Meet the Merchants: eBay

Some merchants don't need a lot of field testing for me to feel comfortable recommending them to you. A case in point is eBay -- without question, the best known auction site on the net. Recently, I've added eBay listings to most of the "department" pages on ProvocativeClothing.com (e.g. Clubwear, Street Clothes, etc.) The point is, there's a lot of clothing on eBay. See the sample listing at the end of this article. Every time you visit the page, these listings will update to show you what's current.

If you bookmark a page (say, Clubwear,) here on ProvocativeClothing.com, these listings can save you the hassle of logging on to eBay and searching around. You can see a few of the items in the listing, and at the bottom you'll see a link that says something like "View all 788 items on eBay" that will take you to a larger listing of items.

There are a few things you should be aware of when looking at listings on eBay:

	First is that there are a lot of UK-based sellers in our listings. As long as a seller is willing to ship to the US, they can show up in the US listings. So if you see a garment selling for "GBP 10.50" be aware that the price is listing pounds, not dollars. There'll be a translation nearby saying what the amount is in dollars.
	More important, UK sizes are different from US sizes. If an item selling for pounds says "size 12" chances are it's a UK size 12, which would be a US size 10. In general, subtract two from the UK size to get the US size.
	WHEN IN DOUBT, SEND THE MERCHANT EMAIL! The merchant will almost always be more than happy to help you out with questions about size or shipping or whatever. eBay merchants live and die by "feedback" on their transactions and are strongly motivated to keep you from having a bad experience. (Though to be fair, most would help you no matter what.)

If you see something you like in the listings, just click on it. A new browser window will open and show you the details on that item. Some items are selling at auction, where you have to bid on them and wait for the auction to finish. Some have a "Buy it Now" button, that means, if you're willing to pay the listed price, you just push the button and buy it right away. Pretty cool. If you're not already registered with eBay, you'll have to go through a registration process. Be patient with it, because it's designed to help protect you and others from credit card fraud. Once you're registered, it will be a lot less hassle to use eBay.

eBay has a payment service called PayPal that lets you pay by credit card or by deducting funds from a bank account or whatever. PayPal also can verify your address for shipping. Again, getting completely set up with PayPal can try your patience, but the idea is to limit the chances for on-line fraud.

There are several programs in place to help reduce your risk when using eBay. In some cases, eBay offers a buyer's protection plan that insures you against someone not delivering the item they promised. PayPal also has a buyer's protection plan on top of that, that raises the amount you're insured for. Another organization called "SquareTrade" offers similar insurance as well as a service to mediate disputes between buyers and sellers. A seller who has a lot of good feedback and who either belongs to SquareTrade or is authorized to offer PayPal's buyer protection plan is probably a pretty safe seller to do business with.

Check out this sample eBay listing:
(Men say women look sexy in spandex and women say men look sexy in tuxedoes -- here are two samples, one for each)

If you bookmark a page (say, Clubwear,) here on ProvocativeClothing.com, these listings can save you the hassle of logging on to eBay and searching around.