Articles & Guides

Five per cent of goods online are fake making an £800m criminal market. Auction web sites are increasingly becoming a significant channel for the sale of counterfeit and illegal products, according to research. For every £100 spent in web auctions, around £5 is spent on counterfeit items, says the study, which also revealed that the estimated value of fake goods including fashion and cosmetic items, consumer electronics, motor equipment and sports items sold over the web in the UK each year totals £800m.

By Angelica Mari

In past classes I used to tell my students to use eBay, and specifically the 'About Me Page' to link folks to their own private website. Many already know, but in case you are not an 'eBay junkie' that has come to an end. External links are only allowed to non-selling sites and they don't like the linked page to have links that could take them on to other selling sites. Links are helpful in many ways so I am experimenting with a link to the U.S. Post Office to see if it gets censored. After all, they are an approved vendor and we use them quite a bit.

On .t-g.com

SAN FRANCISCO - A French court dealt eBay Inc a blow for selling fake luxury goods, but while the Internet auctioneer's business model is unlikely to change, further legal setbacks could shave its margins. In the near term, the biggest damage could be to the eBay brand, which promises shoppers the widest range of goods in a marketplace that connects millions of buyers and sellers.

By Alexandria Sage

Claudine Beaumont and Matt Warman offer advice on ways to avoid rogue web traders. Earlier this week eBay, the popular online auction website, was fined €38.6 million (£30 million) by a French court for allowing the sale of fake goods through its site. The ruling has raised a serious question: just how can you spot fake goods on eBay? With British eBay users spending an average of two hours on the site each month, and viewing 250 pages in that time, it's more important than ever to ensure that what you're buying is the real deal, rather than a dodgy knock-off.

On telegraph.co.uk

A Canadian fiddler who is no stranger to controversy has put half his future music earnings up for sale on eBay, the auction website. Ashley MacIsaac, who says he declared personal bankruptcy in 2000, is seeking a minimum bid of C$1.5 million from an investor who would in turn get half of what the Cape Breton musician earns during the rest of his career. MacIsaac achieved international prominence and raised a few eyebrows in 1997 when he revealed more than his Celtic dance moves while taping "Late Night With Conan O'Brien." According to media reports, he exposed his private parts on the television show while kicking up his kilt during his performance.

By Lionel Perron

Why does PayPal ask buyers to send counterfeit merchandise purchased on eBay to a warehouse in Texas belonging to a liquidator? That's the question some eBay members are asking, and some are questioning whether PayPal is directing the liquidator to resell counterfeit items rather than destroying them. "The Purse Forum," an online discussion board calling itself a "community for handbag lovers and shoulder fashion fetishists," has an active discussion in which users speculate Liquidity Services is reselling counterfeits on their site on PayPal's behalf.

By Ina Steiner

Iam constitutionally unsuited to shopping on eBay. First there's the palaver of registering for the site where you must choose "a great user ID", which generally means the kind of moniker you might find in a Valentine's Day small ad: Fluffybunkins9 loves MrWidgit7's Teasmaid. Then there's your password, which you're bound to forget as you've only ever owned enough cats to provide code words for your bank, phone and internet providers. Next they ask: "How secure is your password?", to which the obvious answer is: "It depends how well you know my vet." Then you have to pick a "secret question" and provide a "secret answer", which puts one in mind of MPs' expenses.

By Rowan Pelling

For Sale: A Castle In Tucson, A Bridal Gown, Tickle Me Elmo And Anything Else You Could Name. Newsweek Spent 24 Hours In The World's Biggest Online Marketplace, Hoping To Learn What Makes America Click. Behold, I have a broken Panasonic DVD player, in the original factory box. Actually, I have no such thing, and if I did, it would be shoved away someplace where I wouldn't have to face the existential choice of fixing it or throwing it away. But now I realize there is a third option, to list it for sale on eBay, the electronic auction Web site that has revolutionized the meaning of "junk" for nearly 50 million people around the world. Someone else sold one last week for $33.26, plus shipping charges, which meant I would have cleared enough to purchase, say, 16 uncleaned authentic ancient Roman coins at $2 each, and the buyer would have... well, that would be his problem, but maybe he'd know someone who fixes this stuff cheap.

By Jerry Adler

This week, eBay was fined £30m for sales of fake luxuries, and further lawsuits are pending. Is it possible to bag a true bargain any more - and is this the beginning of the end for the world's biggest online auction site? Nearly 13 years ago, 28-year-old software developer Pierre Omidyar had an idea for an online auction site. Under the title AuctionWeb, he offered a broken laser pointer for sale to the highest bidder. Pleasantly surprised when the item sold for £14.83, Omidyar contacted the buyer to check that he realised the pointer was broken. "I'm a collector of broken laser pointers," came the reply.

By Jess Cartner-Morley

Sergey, you can’t be serious. Dinging users 20 cents every time they use Google CheckOut? You are already charging them a hefty fee for using the service. Furthermore, you are also dinging users 20 cents every time they cancel an order. You can’t be serious. Even worse, merchants are charged 20 cents every time a user cancels an order - even if it is of no fault of the merchant and on plain simple errors made by users. Seriously Sergey, do you need everyone’s 20 cents? Over 10 million transactions that could add up to $2 million dollars that merchants and users are out of pocket.

By Daya Baran

A REPORT on buying and selling trends on internet site eBay has thrown up a few regional surprises. People in Aberdeen forked out £1.3million on clothes in the past year - the secondhighest total in the UK. The city's residents also have a keen interest in philately, with £35,851 spent on stamp collections. And they wound up spending £7000 on cuckoo clocks, the most in Scotland. The website's eBaynomics Report 2007-8 also revealed that bagpipe merchants in Edinburgh sold almost £10,000 worth instruments, the most in Britain. Strangely, buyers in Norwich snapped up more bagpipes than anywhere else. Posh punters in Edinburgh spent a whopping £285,000 on antiques, the most in the UK, and £6700 on chandeliers.

On dailyrecord.co.uk

Detailed Seller Ratings, or DSR’s, are critical to eBay power sellers because they are used in determining the fee discounts that they receive. And, as of next month, those ratings will also be used in requirements for power seller status. Larry Velman, director of customer relations at Kyozou, a company that offers management, web optimization and branding services for multi-channel sellers, offered tips on how eBay sellers can achieve high DSR ratings at eBay’s annual meeting for merchants in Chicago last week.

On internetretailer.com