There's no doubt that Clickbank offers huge income opportunities for affiliates. With information products in almost every conceivable niche and on almost every topic, it is a virtual gold mine.

However, there are some drawbacks as well. Let's do a quick Clickbank review to isolate the pros and cons of this system.

Clickbank Review: Pros

1. Variety

Almost infinite products to choose from in a huge variety of profitable niches.

2. Guaranteed payment – no risk of sellers disappearing on you when payday comes

Clickbank pays every two weeks, provided that you have reached your payment threshold for that period.

3. Decent advanced sales tracking options have recently been implemented

You can now attach special codes to your affiliate links to help track exactly where your sales are coming from.

4. High commission rates

Vendors can offer as much as 75% commission on products, and many do. That's almost as good as selling your own product.

5. PayPal support

Customers can pay for their Clickbank orders with PayPal, which is a very popular payment option on the Internet.

6. Recurring billing

You can build long term passive income by promoting products with a monthly billing cycle.

Clickbank Review: Cons

1. It's far too easy for a customer to purchase through their own affiliate link

This is still one of the major problems with Clickbank for affiliates. Purchasing through your own affiliate link is also not intentionally hidden in the Clickbank TOS, which leaves affiliates open to being cheated out of their responsibilities.

2. Very easy to obtain refunds for no reason at all

Any customer can bypass the vendor completely and request a refund for a purchase directly from Clickbank. They do not even have to give a reason.

As with any system, Clickbank is not without flaws. After that, it's been responsible for many Internet millionaires, and will continue to produce more in the future.

Is it possible to start a successful eBay drop-shipping business for zero out of pocket? Yes, it is! The problem is that there are hundreds of supposed drop-shippers online and many so called “instant auction success kits” and all but two are useless. There are only two eBay approved drop-shippers and joining either one is the first step to creating an eBay work at home business drop-shipping business.

For those who are unfamiliar with drop-shipping it works like this:

You locate products to sell from a database of over 250,000 products.

You can use tools through your drop-shipper that allow you to select products, set pricing and automatically send them to eBay.

Your item sells on eBay and you receive payment through Paypal.

You purchase the product from the drop-shipper using your Paypal funds. You pay the wholesale price and keep the profit.

The drop-shipper will process and ship it to your customer. They will handle any returns, exchanges or problems or instruct you how to resolve the issue through the manufacturer when warranties apply.

You will have tracking information on every order.

You can expect to spend at least a good week getting your business set up. The good news is that you will probably already have made a profit by day 5, and once you have set up all your products the business will pretty much run itself without a whole lot more effort on your part, but I am getting ahead of things. Let’s start from square one, shall we?

To start your business you are going to need:

A Paypal account

An eBay account

A drop-shipper account

As we already said, there are many supposed drop-shippers out there that are nothing but a scam.

There are only two eBay approved drop-shippers and only one drop-shipper is fully integrated with Ebay. Follow the links at the end of this article to explore them both and decide which is right for you. Both charge membership fees but the fee structures differ greatly.

If you choose to go with a free trial drop-shipping account then by the time you need to pay membership dues you will have easily earned more than enough money to cover your monthly dues.

Remember I told you it would cost $0 out of pocket? Here’s how:

Sign up for the free 7 day trial

Make a real effort to get things started

Call customer service or contact live chat on the fourth or fifth day of your trial. Let them know how hard you have been working and that you very much would like to extend your trial period so your auctions have time to run their coarse, you can get a better feel for the system, etc…. I was able to get my trial period extended to a full month by taking this approach. Take the time to ask them any and every question you have since you are on the phone anyway! The customer service reps are amazing and it is well worth taking advantage of their expertise.

Work your butt off during the trial period and you will easily earn the few bucks your membership will cost you and more. Then you can pay your membership with your earning and thus have a $0 start up. In fact in my first two weeks I earned enough to pay for a one year membership at a huge discount which leads me to step 5….

When you have convinced yourself how wonderful your new business is and you are ready to pay your membership dues DON’T!!! Don’t do a thing until you call the customer service department back and ask to speak with someone in the promotions department. They will be offer you HUGE discounts on your membership and they will usually throw in free tools as well.

