You listed an item for sale and now you've received a question from a potential bidder. They live in your area and would like to know if they can come and pick the item up in person before they decide to bid. They say that if you tell them no, you're likely to lose their bid to someone else.

Should you let them? As it turns out, there are pros and cons to weigh when making a decision like this one, some of them pretty important. Be sure to think things through carefully before you answer.

See Also

     •  Nine Small Business Pitfalls to Avoid
     •  Don't Contact Anyone You're Not Trading With
     •  Don't Expect What a Seller Doesn't Offer

Are you running afoul of the law on eBay without even realizing it? Don't find yourself suddenly subject to an unexpected citation—or worse, suspension.

In practice, it happens all too often—you join, you begin to buy or sell, you succeed fabulously and come to rely on eBay as an important part of your financial or consuming life, and then out of the blue you are written up and locked out and find yourself in limbo. Why did this happen? And how could it have been avoided?

While there are a long list of official eBay rules, they can be be generally summarized as a few commonsense ideas.

See Also

     •  How to Make a Purchase on eBay
     •  How to Make a Sale on eBay

Social networking is hot these days. Everyone seems to be offering a way to make profiles and link to other people in the hopes of creating a new "community" online, and everyone seems to want to join an online community and become a part of the fun.

eBay, on the other hand, comes with a ready-made community of millions—and eBay isn't allowing itself to be left behind in leveraging crowd power to create crowd smiles. Your eBay My World page is the place to create a profile, add a photo, link to your interests and favorite eBay members, and make a home for yourself in eBay's little universe.

See Also

     •  Create Your About Me Page
     •  Using eBay Wiki
     •  Can I give to charity through eBay?

This installment of weird eBay auctions is all about energy—of the offbeat sort. In fact, based on a quick romp through eBay's "metaphysics" category, we'll call this the "metaphysical" edition of Weird eBay Auction Fund.

We start off with this CellSensor EMF Ghost Detector, a handsome looking tool—er, thing—that has a needle that moves back and forth apparently to inform you when you're about to run into a ghost. As the listing says, the device is rated "9.2 out of 10 by ghost hunters," so you can't possibly go wrong with your $44.90 purchase.

Next we have this lovely Tesla shield, the ultimate (as the auction says) in transformational technology, and very compact and on a string, too! If you have been feeling as though your "human bioenergetic field" could use more of the "specific information rich energy from the Schumann Resonance Field," perhaps you should invest in one of these little beauties—a snip at just a few hundred dollars.

Moving on and getting a bit more entrepreneurial, we find "the ultimate in financial abundance engineering technology," this Life Technology(R) Ultimate Advanced Psychotronic Money Magnet. Suffice it to say, I'd like someone to provide a report to me on whether or not this works well; I may just invest in one myself.

For those with a bigger budget and more, uh, practical concerns in mind, there is this Jack Gillen Commodity Psion computer, which apparently predicts commodity prices for interested traders according to the phases of the planets, or the moon, or the sun—or something. Given the current troubles in financial and trading markets, this coudl be just the thing.

Also for the metaphysical technophile is this RAD 1000 Radionics Orgone Chi Device with PBT. Good thing about the PBT. I absolutely must have PBT on my Orgone Chi Devices. Okay, honestly, I won't even pretend to understand what this claims—er—what this does.

Finally, as something of a finale, let me draw your attention to the impressive set of specifications and extensive research and operational detail presented in this auction for an Orgone Radionic Scalar Wave Chair with frequency generator. I can only hope and assume that the chair is not unlike the Millenium Falcon—as Han Solo said, "she may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts."

Until next time...Happy bidding!

In eBay has always been famous for its sense of community—for the sense of enthusiasm that its buyers and sellers seem to share. In recent years, however, other forms of online community—most notably sites like MySpace and Facebook have overtaken eBay as forums in which people come together to meet, interact, and socialize.

