Step 1 – Register for an account Begin by clicking on the “Register” tab on the left hand side of the page, which allows you to enter your personal information. Create a user ID and password, which hides your own personal information from other users and also keeps track of all your buying and selling. Once entered, eBay will send a confirmation email. Sign-in to your account and you are ready to begin buying, bidding, and selling. Step 2 – How to read the auction details Every item on eBay has a unique auction detail page, which contains information such as an item tracking number, starting bid, “buy it now” price, time auction is ending, shipping costs, where the seller is willing to ship, item location, history of bids, and payment details. The “Meet the Seller” feature allows you to view seller feedback and rankings. It is important to investigate the seller you are buying an item from. My recommendation is to only deal with sellers who have 99%+ positive feedback. Also, typically the longer a seller has been a member of the eBay community, the more reputable he/she will be. Lastly, avoid participating in transactions without using PayPal and always understand what a seller’s terms and conditions are going to be before bidding on an item. Step 3 – How to pay for items you’ve won Click on the “Pay Now” option, making sure the seller is using PayPal. You can register for a PayPal account at HYPERLINK "http://www.paypal.com" www.paypal.com, which offers fraud protection and is linked directly to your bank account or credit card. PayPal is the safest way to conduct e-commerce, as if your purchased item doesn’t arrive within 30 days, PayPal will refund your money and will go directly after the seller for not fulfilling the sale. Step 4 – How to sell Always start by searching for comparable items before you list your own in order to determine an accurate market price. To do so, click on the “Completed Listings” to determine auction closing prices from the past 90 days. The “Sell One Similar to This” option will automatically fill in a lot of an item’s basic description, based on similar items recently sold on eBay. Sellers should include additional descriptors of the on-sale item, using standard text or by downloading html code. As a seller, you are allowed to upload one photo for free, and is recommended, as most buyers expect to see at least one photo. Sellers will also be charged a percentage of the final sale price as a commission to eBay. As an added word of advice, statistics show that eBay closes the most auctions on Sunday, so a good idea would be to begin a seven day auction on a Sunday. Lastly, once your item is listed, it would be a good idea to search for your listed item to see what your listing looks like from a buyer’s perspective.