Before you go any further you need to take some time getting familiar with Ebay, Paypal and your drop-shipper. Explore each site carefully. Read about Ebay’s fees (you will not have to pay any fees up front to use eBay but you will need to understand the fee structure to price your items properly). Get extremely comfortable with the tools and products offered by your drop-shipper. If you run into any questions or problems along the way contact the customer support for the site you have issues with and they will be glad to assist you. It will be much easier for you to follow the rest of this guide if you have a basic understanding of your new accounts first.

Now that you have a feel for the tools you will be using there are five more areas we need to cover in detail to make sure you are off to a solid start. My free detailed start up guide looks at:

Product Selection-You have instant access to over 250,000 products to pick from. Find out how to determine which products to sell.

Product Pricing-How to set prices that will earn you the best conversions.

Traffic-There are over 60 million Ebayers out there. Learn how to drive them to your listings.

Things to Avoid-Find out the most common mistakes newbies make.

Advanced Tools-Reviews of some of the best tools available to expand your business when you are ready

As the New Year approaches, many small businesses are in store for a rude awakening. The 1099-K is here and is the latest reporting requirement of the IRS that is designed to eliminate unreported income for small businesses that use credit cards.

The new tax laws for issuing 1099’s will create an unprecedented change in the way credit card income is reported to the IRS. “Payment Settlement Entities,” such as credit card companies, PayPal, banks, and some third-party processors will now be reporting deposits made to taxpayers. With 2010 estimates of unreported income exceeding $2 trillion dollars, the IRS is determined to re-capture a significant portion of the unreported “non-cash” dollars through the 1099-K. Much of this additional tax will be collected from small businesses selling through e-commerce portals such as E-Bay or Amazon. Thus, for the e-commerce company that has been using one of these mediums for commerce yet not reporting all of their income, requiring the reporting of all gross credit card income for 2011 will be the year of reckoning.

An example of a company changing its policies to comply with the new IRS rules is PayPal. PayPal modified its User Agreement this year due to new IRS reporting requirements. The following verbiage has been added to Section 4.7 (Taxes): “You acknowledge that in starting in 2011, PayPal will report to the Internal Revenue Service the total amount of the payments you receive each calendar year into all the Accounts you own if you(i) receive more than $20,000, and (ii) receive more than 200 payments, in that calendar year.”

The elimination of a portion of the estimated $425 to $475 million dollars that companies evade each year in taxes is just the beginning of the IRS goals. Here are 10 things every taxpayers should know about complying with the 1099-K.

1. Month-to-month reporting is one factor that is important on the new 1099-K. Taking a look at the new 1099-K form, one will notice an interesting characteristic that is quite different from any other 1099. The reporting of income is “month-to-month” rather than yearly. The IRS made this unique design to aid federal agencies in assessing the period in which income will be earned. However, you can be certain that state agencies such as Sales and Use will also use this form in determination of the proper period for sales tax assessments. In the future, it will be quite easy for states to issue “minimum thresholds” of income subject to sales and use tax as well as “anticipated” income based upon credit to cash ratios.

Additionally, reporting of income in only the last quarter of the year will also be eliminated. Companies who reported the correct amount of total revenue and earnings for the year, yet loaded the revenue to the last quarter in attempt to delay tax payments will be subject to corrections when it comes to calculation of interest.

2. The new 1099-MISC also provides instructions for taxpayers that exclude payments that are now reported on the 1099-K. Specifically, here is an excerpt of the new instructions for the 2011 1099-MISC.

“Payments made with a credit card or payment card and certain other types of payment, including third-party network transactions, must now be reported on Form 1099-K by the payment settlement entity under section 6050W and are not subject to reporting on Form 1099-MISC. See the separate Instructions for Form 1099-K. “

Starting in 2011, taxpayers will only report on the 1099-MISC those payments that are not subject to reporting on the 1099-K. This could lead to disaster for service companies like law firms or sub-contract services where customers pay by credit card and have historically issued 1099-MISC to the firm at the end of the year.

Service companies must beware. Companies who historically received 1099-MISC should look closely this year to ensure the payees have correctly calculated the 1099-MISC income, with the exclusion of the 1099-K income when applicable. In the event of error, contact the company who issued the 1099-MISC immediately and request a corrected form reflecting the correct amount of cash income.

