Thursday, 13 June 2013

eBay Data and Research – How Important Is It?


eBay is a business anyway you look at it. Sure, it is a great deal of fun for both the buyers and sellers, but when you look at it from another view point, you will see that it is a business from the seller’s point of view, the buyer’s point of view, and eBay’s point of view. 40 million dollars a day travels through eBay.

Selling items on eBay successfully is an art, and eBay offers many different forms of Data and Research to ensure that you are selling the right items, to the right people, in the right way. Some of the data and research is not free, but much of it is. The available resources include hot items by category, eBay Pulse, merchandising calendar, sales reports, marketplace research, buyer behavioral report, and the eBay solutions directory.

These tools are quite easy to use, and the information that can be gleaned from them is extremely valuable. The Data and Research tools are all accessible through your seller’s account, by clicking on the ‘Advance Selling’ link. Learn to use those tools, and get your piece of that $40 million eBay revenue each.

Tuesday, 11 June 2013

Buying On eBay: The Importance of Checking Feedback


Are you interested in using eBay to shop online? If you are, you are definitely not alone, as eBay is one of the most popular online marketplaces. As you likely already know, eBay is an online auction website; an online auction website that allows internet users to post items that they have in their possession, but not longer want or need, for sale. While this tends to give you a large number of products to choose from, it can make getting scammed on eBay relatively easy; however, there is a way that you cannot fall victim to some of the most common eBay scams. That way involves checking feedback.

If this is your first time using eBay, you may not necessarily know that buyers and sellers are able to leave each other feedback; in fact, they are encouraged to do so. Now, if another eBay buyer, just like you, were to have a positive experience, like they got their item in a timely matter and it was what they expected, they would be likely to leave a positive feedback. Positive feedbacks are marked with green circles with plus signs in them.

On the other hand, if an eBay buyer has a negative experience, like they never received their item or it was in poor condition, a negative comment may be left. Negative comments are market by red circles with negative signs in them. In addition to positive or negative comments, eBay buyers are also able to leave neutral comments, which are commonly used when a problem arose, but the seller in question fixed it in a timely matter. Also, next to the positive, negative, or neutral markings, eBay buyers can also leave comments.

Although you might not necessarily think about it, the feedback that an eBay seller has can give you insight into the type of service that you may receive. As a way, this feedback serves as reputation for an eBay seller. When shopping at a traditional retail store, there is a good chance that you wouldn’t shop at a store that is known for selling poor quality products or a store that has poor customer service. The same thinking should be applied when using eBay. You don’t want to business with an eBay seller that has a number of poor feedback ratings, as it is a sign of what may come.

If you are interested in examining the feedback of an eBay seller, you can easily do so. When visiting an online auction listing page, say a listing for a new set of hair clippers, in the right hand corner there should be a “Meet the Seller,” section. That section has information on the seller’s eBay feedback, as well as a link that you can click to see each individual feedback rating. You are urged to click that link.

When examining an eBay seller’s feedback, you need to remember that it is not uncommon for a seller to deal with disgruntled customers; customers that may leave negative feedback for no reason at all. That is why it is not uncommon to see a few negative feedback ratings; however, be on the lookout for any eBay seller who has an excessive number of them or a new eBay seller that has a large number of negative feedback ratings, as they are someone you should try and avoid.

In short, examining the feedback ratings or comments of an eBay seller will only take a few minutes of your time, but it may end up saving you a considerable amount of money. When shopping on eBay, it is advised that you use your best judgment. A number of negative feedback ratings may be a sure sign that an eBay seller may be out to scam you, in one way or another.

Automated Forex Trading System: Faster Execution Means Increased Trade Volumes


The concept of automated Forex trading system is mind-catching. Before the automation of the Forex market, exchange-traded futures market was the first to switch on automation. Then, the traders on the Interbank spot FX market decided to catch up with the latest trend and moved too to the new system.

Automated Forex trading system enables traders to execute their trade on spot Forex market automatically and anytime of the day, based on existing technical indicators and custom trading rules. There are various features included in the automated trading system, such as:

• Automatic trailing stops especially if the trader is losing in a particular trade position
• Account equity management
• Stop and/or limit orders
• Discretionary market orders and
• Various technical analysis indicators within your discretion for enabling trend-following systems.


Automated Forex trading systems supports most of the following indicators (the technical support will depend on the technology used as well as the available features of the system):

• WMA (weighted moving average)
• EMA (exponential moving average)
• SMA (simple moving average)
• VMA (variable moving average)
• TMA (triangular moving average)
• TSMA (time series moving average)
• WATR (wilder’s average true range)
• VHF (vertical horizontal filter)
• Standard deviation
• Trailing stops
• Mass index
• Fixed limits and stops, and others.


The success of the automation process to the Forex market is attributed to several factors, such as the following:

• Its ability to perform or execute trades in real time. Because of the automation, a trader can close trades within a few milliseconds. It is impossible in manual systems, as previous trades are normally closed after several hours. In addition, there are also instances wherein a trader incurs several losses in a row that prevents him from making any fresh transactions. Thus, with automated Forex trading system, this problem could be avoided.

• Its ability to greater diversification. With automated trading system now in place, a trader can trade in various local as well as international markets within varying time zones. In other words, you can place trade or close deals with different traders from various markets around the world even at the middle of the night.

• Its ability to analyze short-term data. This feature is not available in manual trading system. Thus, traders using automated system have the bigger advantage since they can predict market trends in less than an hour.


If you will consolidate the features as well as the benefits of automated Forex trading system, it will give you a solid conclusion: with the Forex market on automation, you will be able to place more trades on a single day, thus increasing the average volume trades daily.

To further clarify the conclusion. Let us take the following scenario: If you are trading using the manual system, you will notice that it takes time before a trader confirms if he will accept your deal or not. He will look on the market condition first as well as the exchange rate of the currencies that you are trading with. Thus, if it takes time before a transaction will be finalized; there would be fewer trade volumes.

Now, if you are using the automated Forex trading system, the evaluation of exchange rates and market conditions could be done within a few minutes, since Forex data are now updated in real time. Probably after less than an hour, you will be able to take your position whether you will push through the deal or not.

If a Forex transaction per trader is averaging within an hour, a single trader can place as much as 8 trades within the regular trading hours (if he is following the day trading schedule) and additional trades beyond the regular trading hours. There are thousands of traders in just a single market who can place such average number of trade per day. Combining it with the number of Forex markets around the world, the figure is just huge enough.

In addition, the technology is changing continuously, thus there is a tendency that the average number of trades per day will increase, thus a possibility of increased trade volumes on daily basis. With faster trade execution, that is a certain possibility. Be thankful, the Forex market is now at the helm of automation. Transactions are now faster, and earning money through Forex trading is now easier.