eBay Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools
By Dale Farris, Secretary
Golden Triangle PC Club
September 2003
General Overview
Nearly everybody who now uses a computer knows that eBay has become the world's leading computer application for buying and selling goods online. A worldwide electronic garage sale, eBay now boasts buyers and sellers of nearly anything imaginable, including the Segway people mover.
eBay is more than just an auction web site. It is a vast community of millions of buyers and sellers around the world, all of whom are competing for collectibles and customers, respectively. But eBay is also a complex computer system, one that requires experience and the right tools to master.
In "eBay Hacks," author David A. Karp provides tools and strategies to master eBay, whether you are a buyer trying to win an auction without getting ripped off, or a seller dealing with anxious customers and deadbeat bidders.
eBay is a community, a platform, a social experiment, a successful business, and a microcosm of important Information Age precepts like "network effects," "positive returns to scale," "frictionless economics," even "the changing nature of intellectual property." eBay has a couple dozen knockout dissertations lurking in its depths, as well as any number of statutory reforms, sermons, and life-lessons.
According to Cory Doctorow, who wrote the foreword to the book, "eBay is becoming the most important way for people to exchange goods. Exchanging goods, exchanging information, and exchanging culture are the three most important activities undertaken by human beings, with the exception of exchanging fluids."
eBay makes us all into participants in the market. It is no coincidence that eBay's first great wave of participation came from the collectibles trade. The collectibles market occurs at the intersection of luck, knowledge, and salesmanship.
eBay has found a most cost-effective means of cataloging the world's attics and basements. It's an attic-Napster, and it has spread the cost and effort around. When you spy a nice casino ashtray on the 25-cent shelf at Thrift Town, and snap its picture and put it up on eBay, and when the renowned collector of glass ashtrays, ColBatGuano, bids it up to $400, you have taken part in a market transaction that has simultaneously cataloged a nice bit of bric-a-brac and moved it to a collection where it will be lovingly cared for. What's more, you have left a record of where it is and what it was worth when we last saw it.
eBay is big, very big. At any given time, there are over 18 million items for sale, with an average of $680 worth of transactions taking place every second. eBay started out small, and has now become a phenomenon.
Karp's book is not a hand-holding guide. He will not walk through the process of bidding on your first auction or creating your first auction listing. The book is also not about "hacking into a system," or anything so nefarious. What you will find in the book is an emphasis on trading responsibly and ethically, as well as extensive tools and tips for protecting yourself as both a buyer and a seller.
The hacks in the book address the technological and diplomatic challenges faced by all eBay members, written from the perspective of an experienced eBayer who loves challenges as much as solutions. You will find in the book the tools you need to help you trade smarter and safer, make more money, and have fun doing it.
Special Features
The book is organized into four main ideas, including hacks for all, hacks for buyers, hacks for sellers, and hacks for developers.
Learn better ways to monitor auctions, more effective ways to bid, and safer ways to pay
Use advanced search tools to find auction items before anyone else, and determine the value of an item before you bid
Protect yourself before and after you bid, and never lose another penny to dishonest sellers
Use automatic sniping tools to win more auctions and spend less money
Get more money for your items with effective descriptions and killer photos
Maintain your reputation on eBay by knowing when to leave feedback, how to set reasonable expectations, and how to deal with the other eBay members when things don't go smoothly
Utilize tools to streamline the listing process, communications, and checkout
Dive into eBay's API to develop custom software that can be integrated with your business or distributed to others
Table of Contents
The eight (8) chapters include the following titles.
Diplomacy and Feedback
Searching
Bidding
Selling
Working with Photos
Completing Transactions
Running a Business on eBay
The eBay API
Target Readers
The focus in "eBay Hacks" is on improving your buying or selling experience in eBay. Thus, the focus is primarily on helping those who are more heavily involved in eBay, especially those who are in a business that relies on eBay for some, if not all of their transactions. The book will also be of great value to those who occasionally dip into eBay's storefronts, and will be a hit with anyone looking for bargains in eBay.
Book Contents
359 pages; acknowledgments; foreword from Cory Doctorow, sci-fi writer and contributor to Wired magazine; preface; figures; tips; extensive sample code scripts; index; cover colophon
Author
David A. Karp
About the Author
David A. Karp is that dangerous combination of compulsive writer and eBay fanatic. He discovered eBay in the late 1990s while looking for a deal on an electric cat-litter box. As an avid collector of toys of all kinds, he immediately saw eBay's potential to quench his thirst for second-hand consumer electronics, handmade brass trains, and obscure parts for discontinued products of all kinds. Soon thereafter, he began selling on eBay, and now trades religiously, taking breaks occasionally to write books. He still has the litter box.
Educated in Mechanical Engineering at U.C. Berkeley, David consults on Internet technology, user-interface design, and software engineering. Author of 6 power-user books on Microsoft Windows, including the bestselling "Windows Annoyances" series, he has also written for a number of magazines, including Windows Sources Magazine, Windows Pro Magazine, and New Media Magazine, and is a contributing editor for ZTrack Magazine. Noted recognition includes PC Computing Magazine, Windows Magazine, the San Francisco Examiner, and the New York Times.
David spends some of his spare time outside with his camera, but often finds it difficult to tear himself away from a good movie. David likes hiking and skiing, almost as much as he enjoys talking about them. He scored 30.96647% on the Geek Test (www.innergeek.us/geek.html), earning a rating of "Total Geek." Animals and children trust him. He can make 15-minute brownies in less than 10 minutes, and never gets tired of the Simpsons.
ISBN
August 2003, First Edition
0-596-00564-4
List Price
$24.95
$38.95 CAN
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