3. Off-shore bank account information will be captured for U.S. taxpayers. There is an exception to this rule in 2011 that will be short-lived for companies where the payment settlement entity is uncertain as to whether the entity is a U.S. entity.

The capturing of off-shore income has been a hot topic for the IRS for many years. It now appears that the IRS has found a method of capturing a portion of income paid to offshore banks related to U.S. taxpayers. While the 1099-K will only capture the “non-cash” payments, this will eliminate the majority of payments made through e-commerce to off-shore accounts.

4. Only certain taxpayers will be affected. For the 1099-K, there is a two-fold requirement. First, the company must have a minimum of $20,000 in payments. Secondly, the company must have at least 200 transactions. Each of these requirements must be met for the taxpayer to be affected. Thus, if a business has 10 transactions totaling $100,000, there will be no reporting requirement. Also, if a company has 500 transactions totally $19,000 there is no need to report.

5. Gross sales, including charge backs, will be reported. As a result of using the gross methods, it will be crucial to track charge backs, merchant processing fees, etc. to ensure proper recording of credit sales. This is consistent with the IRS’s position that the proper approach for reporting sales is gross, with merchant expenses and charge backs as a cost of goods sold or bad debt expense.

The IRS did address the charge back issue in its 1099-K guidance. IRS Sec. 6050W(a)(2) states that gross amounts must be reported and that it was improper to report net sales. However, the IRS also admits that the information reported on the 1099-K is not intended to be an exact match of the net, taxable, or even the gross income of a payee. Thus, in theory, if there is a slight variance in your credit sales numbers, it appears the IRS is not going to make an automatic correction, nor is the difference going to be an automatic audit flag.

6. The only reprieve in 2011 is the stay in collecting of back-up withholding for taxpayers in which payment settlement entities do not have a tax identification number. However, effective 2012, any taxpayer that does not submit a taxpayer identification number will be subject to back-up withholding. What does this mean? It means that the payment settlement entity will be withholding 28% of all gross payments that are processed and forwarding these monies to the IRS.

7. Certain types of credit cards do not have to report. For companies that have private cards where the card can only be used with the company, there are no reporting requirements. For instance, companies like Sears, Home Depot, etc. that have a credit card that can only be used at their stores, no reporting to the IRS is required. However, credits cards issued by malls, or where multiple taxpayers are able to receive credits cards, reporting to the IRS is required.

8. Convenience checks, cash advances, and ATM withdrawals have their own requirements and are not reported on the 1099-K. If you use a credit card to receive cash advances, make a payment using a credit card convenience check, or make an ATM withdrawal, these transactions do not trigger reporting to the IRS.

9. Government Payments are NOT exempt. If you use a government benefits card (i.e. with food stamps, welfare, or unemployment), those transactions are not exempt and will be tracked and reported (if you hit the reporting threshold).

10. The IRS will use the 1099K as an audit tool. Thus, the taxpayers that have significant jumps in revenue due to the new 1099K reporting requirement, will be at greater risk of prior year audits. This will be an unavoidable consequence of the 1099-K reporting.

For more a copy of the new 2011 1099-K form, IRS Instructions or other information, please visit the http://www.accountingexpertwitness.com/News.html.

Starting an eBay business is a lot easier than you may expect, even if you don’t have anything to sell! That is one of the great things about eBay. You can find listings for lots and wholesale items right on the site, buy them and then piece them out in individual listings for great profits!

One of the easiest businesses to start on eBay is a Vintage Jewelry Business. Below you will find step by step instructions on how to set up your own and start raking in the profits just like I did. This is a not theory folk, I’ve actually done it myself and became an eBay Powerseller within just a few months.

To start an eBay business you will need a valid email address and a credit card. Any credit card will do, even a pre-paid debit card. Just follow the steps below and you will be selling in no time:

1. Go to eBay.com To the right of the eBay logo at the top left of the screen you will see the sign in or register links. Click on register and follow the simple instructions. In a few moments you will be a registered eBay seller able to list items for sale, and will have your own Home Page to operate from.

