Customer Reviews

eBay Business the Smart Way: Maximize Your Profits on the Web's #1 Auction Site

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I have been selling fulltime on eBay for the last several years. There is nothing in this book that is not readily available elsewhere. And publishers, listen up: I'm getting a little tired of the text being padded with copious white space to make the tome more weighty.

Some parts of the book are out of date, some parts are just plain wrong. (It is NOT forbidden to sell food on eBay. It is NOT hazardous to buy or sell used clothing on eBay. On the contrary, it is a huge market. The list goes on and on.)

To be fair, trying to explain eBay is like describing a fast-moving sports car. Now you see it, now you don't. But I was not convinced the author was a seasoned eBay seller, merely a seasoned author of "about" books.

I picked up this book expecting technical discussion about Ebay. I am a novice Ebay user and wanted to get up to speed after having successfully bought some things and gotten familiar with the process, while planning to sell some higher priced items. I found it easy to read with many Ebay-specific facts and tips but was really impressed with the wide-ranging discussion about business, especially the emphasis on customer service and marketing. These are the topics many first-time entrepreneurs find mysterious and large companies have seemingly started to forget, to their disadvantage. Giving good service in this era of voicemail mazes, un-navigable websites and untrained, minimum-wage retail salespeople is a lesson, if learned, Ebay businesses will use to prosper. Sinclair has covered most, if not all of the bases in this business book. Everything is current and up-to-date, from how to get paid to the latest info on taking and using digital photos. I recommend this to anyone in any business.

Too many typos mar the information in this book, making me wonder how accurate the information actually IS---and that is if you can find points in the book where the author is willing to take a stand and give his opinion. I'm an experienced eBay seller with over 1500 transactions to date and was expecting some nitty gritty to help me expand and grow my business. Instead I was faced with "try it and see" at every turn....the author seems a bit shy of giving concrete information and instead takes the easy way out. There are far better eBay books on the market...The Dummies series is a great place to start.

OK. No long winded discourse. Just the heart of the review.

This book primarily focuses on starting and running a business. The eBay part is on secondary importance, and used mostly as an example. Of the 548 pages, less than 15% exclusively related to eBay. There are no significant tips, tweaks or "inside information". All of the information can be found, free & easy,
through sources such as the U.S. Government's public information services (Small Business Administration), eBay's own help pages, or e-Books on business websites.

Despite what other reviewers have said, this book is very much entry level - as is typical with AMACOM books.

I would not say it is a waste of money, but don't expect anything inside it to give you a significant edge in starting and running a profitable eBay business. You may avoid some obvious errors or omissions, however, as I said, there are plenty of free, up-to-date, and concise sources that can do the same for you.

As the owner of a bookkeeping/computer programming company in a remote area of Texas I have many clients who have a problem disposing of excess inventory, marketing their products, or finding needed items at a reasonable cost.

While I have been aware of Ebay for sometime, I never really thought it could benefit me or my clients. Sinclair's book is an eye-opener.

I see how excess invntory can be sold, and Texas Hill Country crafts can be made available to a huge market at a very low cost. I also see how many necessary items can be purchased at prices well below those in this area. When you are 125 miles from the nearest large city your market is small, and your choices are few. Ebay changes the market dynamics for us.

After reading ebay Business the Smart Way, I have been looking at Ebay in a different light, and I am working with several clients developing marketing plans using Ebay.

This book helped me get started in setting up my home business. Now I sell on ebay full-time. The author knows the business well and has many tips for everyone whether you're just starting out or have been on ebay for a long time. Because of this book I can honestly say that I went from dabbling to real profits.

This book is neither a good book on selling over eBay not a good book on setting up a company. Trying to be "all things" to all people, it comes out as very superficial and almost anecdotal. Don't let the pagecount fool you: the 548 pages, with better layout (almost half of each page is white space) could be cut down to 200 or so, without much information being missed. And then, there's the dubious use of the information left. Having read the more technical "eBay Hacks" at the same time, though not focused on the business side of things, I found it to be a lot more useful. If you're looking to set up an eBay shop, go to eBay and read about it, and save yourself $17.47 in the process!

Plain useless, nothing useful for those who are serious about selling on eBay. Take it from some one who is Power Seller in Gold Tier and is serious about listening to those who know anything about eBay. Lets see what this book does right and wrong.
Pros:
1. Author has captured lot of diverse ideas on what to do. Unfortunately most of these are common knowledge and appears to be captures from common discussion forums on eBay (in fact since the book has been written if you look you will find more ideas) and expanded simple one liner ideas into chapters for this book.
Cons:
1. There are no examples on how to implement different common sense ideas. This points to either lack of author's knowledge or reluctance to share his experience. Take a simple example - author states how to write CVS file and how important these files are in big words but there is no explanation of where these files are used or how! (ofcourse all pro knows how and you can search more it in discuss forums). Every chapter is full of such words with no examples.
2. Full of references to author's other books. Why do you write a book if you just want others to buy other books from you!
3. This book is at best collection of tactics with no attention to any strategic model for a business. In my opinion, eBay business can't run without a strategic business model. There is a book by Wingo which does a good job of presenting how an eBay business can be built around a few solid models. Unfortunately I doubt author of this book has any idea of what a business model means.
4. Author thinks he is an expert just because he knows a few tricks.

I feel like I wasted my money and time on this book. There are better books out there than this one. I have learnt my lesson. You should always read at least one or two sections of a book before buying it. There are plenty of folks out there who think they know a lot and would waste their and your time by writing a book.

This book is 500 pages of rich information that is helping make me rich. A real value for the price too! I've read a few books about e-bay but this is the only one that gets to the point and gives you the information you need. Concise and generous. I hate to sound like a comercial but it's the only book you'll ever need on the subject.

The worst part of this book is the author's advice to just try selling on a trial basis, and learn from your mistakes. Sounds like a recipe for losing money. I have 2000 feedback with eBay, and found the book disappointing. Never sell anything on eBay unless you have a demonstrated demand for the product. Learn to use eBay's advanced search features, and leave this book behind.