The eBay Book review

ISBN 1897597436

PAGES 144

One aspect of computing life where Denbo is streets ahead of me is in buying and selling stuff on eBay. In the past few months he's bought and sold some CDs, two jet fighter pilot helmets, a canoe, an outboard motor, several MP3 players and an inflatable boat. And he's been as pleased as punch with every transaction.

As with any activity involving money transfers or other measures of value, there are rules of conduct and many ways of getting ripped off. As more and more people are using online auctions as a way of getting what you want for less, if you don't use eBay now, shouldn't you find out what it's all about?

Unusually for a computer title, David Belbin's book is published in the UK and aimed squarely at potential users of ebay.co.uk. I also looked at an American title, On Line Auctions @ eBay by Dennis L Prince (£13.99, ISBN 1592001939), which covers the same material. Both are comprehensive books, but Belbin's is the better choice as it is British and a few pounds cheaper.

As well as covering the obvious topics such as how to join eBay, how to bid and how to sell things, Belbin details a couple of important issues. First, he looks at whether you need to register with PayPal, the most widely used method of paying for goods and getting paid for what you sell. Second, there are a number of scams that can be perpetrated on unwary users of the eBay system, both buyers and sellers. If you are to use eBay in any way you need to know what these involve and how to avoid them.

He also covers more advanced aspects of buying and selling such as Buy It Now (BIN), the phenomenon known as BIN stomping (inserting a bid at the minimum sell price to remove a BIN), early termination of an auction, bid retraction by a buyer, bid cancellation by a seller and tax and VAT issues. It's a great buy for any eBayer.