2. The next (and most important) thing you need to do is set up a PayPal account so you can get paid for the items you sell. Having a PayPal account is mandatory and PayPay is a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay, so the registration process is just as simple, and your two accounts will be linked. This is great because you can do your shipping through PayPal in an easy process that provides discounts, tracking, and delivery confirmation.

3. Now you are ready to begin selling. If you already have merchandise to sell you can skip this step. If not go to the eBay home page and I will show you how to start an eBay business selling Vintage Jewelry. In the upper left hand of the screen click on Categories, and then click on Jewelry & Watches. Under Wholesale Lots click on Mixed Lots. Find what looks to be a nice mixture of jewelry at a reasonable price and buy it.

4. Now you have your merchandise. The next thing to do is take photos of it with a digital camera. The photos don’t have to be of professional quality, but should be clear close-ups of the item. You can start out on your kitchen table under a bright overhead light. You can improve your photography later by using one of the many tutorials b provided for free by eBay.

5. Now you are ready to list your items. I’ll give you the basics, but again, you can improve the quality of your listings with the free tutorials provided by eBay. First, go to your eBay home page. On the toolbar at the upper right click on sell. Enter a short description of your item, such as: Vintage Costume Earrings, and press enter. You will be taken to a Category page. Select the appropriate category. Fill in the easy to understand template. Write a clear and concise description of your item giving as much detail as possible. Make sure you include measurements, colors, and any markings that may be on the piece. Again, check the eBay tutorials for improvement. When you are finished press enter. Repeat the process for each item you wish to sell.

That’s it! That’s all you need to know if you want to know how to start an eBay business. The rest is automatic. Check your home page to see what you have sold, follow the simple instructions to ship your item, and sit back and watch the money roll into your PayPal account. Good luck with your new business venture!

Finding a good business partner may be a little tricky, but according to Max Levchin, co-founder of PayPal, it is one of the most important decisions you can make. Max Levchin’s partnership with Peter Thiel proved to be one extremely successful partnership.

Max Levchin not only had a keen sense for business, but was also very technically oriented. Max Levchin earned a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where the first Internet graphical browser, Mosaic was developed. This browser led to the boom of the 1990s and made the Web accessible to the ordinary person for the first time. Firefox 3, developed from this basic browser, had more than 8 million unique downloads the day it was released, setting a Guinness World Record.

After being influenced and taught at the same institution where Mosaic was created, Max decided to head for the Silicon Valley. Not intentionally looking for a business partner, Max randomly walked into a classroom on the Stanford University campus, trying to get out of the heat and searching for an air-conditioned place to sit. He sat in on a lecture given by Peter Thiel. He was so impressed with Peter Theil that he planned to talk to him.

Peter Thiel’s expertise in business and entrepreneurship were remarkable. Max waited after class to see if he could chat with him. The next day they met for breakfast and he shared with him several ideas he had for business projects. This meeting was the beginning of an extremely profitable business partnership. They ended up creating a company called PayPal, an online payment processing company which allows people to send money to each other in a completely new and different way than they had ever been able to before. PayPal sold to eBay on July 8, 2002 for $1.5 billion dollars. Max’s share was worth $34 million and Peter Thiel’s share was worth $55 million.

One of the qualities of a good partnership is that the partner can tell you when your ideas are good and also when they are just way off base. Partnerships can be crucial to your business success. Some partnerships last a lifetime and end up being good for both parties, while others may last half a life time and end up with one or the other sending their partner down the river. Choose your business partner as wisely as you would choose a marriage partner.

Living in a country where getting a credit card is as easy as buying out a local news daily from the nearby grocery store one would easily be able to capture a market of plastic money holders. The power of plastic money extends beyond boundaries of nations and is indeed the most closest step to globalization. To this I am reminded of a quote “Think Global, Act Local” policy.

Most of us know that the any internet business that sells virtually any products is an international one and has no boundaries unless it is a one that has high volume tangible products.

The internet has made millionaires of people more then anything else in the past century and it is still a little true these days as well. Diligent work, honesty and consistency is the key to any business and any virtual business is no exception.

What one really needs to cross the boundaries for a virtual business is a payment gateway or merchant services whichever one might refer to. Though there is a difference but it does not matter to what we are discussing about.

