Ebay Hacks: Tips & Tools for Bidding, Buying, and Selling

by David A. Karp

Book Overview

Whatever you call it--an online auction house, the world's largest flea market, or a vast social experiment--no metaphor completely describes the huge trading community that is eBay. Underneath it all, eBay is also a computer program and a complex socio-economic system, requiring experience, finesse, and the right tools to master. eBay Hacks , 2nd Edition has been completely revised and updated to make use of an array of new tools and features, as...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 059610068X
• ISBN13: 9780596100681
• Release Date: July 2005
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Length: 438 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

A must have for the eBay seller.

Learn from an expert the inside operating tricks for eBay. Very technical but well worth learning these ideas.

Excellent investment for your money whether you are a buyer or a seller.

I have only read about half of the book so far and already I have used many of the tips and scripts. All the scripts mentioned in the book are available online so you don't have do all that typing. Many of the hacks are not really hacks, but tips and recommendations on how to do things. The only minor complain I have is that the book references other chapters, but you have to go back to the Table of Contents to find the page number for the chapter. I think each page should have the current chapter number on it. Each page does have the hack number on it so it makes it easy to find a hack without going back to the table of contents.

Good eBay Toolbook

Author: David A. Karp Description: eBay Hacks by David A. Karp Published by O'Reilly ISBN 059610068X Reviewed by Jim Lauria-HuNTUG member From the introduction: "Essentially, you'll find in this book the tools to help you trade smarter and safer, make more money, and have fun doing it." This second edition-revised and updated to June 2005-provides the eBayer with tips and tools (aka hacks) for successful bidding, buying and selling on the premier online auction web site. I found the hacks provided by the author to be extremely helpful and informative, easy to use and understand. As a long time eBay seller I had become complacent with the tools and techniques which I had been using for months or even years. This book has given me new ideas and approaches to make my eBay business better. Karp provides clever shortcuts and powerful tools to do all sorts of neat things like create better titles, listings and descriptions to fancier photographs (Hack 74) and even how to cultivate a good reputation and protect yourself and your $ (Hacks 25 & 85). He also provides warnings about your safety, privacy and money matters. Included is a chapter on eBay's Application Programming Interface, XML, Perl, PHP and RSS and development of custom software apps that can be worked in to one's own business apps and can also be passed along to others-hey maybe even for a small fee! The book is well written with plenty of photos, screen shots and lots of code to get you up and buying/selling in quick fashion. 438 pages that read through really quickly and are packed with plenty of good stuff. I would recommend this title for anyone-novice or pro-who is or would like to make or save some money using eBay or just to have some fun while selling your wares. The book lists for $24.95-less online. I give this one 5 stars.

The "best practices" guide to eBay...

If you use eBay (as a buyer or seller), this is the "user's manual" or best practices guide that should be part of your signup... eBay Hacks by David A. Karp. Contents: Diplomacy and Feedback; Searching; Bidding; Selling; Working with Photos; Completing Transactions; Running a Business on eBay; The eBay API; Index Most Hacks titles consist of 100 tips and tricks related to the subject matter being discussed. In eBay Hacks, you get an extra 25 for your money. What a deal! :-) Regardless of whether you're a complete newbie to eBay or you actually run an eBay storefront, you'll find things in here that will save you time and money on a regular basis. Reading the chapter and hacks on feedback, I learned that there are ways to prevent negative feedback even after it's been given. Since so much of who you are on eBay relates directly back to your feedback rating, this can be a critical factor in getting buyers to trust you (or others to sell to you). The chapter on bidding went into the act of "sniping", or bidding at the last second, so that you can stand a much better chance of not being overbid at the last second. I didn't realize there are third-party services that will do this for you automatically. No wonder I've lost some things I really thought I had nailed. Karp even goes into how best to compose photos that will draw people to your auction rather than send them away for something that looks more appealing. Obviously, you can use eBay without this book and information. I'm sure you'll do fine. But the first time you find an auction miscategorized (because you were looking for that condition) and you launch a bidding strategy that gets you the deal of a lifetime for next to nothing, you'll wonder why you waited so long. Good stuff here...

Good for volume sellers

One of my favorite activities in my spare time is buying and selling on eBay. It has quickly become the world's largest virtual mall of just about everything you can possibly think of. When I received this book I was eager to learn some of the "tricks of the trade" and found a lot of useful material, albeit some of it is geared towards power sellers and not the average user. The book itself is packed with 125 "hacks" for eBay, which can range from the basics (leaving feedback) to the more complex (setting up your own online check-out). A lot of the hacks give you tweaks and twists on the normal way of doing things, or take a task and show you a different, sometimes a little more dynamic, way of doing it. Some of the more advanced topics will only be feasible if you are a powerseller. The author covers a lot of third-party tools as well, which can quickly run into the big dollars if you are just selling a few things each week. However, there is a fair amount of material devoted to the mom and pop sellers, like many of us are. One of the shining points of this book is that it does show you how to do a lot of tricks yourself if you are willing to roll up your sleeves and play around with Perl. However, the book is for more than just sellers. A lot of tips are there for buyers as well. Such things as how to snipe effectively, and how to take advantage of bid increments in the auction to get the item for the lowest price. Even though the author is writing for both parties, the buyer and seller, he does a good job of not taking advantage of one over. A few of the topics he covers can be a bit controversial, depending on how you look at it. Things such as withholding feedback and sniping can be frowned upon by some -- but it is all perfectly legal in the world of eBay and the author tells you how to take advantage of it. Overall, a good book for those who want to get more out of eBay than just the casual buyer/seller. If you want to kick-start your eBay selling career, this is one of the books you will want to have to help guide you; Whereas if you want to learn the tricks of the buying game, you couldn't have picked a better reference manual.