e-mail access automatically.
But if you’re logging on to the Internet away from home, you might
want to look into setting up a free e-mail provider.

Most ISPs will allow you to check your e-mail from their Web sites, but
commonly, you’ll be using Microsoft’s Outlook Express to check your mail
on your home computer.

Google’s Gmail, Yahoo!, and Hotmail are the most popular Web-based, free
e-mail providers. They are free and secure, and signing up is a snap. I like
them because all have a Mail Alert feature, which allows you to instruct Gmail,
Yahoo!, or MSN Mobile to contact you through your Web-enabled cell phone
when you have new e-mail. You can join Gmail at www.gmail.com, Yahoo!
e-mail at www.yahoo.com, and Hotmail by going to www.hotmail.com.

Some commonsense rules can help you protect your account:

✦ Select a password that’s difficult to guess. Use letter-and-number
combinations or nonsensical words that nobody else knows. Don’t use
common names or words relating to you (such as the name of your
street).

✦ Keep passwords secret. If someone asks for your password online, you
can bet it’s a scam. Never give out your password.

✦ Don’t open an e-mail with an attachment from an unknown person.
The attachment (another file attached to your e-mail message) could
contain a virus.

✦ Don’t respond to spam e-mail. Spam is online slang for harassing,
offensive, or useless-but-widely-distributed messages or advertisements.
If you ignore and delete such junk without even opening it, the senders
will probably just go look for somebody else to bother.