There are several payment gateways and one might find it really tiring to search through Google for getting the best one in hand. One should keep in mind that here we are referring to a payment gateway as a service provider is a third party whose services you could integrate into your website so that your customers are able to pay you for your products and services virtually and digitally. The payment can be through credit cards, coupons or any other means accepted by your third party payment gateway. Here I would like to list a few of the payment gateways I am most familiar with, apart from the many services out there.

1. PayPal – PayPal is a number one choice of mine for various reasons, its simplicity and its ease of use must be the most preferred ones, and you do not need to register as a business owner to avail this service. However, one must remember that PayPal does have its drawbacks as well. The fees of processing the payments could go as high as 5.5% per transaction and they do have a transaction limit places on each registration which can be increased by credit card verification, address verification and then bank account verification. PayPal also provides with API services for those who want to go deeper into developer services and it does integrate well with most shopping carts including the free ones such as Agora. Apart from this it does have its own shopping cart system if anyone would want to use it.

Apart from that it does have withdrawal options to the bank account as well as the credit card.

There are a few countries though where PayPal is not yet available and it is mentioned on there website, although payments can be accepted from most of the countries. Recently there has also been some restriction from the RBI in India on PayPal though its not quite clear yet.

2. 2Checkout – 2CO is the most preferred payment gateways by the giants with all its packed features it does have a few drawbacks. One needs to be a registered business and has to pay a 49$ setup few per account. There are strict rules of what can be sold and what not. Do checkout their website for details.

Withdrawing an amount from 2co is a bit tedious and has to be done through a check or bank deposit though its done every week it must meet the release level and pass verifications.

The user is presented has to enter his or her detail select the options available after the transaction is over. 2co can also be integrated with all kinds of shopping carts and software. I have personally used this to purchase stuff over the internet several times and it works like a charm. Their support system is also very good.

3. Moneybookers – This is a European payment gateway service which can be used by those who are dealing in Euros. You can create product listing using their own shipping cart system and use its buttons on your site. The transactions fees are very high again and there is a cap on the transactions that can be done every month. The limit can be raised through their verification process.

Your customers need to be registered to pay though moneybookers and it does accept bank transfers as well as credit card payments.

4. AlertPay – This is a Canadian service provider and has basically the same system as PayPal though not as much popular. I have just been acquainted with their services and the shopping cart integration part has been simple and the transaction fees do not differ much with that of PayPal. Few people opt for AlertPay as an alternative to PayPal as well.

A personal account with AlertPay has limitations which can be raised to an extent through some verification process while the Pro account is packed with features like: Mass Pay, Integration tools and website payment methods. To verify the pro account one might need to submit a few documents as well.

AlertPay does not have any country restrictions and have their own shopping cart system as well as API integration and so on. It would be personally my best choice as an alternative to PayPal by any means.

Apart from all this one should really look for a vendor that is secure and your customers feel confident and secure in giving out their financial details to.

Last but not least look for a gateway provider with whom your money is yours and is secure and easy to get.

I am against selling on eBay using drop shipping and have been for a long time. It doesn’t work.

eBay is a very competitive marketplace and the profit margins with drop shipping are just too thin to allow anyone to actually make a good living with this method of product sourcing. But, many new eBayers still think dropshipping is a good (low-risk, low-cost) way to get started in the eBay business.

But even if you have read my past articles about the problems when mixing dropshipping and eBay maybe you weren’t convinced not to give dropshipping a try. After all, on paper dropshipping sounds so easy.

You see, drop shipping is about getting paid first and then using that money to buy the product and have it shipped directly to your eBay buyer. So, you list an item on eBay then someone buys it. Then you use the money they paid you (though PayPal) to buy the item, which the drop shipper then ships directly to the buyer.

