Are you finding that auction after auction fails to attract any bidders or buyers? It happens to the best of us sometimes take a good look at these things to see if any of them could be making your bidders avoid you.

The starting price was too high: People dont want to have to make a high bid before anyone else has you should always start your auctions low and let the bidders bid them up.

So you have a question? Has something gone very wrong and you dont know what to do? Well, fair enough. Here are the questions that I hear all the time from buyers.

Does eBay have a Customer Service Department I Can Phone?

Have you noticed that whenever you open a newspaper, watch the TV or have a conversation, people seem to be talking about eBay? If youve never used it and youve no idea what its all about, then the chances are that youre starting to feel a little left out. But dont worry! This email contains everything you need to know about the basics of bidding and buying on eBay.

So What is eBay?

In fact, you might not even have heard of eBay stores. Read on to find out what youve been missing.

eBay stores come at three levels: Basic for $15.95 per month, Featured for $49.95 per month or Anchor for $499.95 per month (yes, that is typed correctly: almost $500). The best place to start out is with Basic (you can even get a months free trial), but if you like what you find then you should upgrade to Featured quickly, simply because it has so many extra features. Note that you must have a feedback rating of at least 20 before you can get an eBay store.

Your eBay reputation is everything you are on eBay without it, youre nothing. Your reputation is worth as much as every sale you will ever make.

If youve ever bought anything on eBay (and the chances are you have), then think about your own behaviour. Buying from a seller with a low feedback rating makes you feel a little nervous and insecure, while buying from a PowerSeller with their reputation in the thousands doesnt require any thought or fear it feels just like buying from a shop.

A Bad Reputation Will Lose You Sales.

Its surprisingly simple to get started posting your very first auction on eBay. Heres what you need to do.

Step 1: Open an eBay sellers account.

So your buyer has paid on time, youve shipped them the item, and theyve left you positive feedback. Everything is going great! You know that leaving your buyer some nice feedback will finish everything off, and make them glad they chose to buy from you.

When you see that little feedback box, though, you might find that you have no idea what to write to make your buyer happiest. Well, heres a guide.

eBay doesnt have very many competitors, and the ones that there are remain small by comparison thats part of what makes eBay so powerful for niche items. If youre selling more common things, though, you might like to list auctions on other sites besides eBay, to increase your potential customer base and avoid some of the occupational hazards of relying on eBay for all your business. But which ones are worth bothering with?

Yahoo! Auctions.

The quickest answer I feel I should give to this question is this: not your handwriting! Scrawling addresses on boxes with a pen is extremely amateurish, and you shouldnt do it. Print your own labels instead. But what should you put on them?

The buyers address: This might sound obvious, but you need to make sure the full address is there, including country and zip or postal code. Make sure you spell their name correctly, too, as they might be a little insulted if you dont.

SquareTrade are eBays chosen provider of dispute resolution services. If you want your buyers to have a little more confidence in you, you can get a SquareTrade seal, and put it on each one of your auctions.

The chances are that youve seen these seals around. They show SquareTrades blue and green logo, along with the eBay users ID and the current date. This is followed by the text SquareTrade Verified Seller, Click to Learn More. SquareTrade is also used on sites other than eBay, for example Yahoo and eLance its an Internet-wide trust system.