To answer the challenge, in the last several months eBay has introduced eBay Neighborhoods, a place where buyers and sellers of all stripes can come together in order to meet and share ideas and thoughts about the types of products and lifestyle choices that interest them. Read on to learn more about this latest development in the eBay community and how it can help buyers and sellers alike to navigate eBay.

See Also

     •  Play on the eBay Playground
     •  Join the Community with eBay Groups
     •  Join the Discussion with eBay Blogs

Is eBay unfairly biased toward buyers, as some sellers would have it? Alternatively, is it letting sellers get away with fraudulent behavior while buyers have little or no recourse, as some buyers would have it? It's a classic argument that's become louder over the last couple of years as eBay has grown into an international sales juggernaut with membership measured in the hundreds of millions. A very decent percentage of what I hear about eBay from others comes in the form of complaints about a perceived lack of fairness on eBay as a matter of policy—whether this lack of fairness is seen to privilege buyers or sellers.

But which is it, in the end? Is it buyers that are unfairly duping sellers by taking advantage of eBay's structure and rules or is it the other way around? And what should eBay members do about it to try to mitigate the problem?

As it turns out, the answers are as old as business itself. Many won't like them, but for others it's just common sense. Read on to reflect more on eBay's sometimes increasing buyer-seller divide.

See Also

     •  Resolving Disputes with Sellers
     •  Dealing with Buyer Fraud

It isn't always a case of fraud or deceitful intent when a buyer is dissatisfied with a transaction. Sometimes it's simply a matter of miscommunication or inflated expectations that unfortunately aren't met in the midst of a transaction. To make sure that both you and your potential seller are happy with a transaction, you should keep your eye out for a few common gotchas that often frustrate both buyer and seller needlessly.

See Also

     •  Avoiding Counterfeit Items on eBay
     •  Don't Expect What a Seller Doesn't Offer

Having trouble logging into your eBay account? Seeing things in it that you don't understand? If you're having trouble with your eBay account and you remember having received email communication from eBay recently, it may be time to ask yourself whether you see sings your eBay account has been stolen.

See Also

     • Phishes and Spoofs
     • How do I contact eBay?

Drop shipping is one of the classic direct marketing business models. No inventory, low overhead, and scales well.

On the other hand, eBay isn't any mail order catalog. If you plan to drop ship through eBay, you'd better keep a few basics in mind, or your eBay drop shipping business can wind up in trouble faster than you can say "eBay." Here's what you should know before you try to make it as an eBay drop shipper.

See Also

     • Exchanging money on eBay
     • Visual Introduction to Turbo Lister

Some time has passed since our last installment of weird auction fun, so it's time once again to link to some of the most unusual and most bewildering auctions on eBay this week—just for fun.

We'll begin with this ring—er, magick ring—er, bound gothic demon, apparently with the ability to shape-shift and a number of the legions of hell at his (her?) command. It's a bit pricey, but assuming the seller is on the level, it might be an—er—interesting sort of a buy. (Does it come with an owner's manual?)

If you really are looking to buy powerful tools but not the sort that require you to take a ranked position in the armies of the underworld, consider investing in a floating pile driver barge that can be used to insert giant hunks of wood directly into the earth, even underwater. Clean the garage first, though; this thing will take at least one parking space.

Of course the more refined amongst us prefer to wield power of a less obvious, vulgar sort. Demons and pile drivers are fine, but the kind of authority that they grant can hardly be used in politics, business, or Beautiful People circles. For that you need the classics—breeding, genealogy, a family line—or a title. Something like, say, Lord (or Lady) of Tufton or even Baron of an Italian territory. I think.

For the more modern and high-minded, other sorts of power are more interesting. Enlightened souls will find hours of amusement playing with this photon generator, sure to make all of your relativity experiments that much more authentic. Finally, if you're into light but like it more than one photon at a time, consider instead bidding on this very excited-looking tesla coil, sure to make hairs stand on end.

Happy bidding!