• You List The Item
• You Sell The Item
• Buyer Pays You For The Item
• You Use Buyer’s Payment To Buy The Item From The Drop Shipper
• The Drop Shipper Sends The Item Directly To Your eBay Customer

Well, maybe eBay’s recent policy changes will finally convince you to stay away from drop shipping. One of the major benefits of drop shipping has been obliterated by eBay. That is #4 above. You can no longer use the buyer’s money to pay for the product you are selling on eBay (using drop shipping).

eBay has an new policy in place where they will start HOLDING FUNDS FOR 21 DAYS or UNTIL POSITIVE FEEDBACK IS LEFT! This applies to small sellers, new sellers, and sellers with less than stellar feedback. Here are the details direct from eBay’s website…

FROM EBAY’S POLICY CHANGE ANNOUNCEMENT:

Occasional holds on payment

27. Which sellers will have their payments held?

In a small percentage of cases where it has been determined the risk of dissatisfied buyers is higher, PayPal may delay release of the payment funds to the seller until the buyer has left a positive feedback or 21 days have passed without a dispute, claim, chargeback or reversal filed on that transaction.

To determine if a transaction may have a higher risk of dissatisfied buyers, eBay reports to PayPal a number of factors, including but not limited to:

• Seller’s % Positive Feedback in the last 30 days
• Seller’s Detailed Seller Ratings in the last 30 days
• Final price for the item
• Shipping & handling fee
• Seller’s eBay tenure as an eBay member
• Seller’s total number of Feedback

29. When will PayPal release the eBay item hold?

PayPal will release the hold when the earliest of the following occurs:

the buyer leaves positive feedback,

3 days after confirmed item delivery* or

21 days without a dispute, claim, chargeback, or reversal filed on that transaction.

* This applies to US domestic transactions that are shipped by USPS or FedEx and either (i) use PayPal shipping labels to ship items or (ii) upload tracking information to PayPal via the transaction details page.

30. What can I do to avoid having eBay item holds?

Your payments WILL BE NOT HELD if you meet all the following requirements:

• eBay Tenure: Greater than 6-months
• Total Feedback score: More than 100
• Dissatisfied Buyers %: Less than 5%

So, now assuming you are a newer eBay seller (and if you’re established why on earth would you be considering drop shipping) you can not use the money they pay you to complete the transaction as it will be held.

You must use your own money to complete the drop ship order as the funds will not be released for 21 days. Seeing as this “pay only after you sell” feature was one of the best things about the drop shipping method of product sourcing there is really no reason whatsoever to use drop shipping any more.

While this might have you upset. I think it is a blessing in disguise. This will undoubtedly put a dent in the business of the handful of drop ship sourcing companies that have made a fortune preying on eBay business hopefuls.

Drop shipping doesn’t work on eBay. It didn’t before and it definitely will not now!

April 11 of this year I was shopping for bed linens on the internet. I found some sheets on eBay that seemed to be wonderful items at reasonable prices. One of them I liked was described as "Court of Versailles Queen Fitted Sage Sheet". My bedroom is done in sage colors. Nothing could have seemed more perfect. The picture of the sheet was quite effective – it was just what I wanted. I could not find out what the thread count was from the seller, as they were not quite sure, but I made a bid on the item anyway.

The seller was Ty Trading Company and my winning bid was a measly $ 23.21. The shipping charge was a whopping $ 13.46. Well, a total of $ 36.67 did not seem like too much to pay. I would have spent at least $ 10.00 on gas going to Macy's or Bed Bath & Beyond. .

In case you do not know how eBay works, you have the option to either bid on an item or "Buy it Now", depending on how it's listed. This was a bid only item. I was so excited to have actually been the highest bidder in an eBay auction. I paid for the sheet with my PayPal account.

Something strange happened. A few hours later I received an email from Ty Trading Company. It said that they could not honor my bid because I did not have a PayPal account. Well, of course I had a PayPal account – I had just used it to pay them for the sheet.

I called Ty Trading Company and was told that they were sorry, but I was out of luck. I surmised that maybe they had gotten a higher bid at the last moment and had disregarded mine ….. of course I'll never know what really happened. They refunded my PayPal account and I forgot all about it.

Meanwhile, later on in the month I wrote an ebook about how to cure acid reflux by natural means. I had been a victim of this condition for years. I had been taking prescription drugs, once Nexium, and after a while the drugs did not work anymore. I unfortunately looked for an alternative cure. After much research and experimentation, I did heal myself of this wretched condition and decided to share it with others like myself. I started selling my ebook on my website, http://www.refluxgoneforever.com , and at the urging of a friend, I listed my eBook on Ebay.

I was amazed – the eBook started selling at a brisk pace. I was getting great feed back from my eBay Buyers. I was making a little money and helping others at the same time. Everything was going along fine, until I finallyave in to Ebays constant nagging to rate all the buyers and sellers that I had deal with. I had been putting this off, but it was a rainy Friday morning and I had some free time. I thought I would finally get this much requested chore out of the way.

This is how it works. When you buy or sell an item, you are asked to rate the buyer or seller. You have three choices; negative, neutral or positive. You are then asked to type in some feedback remarks.

I gave positive rave reviews to everyone, with the exception of Ty Trading Company. After all, what they had done to me was not very nice. I could not be honest and give them rave reviews, could I? I simply remarked that they had not honored my winning bid and had charged me anyway.

To my surprise, later in the day I received an email from eBay notifying me that I had been accused of non payment of an item. Guess who made that accusation? Of course, you guessed right – it was Ty Trading Company. They were getting even with me.

eBay should have known that a long time savvy trader like this company would not have waited more than a month to collect on an item that had shipped. In fact, without payment, the item would not have been shipped anyway. I wonder if eBay is completely operated by mindless computers ….. are there any human animals there at all?

The eBay message said that I had seven days in which to respond to and dispute the accusation. Boy, those seven days went by in the flash of an eye. Less than an hour later eBay had awarded me a "strike". A strike is the worst thing that can happen to anyone using Ebay. It can ruin your rating in a heartbeat. Mine went down from 100% to 91% instantly. It's like having your hand slapped by a mean old school teacher who mistakenly thinks you are the one who thread that paper airplane in class. Except this is a bit more serious, it can effect your livelihood.

eBay certainly did not review the responses I had made to these charges. I had irrevocable proof of the payment and the refund relating item # 4453528876, listed by Ty Trading Company. I had emailed that proof to eBay when I first responded to the false accusation. I was right in front of my computer when that notification came through. I was writing a news release about saving the American Bald Eagle on the Upper Delaware River from the NYRI power lines. I had a deadline and had not left my keyboard all day.

It would seem that the eBay system is loaded in favor of their big sellers. Had they checked the item number in question before setting me down, they would have seen the payment and refund of the item and there would have been no case against me. Maybe computers can not grasp that kind of logic?

You see, each buyer and seller on eBay has a rating at the top of their listing to sell, or next to their name when they buy. It is their policy that negative ratings are never removed from anyone's profile. I suppose that this is done to warn potential buyers and sellers of the bad guys, however it probably doesnt allow for mistakes or erroneous remarks. It certainly does not allow for lies, due to wicked vindictive behavior. I do not think that this is a very good system.

I will certainly think twice about ever buying anything on eBay again, unless it is a digital item which can be downloaded immediately after payment. Of course I am just saying this because I still have my ebook for sale on Ebay. I do not want to discourage anyone from buying it. But who knows, if the computers read this article they may just kick me out. Maybe they have a rule forbidding account holders from writing critical articles about them.

When you have a rating of less than 100%, some prospective buyers will shy away. The big company I offended obviously did not like a little guy like me bringing down their rating, even just a little – so they got even. eBay allowed them to do so – it's their policy. I was told by an eBay spokesman, "Unfortunately, we can not remove Feedback just because it's unfair or untrue." Well, of course they could if they wanted to. They can do anything they like; after all it's their game – their company. They make the rules. I take it by that remark that they support unethical behavior?

I suspect that my ebook sales will diminish considering because of this. I have sent a letter of protest to Ebay's dispute center in Utah, in an effort to have the negative notes removed. However, I doubt that a company which you can not even get on the phone will do any thing to correct this error. It's an unfair and unfair system at best. It certainly doesnt engender good relations with the very people on which eBay depends.

So watch yourself when buying or selling on the world's largest auction machine. You could get stung and your hopes for success dashed by an insensitive computer driven website and a dishonest merchant.

© 2006 Wind Publishing

I buy and sell collectibles, what about you? A friend called me today and said that recently eBay has lost over 50% of their sellers. I found that figure quite incredible. I would think that a number of those might be sellers that have more than one account. But then I began to think about it some more and decided to do a little research.

On a July 10, NY Times report, I found an interesting article that page views on eBay were down over 30 percent in May from a year ago. That is a significant drop. I then looked at the number of items up for auction in the category that I shop (oh, my wife would be razzing me for using that word), which is Militaria and the number of items that are available is at least 1/2 of what it was a year ago. So what is the correlation?

Could it be that eBay wants to get rid of all the smaller mom and pop sellers? these are the type of sellers that have that little antique shop. The items they sell are '1-up'. So they have continued to increase their fees, force settlements through PayPal and be difficult with resolving disputes. It certainly appears that way. Since they have a stake in Craigslist, that could be where they want these people to go; I see fees starting on this site soon.

Nothing against PayPal.

I do not have any personal issues with PayPal myself, I know of some people out there that do, but you need to look at each site that uses it, or in some cases the seller that uses it, whether on eBay or other sites and check the terms and conditions of purchase before you buy.
Hey, is my check not good anymore?

Many merchants still like to do business this way; they do not take credit cards for whatever reason they may have. Most certainly do not want to pay the processor and their bank a fee for the transaction and cut into their profit. I do not blame them. A lot of people are not companies, so they can not get a merchant account anyway. That is where PayPal and other companies have come in. But as individuals they want to do business as an individual and that is selling an item, they want to be paid in cash, money order or check.
So maybe it's time to branch out and search for some other sites where you can buy, sell and auction. Do some searches. Maybe checkout a site that lists different auction sites such as: http://auctions.nettop20.com/

So what's in my wish list for a site as a seller of collectibles?

How about reasonable fees. Either low budgets or maybe even a flat rate. Auction and selling options. A reserve amount for auctions of my choosing. A site that simply puts the buyers and sellers together. I can transact my business with the customer. So I set my terms, the how and the method with which I want to be paid. That will be a good start.

Business is a bit slow even on eBay, but I am in it for the long haul. Just need to find some new places to sell my stuff, its gotta go!

Copyright 2009, R.Coalter, InterNet Partners, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

Magento, the most popular eCommerce platform has tons to offer to new and old businesses who are moving from brick and mortar stores to online ones. There is always some kind of buzz going on and it’s very difficult to keep up with the latest news.

Magento is a feature rich eCommerce platform that undergoes continuous improvements and there are new updates and features waiting for businesses to try and make the most of while they strive to improve their online sales and provide customers with exemplary shopping experiences while at their online store.

Here’s a roundup of the latest in Magento and eCommerce news:

• Magento Enterprise version 2.1 was released this month with amazing new features for eCommerce stores. These new features greatly simplify the use of eCommerce sites for both retailers and customers. The staging and preview feature allows you to preview and schedule updates to products, categories, descriptions and promotions.
• There is a new timeline dashboard that clearly shows you what you have scheduled and also enables you to track the sales process later to analyze the impact that your changes had on the sales.
• Elastic search was added. This ensures high quality search results. Elastic search is easy to set up, scale and manage. This new search feature supports 33 different languages out of the box.
• It also allows you to set your own stop words and synonyms to deliver better search results to your customers.
• Another great feature that was introduced in Magento Enterprise 2.1 is the PayPal enhancements. This has greatly helped streamline the checkout process. This implementation includes the PayPal in-context checkout so that users can checkout using PayPal without leaving your website.
• Storing your credit card information can be done in a safe way.
• Another important feature is the business management tools. These tools are made intuitive and easy to use for retailers. A few drag and drop tools were introduced to help website administrators to easily manage their business.
• Administrators can also create customized views for quick access of the products or customers and such other products.

eCommerce News

• Pinterest is launching a new feature that will allow users to search with their smart phone cameras. The items in the frame of your smartphone camera will be searched and you will instantly see search results on your screen.
• This tool eliminates a lot of steps that a customer would usually go through to place an order. The overall eCommerce experience is greatly improved with all these features added.
• Amazon announced that they are expanding the dash buttons that allow you to place orders for specific products directly.

Finally, as eCommerce trends evolve, Magento ensures that businesses get enough features to help their businesses grow. Businesses constantly require new and interesting features to provide their customers with great shopping experiences on their websites. With all the new features added to Magento 2.1, businesses are definitely looking forward to implement them and create awesome eCommerce websites.